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He nodded for me to proceed. “I’ll hear it.”

“You step aside, we leave unharmed, and you don’t end up like the duke.”

Armin didn’t appear surprised by the name. “Duke Spry. Missing, presumed dead at your hands, Mr. Vex.” Armin pointed the arm of his sunglasses at me again. “Spry underestimated you. He was a fool. I am not. I have climbed my way up the ladder, from the filth to within touching distance of Her Most Royal Highness.” His nod at the enormous painting confirmed the austere woman was their exalted queen. “I will not risk my place at her side after The Coming because of one deceptively harmless human.”

Armin was not your typical, self-centered vampire. Clearly smarter, and not fooled by appearances, he knew to be wary. While we talked, he was studying me, trying to pick my appearance apart and figure out what I’d hidden inside.

“There is much talk of what you are, Adam Vex. The mystery is driving Princess Daisy to distraction. A distraction we do not need at this vital moment in history. But what can I do, a mere soldier in the grander scheme of The Coming?”

Like most vampires, however, Armin clearly loved the sound of his own voice, and this conversation was likely headed in the same direction as all the others I’d had with vampires of late.

“Honestly, Armin,” I sighed. “I don’t really care about your grand, evil plan. I’m sure you’re a super vampire, and you probably deserve to sit beside your queen, if that’s what you want, I guess. But these people here just want to go home, and I’m going to take them. If you try to stop me, it’s just going to end the same way as it did with the duke. Or you can let us go, and you don’t even have to tell anyone we met. We’ll all keep it a big secret. Won’t we, everyone?” Frantic nodding all round. “See? How does that sound?”

Armin gave a derisive snort. “There’s no trace of your true self within that glamor.”

“You know, it’s past these little guys’ bed times.” I nodded at the pixies. “It’s time we left.”

“Pixies are vermin, just like all of you. Vampires are superior. You should all be grateful!” he announced. “Honored to be a part of the new order of things. You should fucking get to your knees and beg for your blood to run in service to Her Majesty.” Armin smirked. “Kneel, and maybe I’ll let you go.”

I lost my smile. And my patience. “Nobody is kneeling to a vampire in board shorts.”

He smirked and folded his arms. “You know, you were supposed to be the final gift, to be brought to us by Baron Reynard? He failed, of course. But you were the last piece. And now here you are, exactly where we need you to be. Sometimes, fate puts you on the path of destiny and there’s nothing you or I can do about it. This is meant to be. It’s fate. Give up, Adam Vex. This moment was inevitable.”

Perhaps he was more right then he knew, but for different reasons. “Yeah, fate and I don’t really get along.”

I tried to talk to bad people—tried to give them a chance, I really did—but it always ended the same. “Okay.” I huffed, and turned to face my group. “If everyone can please close their eyes?”

They stared back.

“I know it’s a weird ask, but it’s fine, really. Just close your eyes, and if you hear anything disturbing, don’t worry. It’s all fine.”

To be fair to them, we’d only just met, and they didn’t know me from . . . well, Adam. So I understood their hesitancy. But if they witnessed what came next, we’d have a whole different set of problems to deal with.

Armin slammed into me from behind and flung me through the rescued Lost Ones, sending them and the pixies flying. The altar was suddenly right there, and I was bent over it, slammed to an abrupt halt with Armin’s weight pinning me down. “Whatever you are, Adam Vex, your blood will run in sacrifice to our queen!” The burn of vampire fangs plunging into my neck was nothing like Victor’s erotic bites.

That’s it. I was done being nice.

I whirled, flinging him off. But like fish hooks, his fangs had hooked in. Blood spurted—my blood. I covered my neck to stem the flow, but even slowed, it dribbled down my sleeve. “We could have talked it out, but no, vampires always go for the neck.” I flicked blood from my fingers and patted the wound, trying to seal it back up. It would heal fast, but not fast enough to keep my clothes from getting bloody. Again. “Don’t you know you catch more flies with honey? Or is it bees? Please and thank you goes a long way.”

“What?” Armin snarled.

“The saying, you know? You get more by being nice. And you are not nice.”

A blast of hot, metallic-smelling air blasted through the chapel, snuffing all the candles, plunging us all into darkness. A chilling female laughter bubbled over our heads. Someone screamed, others whimpered.

Disembodied, creepy villain cackles were never a good sign.

I clutched the altar behind me, and willed my eyes to adjust to the sudden dark. Vampires could see in the dark. I couldn’t. But neither could the prisoners. This was my chance to attack without witnesses.

My cursed glamor had some wriggle room, and as I mentally loosened its restraints, the truth of me stretched its bonds. Armin’s responding gasp betrayed his exact location. In the gloom, fear flared in his shining vampire eyes.

I lunged, hit Armin like a wrecking ball, and pinned him to the floor.

There was always a moment of revelation, when whoever hurt me realized they’d made a gut-wrenching mistake. The moment they knew their life was over.

Some whimpered, some fell to their knees. Some, like the duke, saw death reflected in my eyes and surrendered. While I defied fate, or tried to, so many met their fates in me.

Armin saw that destiny he’d been speaking of, and screamed like a siren.