Chapter 3

The next morning, before breakfast, Elaine sent for me.

The staff member who came to get me stood outside my door, unable to look me in the eye. I followed him through the gallery — eleven windows, eleven layers of velvet, all drawn.

The parlor was too warm. The fireplace was going — not for the vampires, they don’t feel cold. It was for Vivienne. Pregnant women need warmth. She was sitting closest to the fire with a blanket over her shoulders. Alaric sat beside her, feeding her chocolate-dipped strawberries.

When I walked in, his hand paused. He put the fruit down and came over. “Maren, you look pale. Did you sleep?”

Elaine cut in first. “She’s not pregnant. What’s keeping her up? Not like Vivienne — up all night carrying the baby. That’s real suffering.”

Alaric stood where he was. Didn’t respond. Didn’t move away either.

Elaine set her teacup down. “Maren. Sit. We need to talk.”

I sat. The chair farthest from the fire. Nobody told me to sit there. I just knew where I belonged.

“Vivienne is pregnant,” Elaine said. “This is the most important thing to happen to this House in ten years. She can’t sleep. I had a specialist check her wing — the energy readings in her room are disrupting the pureblood’s development. The only room on this entire estate with the right dark-energy levels for a pureblood pregnancy is the Blood Chamber.”

She looked at me, waiting for me to figure it out on my own.

I didn’t give her the satisfaction. So she had to say it.

“You’re not pregnant. You don’t need the room. Give the Blood Chamber to Vivienne until the child is born.”

Rose stepped forward. She came with me from my father’s house, and in three years, she’d never once spoken up during a family conversation.

“Elaine — the Blood Chamber belongs to the Lady of House Ashford. If she gives it up, what will the other Houses think?”

Elaine’s voice went sharp. “Three years and not a single child. Not even a half-blood. She’s lucky I haven’t had Alaric dissolve the Vow.”

“Vivienne is carrying the heir. Maren switches rooms. End of discussion.”

Vivienne stood up — slowly, one hand on her back, eyes going wet on cue.

“Elaine, it’s fine. Really. I’ll manage where I am. It’s uncomfortable, but I can handle it. Maren is the Lady of this House. I’m just — just a widow. I don’t want to take anything from her. I just want to give Alaric a healthy baby.”

She sat back down. Pale. Fragile. Every expression perfectly timed, perfectly held. I almost wanted to clap.

Alaric frowned at me. “Maren, it’s one room. Let Vivienne have it while she’s pregnant. You’ll move back after the birth. It’s not a big deal.”

Not a big deal.

The Blood Chamber isn’t just a room. It’s where the Lord and Lady bond, feed, and sleep. Every Lady of House Ashford for four hundred years has slept there. No windows. The oldest rites happen in total darkness.

Giving up the Blood Chamber is an announcement. Every vampire House in the city would hear it loud and clear: the human wife has been replaced.

He knew that. They all knew. That’s why it had to happen in front of everyone — and why I had to be the one to say it. I give in.

When I didn’t answer, his voice cooled. “Maren. Move your things out in the next few days. Vivienne needs to settle in.”

I took a breath. Stood up.

“I’ll move today. No need to hold things up.”

He froze. That wasn’t in his script. “It doesn’t have to be today—”

“Oh, thank you, Maren!” Vivienne popped up behind him, bright as anything. “Alaric, I want more strawberries. Feed me?”

Just like that, his attention snapped back to her. “Sure — yeah. I’ll get more.”

He sat back down. One hand on her belly, the other bringing fruit to her lips. Firelight across both of them.

I glanced back from the doorway. It really was a perfect picture — the lord, his pregnant woman, firelight, blanket, strawberries.

There was no room in it for me.

Good. That made the leaving easier.

Back in the Blood Chamber — the room that used to be mine — I called Rose and two staff members I trusted.

“Only what I brought from my father’s house,” I said. “Everything on the dowry list, down to the last item. Anything else stays.”

Rose dropped her voice. “Not even the jewelry? Those were gifts from—”

“If it’s not on the list, it’s not mine.”

They started packing. I stood in the center of the room and watched. No windows. Four hundred years of darkness. Wall sconces the only light. Three years ago, I moved in here thinking I’d grow old in this room. I’d age. He wouldn’t. We both knew it. We never talked about it.

Rose paused at the headboard.

A braided gold cord hung from a hook. A lover’s knot. I’d braided it during our honeymoon.

“Take it?”

I looked at it for two seconds.

“Leave it.”

It belonged to this room now.

My new room was in the staff wing. End of the hall, facing east.

Rose followed me in, and her face was worse than mine. “Maren, you can’t stay here. This is a servant’s room. There’s no blackout curtain — the sun comes right in. The food is basic rations. This is nothing like—”

“Nothing like the Blood Chamber.” I finished the sentence and walked to the window.

Afternoon sun poured in — across the narrow bed, the bare walls, the back of my hand.

Warm.

Three years. First time I’d stood in a room that was mine and felt the sun on my skin.

For a vampire, the worst room on the estate. For me, the only good thing in this house.

“It won’t be for long,” I said.

Rose looked at me. She’s known me twenty years. She didn’t ask again.

Soon. Very soon, this would all be over.

That evening, Alaric stopped by. Or, more accurately, he manufactured a reason to walk past.

He stood in my doorway and didn’t come in. Maybe the room was too small. Maybe it was too bright — I’d left the lamp on and the curtainless window open, moonlight and lamplight pooling together on the concrete floor.

He took in the room. Tiny. Bare. One narrow bed. His frown got deeper the longer he looked.

“Maren. I’m sorry. Just bear with this for a little while.”

I cut him off.

“Alaric. I want to dissolve the Blood Vow.”

His jaw locked. The temperature in the doorway dropped. That’s what it feels like when a vampire gets angry — the air around them goes cold.

“Because I asked you to switch rooms, you want to dissolve the Vow?” His voice stayed flat. “Maren. You’re not a child. See the bigger picture.”

“Wait until Vivienne has the baby. I told you — one child. One pureblood. After that, everything goes back to normal.”

Back to normal.

And what was normal? The three nights he knelt at my family’s gate — or the perfume that never washed off his skin?

He waited for me to answer. I didn’t.

He took my silence as giving in. That was how he always won.

“Get some sleep,” he said.

He left. This time, the doorway didn’t smell like her. Just moonlight on concrete, white as flour.

I lay in the dark with my eyes open. He never even stepped inside.