Page 136 of Hunt Me

Draven swallowed down his retort and nodded. “Very well. You and him… you are not so different. From what I hear, the nobles demand Matilda be turned, or a new regime may take over. Perhaps, Garden Ridge will have new occupants.”

“Shut up!” Luka barked, closing his eyes. He envisioned Matilda in the grave, and Denalia in his arms. The parallels between their lives were too uncanny to digest.

“Reynard spent his last years in agony, but with agony nearly came change. Loving my mother had softened him. He wanted peace between the wolves and vampires—real peace. Not treaties or temporary truces. He desired a future where wolves and vampires could coexist.”

Luka’s jaw tightened. “He never spoke of this.”

“He couldn’t,” Draven said. “Your mother would’ve seen it as treason.”

Luka thought of his mother. Queen Elowen Alesi was cold, feared, and unyielding. She was ambitious and believed in hierarchy. Vampires were at the top, and the rest be damned. The ban on hybrids initially extended to all non-vampiric creatures before eventually narrowing to apply exclusively to unions between vampires and humans.

Luka recalled his father’s decline. He withdrew, barely leaving his bedchambers, allowing his mother to command the kingdom in his place. He stopped speaking and wasted away.

“He died from grief,” Draven whispered. Luka swallowed hard, and the truth settled in his chest like molten lead.

After a long silence, he asked, “Why did you want me executed?”

Draven lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Because I am better suited for the throne.”

Luka’s eyes sharpened.

“I am both wolf and vampire,” Draven explained. “I can unite the clans. I can finish what Reynard wanted—peace and balance—a kingdom that doesn’t rely on fear and bloodshed. You plan for retaliation and destruction and will tear this realm apart.”

Draven leaned forward. “I don’t want to kill you. But I will not let you destroy everything our father dreamed of.”

Luka stepped closer to the bars. His voice was calm—too calm. “Do you have any final words?”

Draven blinked. “Final?”

“You asked for my throne and wished for my death. You plotted against me. So, I ask again—do you have any final words?”

The dungeon fell silent.

Draven’s breath hitched in fear, but he lifted his chin with defiance. “Yes. I do.”

Luka waited.

“Go fuck yourself.”

50

The Vampire Queen

Matilda felt darkness. Not the peaceful kind that came with sleep, but something heavier and thicker, pressing against her from all sides. She felt suspended in the darkness, unable to feel her body or time.

A whisper crept into her awareness.

Wake.

She tried to move, but her limbs felt heavy and foreign, as if they belonged to someone else. Her thoughts screamed at her as she attempted to make sense of reality.

Where was she?

Where was her child?

A flicker of panic pierced through her chest. Instead of fighting it, she embraced it—it was the only thing that seemed real in the moment. And if she just held onto it, it might pull her through the suffocating darkness.

Return.