Chapter 1
The first thing they took from me was my tea.
I had barely lifted the cup to my lips when a woman in a cream gown plucked it neatly from my hands and carried it away as though I had been holding poison.
“You’ll stain your teeth,” she said.
I stared after it. “I wasn’t aware that would be my biggest concern today.”
She pretended not to hear me, which was probably wise. Three others moved in around me before I could say anything worse. One loosened my dressing gown from my shoulders. Another gathered my hair and began separating it into sections with careful fingers. A third pressed cool hands against my jaw and turned my face towards the pale morning light spilling through the tall windows.
“Look up,” she said.
I looked up.
“Close your eyes.”
I closed them.
“Lift your chin.”
I considered refusing, purely because it was the only thing left in the room that belonged to me. Instead, I lifted my chin and let a stranger begin painting my face for a wedding I had not agreed to.
The dressing room was larger than the entire downstairs of my parents’ house. Cream silk wallpaper stretched towards a painted ceiling covered in cherubs and climbing vines. A crystal chandelier hung overhead, scattering soft light across polished floors and the mirrors that lined one wall. Fresh white roses filled every available surface. They spilled from silver vases, climbed around the window frames and sat in bowls along the dressing table.
White roses.
My favourite.
How thoughtful.
How cruel.
A woman fastened pearls against my ears and smiled at me in the mirror. “You are very fortunate.”
Fortunate. Blessed. Honoured. Chosen. Everyone said them with the same careful brightness, as though if they repeated them often enough, I might eventually forget what was really happening.
I met her gaze through the glass. “You’ve never met me. How do you know I’m fortunate?”
Her smile faltered. “I only mean that many families pray for this distinction.”
“I imagine my family would rather have kept me.”
The room went quiet. The brush at my cheek stilled, and for one long second no one moved. Then the door opened without ceremony, saving them from having to answer.
A woman stepped inside carrying a tray of silver brushes. Unlike the others, she was not dressed in pale cream or soft gold. Her gown was midnight blue, severe in its simplicity, and her dark hair was twisted neatly at the nape of her neck. She looked no older than thirty, but there was something ancient in the way she held herself, something too still to be human.
Her eyes swept over me once. “Has no one fed her?”
One of the attendants blinked. “Pardon?”
“She looks as though she’s preparing for an execution.”
The laugh left me before I could stop it. It was sharp, ugly and completely inappropriate. Several women gasped as though laughter was the most scandalous thing that had happened in this room.
The newcomer placed the tray on the dressing table. “I apologise. I forgot humans dislike honesty before breakfast.”
I turned in my chair. “You’re a vampire.”
It was not a question.
She inclined her head. “Livia.”
One of the attendants shifted uncomfortably. “Lady Livia has been assigned to assist you during your transition.”
Transition. It sounded like changing schools or moving houses, not being taken from everything I had ever known and handed to a man from another realm because he had won a war.
Livia studied me with dark, unreadable eyes. “You expected someone older.”
“I expected fangs.”
“You’ll see enough of those later.”
That was the first honest thing anyone had said to me all morning. I almost liked her for it.
The women resumed their work. Pins slid into my hair. Soft powders brushed across my skin. Someone painted colour onto my lips while another adjusted the neckline of the dress waiting beside the window. I had been avoiding looking at it since they brought me into the room, but eventually curiosity won.
The gown stood upon a mannequin in a pool of pale light. White silk fell from the fitted bodice in graceful folds, and fine lace climbed the sleeves before disappearing beneath tiny seed pearls stitched into the fabric. The neckline swept wide across the shoulders, deliberately exposing the curve of collarbone and throat.
My throat.
Of course.
I stared at it for too long.
One of the women mistook my silence for admiration. “It was designed for you.”
I had spent years imagining my wedding in the vague, harmless way girls sometimes do before life becomes too practical for dreams. I had pictured a village church or maybe even a venue by the beach, my father pretending not to cry, my mother fussing over flowers, and my younger sister stealing champagne she was not supposed to touch. I had imagined laughter and rain and someone waiting at the end of the aisle because I had chosen him.
I had never imagined this room. These women. That dress.
I had never imagined being the prize at the end of someone else’s war.
“Stand,” Livia said.
I obeyed because my legs moved before my pride could stop them.
The attendants helped me into the gown with reverent hands. Silk whispered against my skin. The bodice tightened around my ribs. Buttons fastened one by one down my back until breathing felt like something I had to negotiate. Lace settled across my arms, and when they guided me towards the mirror, every woman in the room seemed to hold her breath.
For a moment, I did too.
The woman staring back at me looked like a bride from an old painting. Dark hair pinned into soft curls. Pearls glimmering at her ears. White roses woven amongst delicate silver combs. The dress fit perfectly, as though it had waited years for my body and no other.
I lifted trembling fingers to the lace at my shoulder. The neckline left my throat bare and vulnerable beneath the morning light.
“You look beautiful,” someone whispered.
I could not tell who said it. I was too busy trying not to cry.
Livia stepped closer, her reflection appearing behind mine. “I am sorry your mother could not be here.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
Mum had kissed my forehead before dawn because she could not bear to watch strangers dress me for another life. She had held my face in shaking hands and told me to be brave, as though bravery had anything to do with it. My father had stood behind her, silent and grey-faced, unable to look at the gown.
I swallowed against the ache in my throat. “She wanted to be.”
“I know.”
There was something in Livia’s voice that made me glance at her properly. Not pity. Not exactly. Recognition, maybe. As if this room had seen many brides and too many mothers who had not been able to cross its threshold.
Before I could ask, church bells began to ring outside.
One deep note rolled through the windows, then another, then another, until the sound filled the dressing room and settled over my skin. The attendants stopped moving. A woman near the door lowered her head. Another crossed herself, then seemed to remember where she was and quickly dropped her hand.
Livia looked at me through the mirror. “They are ready for you.”
I stared at the woman in white. At the roses in her hair. At the bare throat, the painted lips and the dress made to offer her beautifully to a stranger.
“Do I get to meet him before I marry him?”
No one answered.
I turned slowly from the mirror and looked at Livia.
Her face was calm. Too calm.
“No,” she said.
The bells kept ringing.
I smoothed my hands over the skirts of my gown, feeling the silk ripple beneath my palms. Then I straightened my shoulders because there were women watching, and because if I fell apart now, they would only put me back together again.
“Right,” I said quietly. “That does seem like something that should have occurred to me sooner.”
