Page 78 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

My gaze drifts from one hanging body to the next, unable to stop. A torn ear. A broken spear protruding from a torso. Paws curled as if still trying to run. A narrow muzzle stitched shut with bright thread.

Then I see him: at the very centre of the display, raised higher than the others, hangs a great silver wolf.

He is larger than the rest, his body draped in green and gold, a collar of white ermine fur with black flecks arranged around his throat. A silver crown sits upon his head, the dusty jewels the colour of old moss.

The sight splits me open. Then I see the plaque fixed to the beam beside him:

WOLF KING BAKKER.

THIEF OF THE VAMPIRE QUEEN LIDDIA FROM HER RIGHTFUL HUSBAND, VAMPIRE KING ERIK.

SLAIN IN THE CROWN’S VICTORY AT BAKKER’S COURT.

I stare at the words until they begin to swim.

He was not a thief. He was our king. The last wolf king and rightful ruler of these lands. And he had not ‘stolen’ Liddia from Erik, her first husband. She had not been dragged here in chains or coerced. She had come willingly.

For love.

The only thing he had stolen was her heart. Henrikk may have erased that history, but Byron, Mary and every wolf of their generation remember the truth. Erik had been the rightful king of the vampire realm to the west. He was enraged by the loss of his wife.

His marriage to Liddia had been arranged but never consummated. When she met Bakker, she fell in love with him and fled the vampire court to marry him, becoming the first vampire queen consort to share a wolf throne.

Erik demanded her return. Wolf law, which placed greater weight on chosen bonds than on the permanence of marriage, recognised her renunciation of her first marriage and her union with Bakker. Vampire law did not.

For months, threats passed between the kingdoms, and soldiers gathered along the border. But Erik could not reclaim her without risking a war he might not win, so he eventually allowed the insult to stand.

A bitter peace instead of bloodshed.

Henrikk, one of his generals, called that weakness. He was not alone. There were whispers at court and even amongst soldiers, and Henrikk used Erik’s humiliation to turn his court and armies against him, seize his throne, and wage the war Erik had failed to begin.

No one had ever united the vampire houses so completely—or wielded them so ruthlessly. Henrikk usurped his own king and declared himself the Vampire King. Then he swept through the witch covens, seizing their magic before invading our lands.

It was not a war. It was a conquest: one side taking everything, the other left with nothing. Neither Erik, Bakker nor Liddia survived it.

I drag my gaze from the plaque to the crowned silver wolf hanging above it, somehow regal even in death. Mercifully, Queen Consort Liddia is missing from the ceiling. Whatever the vampires thought of her betrayal, they did not mount her among the wolves. I suppose it would not have suited the narrative of her being stolen if they punished her.

I frown, spotting something else hanging beside the mounted king. A smaller shape beside the ermine, so white I almost miss it. Fur white as snow. A little wolf face. Tiny paws stretched wide.

A cub. My hand flies to my mouth. I have no thoughts. No breath. No sound. Only a wound festering deeper and deeper. I know this story. Every wolf does. The lost princess, carried out of Wintermaw Keep the night it burned, smuggled away by castle guards before Henrikk’s men could get their hands on her.

She escaped. That was the story. Our people’s quiet hope. But it was short-lived. It only took a month before Henrikk’s enforcers found her. I sway where I stand, staring at the second plaque. Smaller than the first. Set beside the cub like an afterthought.

IN HONOUR OF CROWN PRINCE NATHANIEL ARPAY, WHO PERSONALLY RETRIEVED THE LOST PRINCESS AND DELIVERED THE LAST HEIR OF BAKKER’S LINE TO JUSTICE.

Justice?

She was only a child. I knew they killed her. But I had not realised that she would be on display here so cruelly, or that the prince had been involved in her death.

Of course he was involved.

My vision blurs until I can hardly see the small snowball of fur, nestled against her father, my heart beating futilely as hot tears slide down my cheeks. At least her eyes are shut, as if she is merely sleeping peacefully. I stifle a sob. I have never felt so helpless.

“You should not be here.”

I flinch hard, spinning so fast my knee cracks against the end of a bench, Nathaniel’s voice ringing out through the whole cavernous room before it dies. He stands just inside the doors as they shut behind him.

The red light above does something to him I don’t like. It catches in his pale hair and paints the high planes of his face—his sloping brow, sharp cheekbones, the narrow bridge of his nose—while the rest is left hollowed by shadow, his jaw darker, his cheeks sunken, his eyes deep-set, and for one sick second he could be his father standing there instead of himself.