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I clench my jaw tight. “You and my godfather are meddling assholes.”

He smiles. “You would let me have you the way you did in that storeroom and then call me an asshole minutes later.”

I have to look away from him. Heat climbs my cheeks. “Well, don’t be one, and maybe I won’t.”

He chuckles and then traps me with both arms against the table. “We’re going to make it through this night, sweetheart,” he whispers. He skims his lips over my forehead. “You will live. If I have to stand between you and death every step of the way, you will survive this.”

In the secret place of my broken heart, I swear the same for him. He will live. Because he is the only alternative to Galvin, the only other potential heir to Imaelhain and Gault. Because there is goodness in him, no matter what he believes, no matter how we’ve divided into the Light and Dark, refusing to believe in shades of twilight. Because I need him to live.

He wants me to survive, but he’s been throwing himself between me and the Dark for years. He couldn’t just be beautiful and intelligent and charming. He had to be a fucking martyr too.

He lifts a hand to my cheek. “Just, please, don’t run again. I can’t protect you if you run.”

But he can’t protect me. Not from my bloodmate.

No one is coming to save me. I have to save myself.

And I have to save him.

I place a hand gently on his chest and let my head rest on his shoulder. In my other hand I clasp my timepiece, and I cling to the brokenness of my heart. “I won’t.”

He sighs. “Thank—”

I grip his hair in my fist, pull him down sharply toward me, and let my teeth sink into his neck, right over the scar the king gave him.

Lonan gasps, staggers. He does not fight me.

Poor boy. He always expects me to be better than I am.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Ihave made a grievous mistake. I have thirsted for half the night. I thought I knew longing. Then I taste Lonan’s blood, and I realize that what I thought I knew of desire hardly scratched the surface.

This is nothing like the pull of the bloodbond, that tether that draws me to Galvin like a ship to a beacon. This . . . this is instinct, the drive of a predator, the blood in the water that draws the sharks. His blood fills my mouth, warm and thick, coppery and sweet. He tastes the way he smells—autumn and gloam, the waning of the world. Every tick of my pulse screams more, more, more as I lap at the bleeding wound at his neck with my tongue. I want to devour him, consume him completely until nothing separates us, until we’re one, until his warm blood fills my belly, his lifeblood giving me life.

Lonan jerks, his hands pressed to my shoulders as he gasps. He’s trying to push me off. At that realization, panicked aggression has me gripping his hair harder, digging my nails into his back to hold him steady as I gulp mouthfuls of his blood, savoring the warmth of it down my throat.

His shadows burst free, serpents of Darkness winding around me. “Vesper—” he groans.

His knees buckle.

And it’s only then that something snaps in my mind—horror that breaks me free from my thirst. I release him, and he collapses to his knees. Shaking, he stumbles away, sword glowing. He’s staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. I watch the hurt and horror of sudden betrayal dawn on his face as his blood trickles down my lips. Unconsciously, my tongue darts out to catch the last drops of his blood, and Lonan swallows at the sight. He lifts a hand to his neck, where two deep holes are still slowly seeping.

“Why?” His voice is hoarse.

“You know why.” He’s too smart to not have put this together, that the only way to keep him safe from Galvin is to make him as immortal as we are. Temporarily. Until I can drive the silver stake into my bloodmate’s heart.

Then Galvin will be gone, and I will go with him. But Lonan, Poppy, Orla, and all others who’ve been turned by the fallen prince will be free.

“I won’t regret changing you,” I tell him. “But I . . . I didn’t mean to take so much.” I hadn’t planned for the addictive nature of Lonan’s taste. Even now it’s taking all my willpower not to sink back into him. I so easily could’ve killed him, drained him like Galvin did that girl in the Founders Hall.

He’s breathing heavily, blinking at me like a lost boy. I’ve reopened an old wound, betrayed him like his parents, like my godfather. I watch the transformation with a sadness that wrecks me. It starts the way it did with me—trembling through Lonan’s body as the venom courses its path through his bloodstream. Then his skin loses its warmth. His chest heaves as trails of blood from his neck weave with the branches of his birthmark. And bright white fogs out his dark eyes.

It’s the rattle in his voice that warns me.

He’s no longer Lonan. The siphon takes over, and he knows only thirst. He stands with inhuman smoothness, more predatory than either Galvin or I ever could be, a sleek dark viper. Shadows swirl around him like a cape of night, the glow of his sword taking on a bloody hue.

He was a Nightmare before.