"Are you sure you want this?" The witch slid the vial across the table.

"Once I cast the unbinding spell, your Fated Mate connection will dissolve over ten days. On the tenth day, it's permanent. No reversals."

I didn't hesitate.

"Your name?" She picked up her pen.

"Mara Voss."

Her hand froze.

Everyone in New York's vampire community knew that name. Conrad Levin — the Prince of the New York Dominion, an eight-hundred-year-old monster who had never shown a flicker of attachment to anything — had three years ago announced to the entire supernatural world that he'd found his Fated Mate.

A human girl carrying the rarest blood type in existence.

Golden blood.

Her name was Mara Voss.

I held out my wrist. The witch began her work.

I opened my phone and booked a one-way ticket to Prague. Departing in exactly ten days.

This time, Conrad would never find me.

I walked out of the witch's shop into the middle of a celebration that wasn't mine.

The Dominion was getting ready for my Turning ceremony.

Blood-red silk banners hung from every building. Ghouls sprinted past carrying pure silver candelabras. For the first time in decades, the Elder Council's flags were flying above the guild hall's front entrance.

"Watch those crystal blood goblets! The Prince had those shipped from Vienna!" A steward screamed at a group of fledglings.

A newly turned vampire tugged at her companion's sleeve. "What's all this for? Is the Prince taking a new companion?"

The Ghoul next to her looked personally offended.

"Are you serious right now? They've been Fated Mates for three years. The Turning ceremony is in ten days."

Another one jumped in, practically sighing. "You know how long he waited to find her? Eight hundred years."

"You should see the way he looks at her—"

I walked past them.

The whole Dominion loved our story.

Three years ago, Conrad pulled me out of a crossfire between a vampire hunting unit and a rogue clan. He said the moment he caught the scent of my blood, something in him that had been completely dead for centuries suddenly snapped awake. He called it La Tua Cantante — blood resonance. He said it was fate.

He said I was the only one.

I believed him. Right up until a month ago.

—

That afternoon, Conrad had promised to take me to pick out a gown for the Turning ceremony.

I waited until the sky went completely black.

His head Ghoul, Elias, found me at half past ten. He kept his eyes down when he spoke. "The Prince sends his apologies. Something urgent came up — a territory matter. He said you should get some rest. He'll be back as soon as he can."

"What kind of matter?"

Elias was quiet for exactly one second.

That one second told me everything he didn't want to say.

"Never mind," I said. "I'll go by myself."

I spent three hours walking through the human shopping district alone. I came home empty-handed.

The rain started on the way back.

My health had always been the quiet joke of the Dominion. The Prince's Fated Mate, completely human. No supernatural bloodline at all. Fragile as glass. I'd overheard it more times than I could count.

By the time I reached the manor, I was soaked through.

I found a spare blanket. Made myself tea. Sat by the fireplace and waited to warm up.

Conrad didn't come home.

I sent one message. No reply.

At two in the morning, the fever hit.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking: if he knew I was sick right now, would he come back?

I didn't call him.

I wasn't sure of the answer anymore.

—

He walked in just before dawn.

I kept my eyes shut. I heard him stop at the side of the bed. His fingers touched my forehead — vampires always run cold, but the coolness actually helped this time.

"You're burning up." His voice dropped low, almost careful.

I opened my eyes.

His shirt was fresh. But I still caught the trace of a scent that didn't belong in this room.

Isabeau's perfume.

Isabeau Fontaine. Conrad's childhood companion. Ancient bloodline. A thousand years old. Beautiful in the specific way a blade is beautiful — precise and made to cut. She'd come back to New York from Paris three months ago.

"Where were you?" I asked.

"Territory business." He sat on the edge of the bed. "Why didn't you message me? If I'd known you were—"

"I did message you."

He paused. "The signal was bad."

I nodded slowly.

The manor had signal-amplifying wards built into every wall. Everyone in the Dominion knew that.

I didn't say it out loud.

"I'm fine," I said. "I'll sleep it off."

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something.

His phone buzzed.

He glanced at the screen. The tension in his face shifted into something else entirely.

"I have to handle something. I'll be right back."

He was gone before I could answer.

I already knew who was on the other end.

—

The fever broke two days later. I got up on my own, took my medication, changed the sheets myself.

Conrad came back that evening with a bundle of moonflowers — the rare kind that only bloomed in places soaked through with vampire energy. He put them in the vase by my bed.

"Feeling better?" The guilt on his face was genuine. "I shouldn't have left that night."

I looked at the flowers.

Once, I was the most envied woman in the entire vampire world because this man would go out of his way to bring me moonflowers.

"You went to see Isabeau," I said. Not a question.

Something moved across his expression. Then it settled back into calm.

"She needed help with something. It didn't take long."

"What kind of help?"

"She'd ordered some necklace from a jeweler — custom piece, silver thread — and the guy disappeared with her deposit. She asked me to track him down."

I repeated it back to make sure I'd heard right.

"Jewelry."

"Yes."

I had been lying in bed with a fever of a hundred and three.

He had been chasing down someone's missing jewelry order.

"Got it," I said. I looked away. "It's fine."

He took my hand in his. "Before the Turning, I'm not going anywhere. I mean it."

I smiled.

Three years ago, I had watched this man do something no vampire Prince had done in living memory — he learned to move through the human world for me. Sat through daylight business meetings. Adjusted to human schedules. Ate at human restaurants and waited in human lines and pretended that none of it was beneath him.

The Dominion talked about it for months. The Prince, humbling himself for a human girl.

He'd told me once, quietly, that I was the person he had been waiting eight hundred years to find. Not as a boast. Just as a fact.

I had believed every word.

I looked at the moonflowers.

I knew exactly how much his promises were worth now.

Nine days left.

Conrad cleared his entire schedule for the week. No Elder Council meetings. No territory disputes. Nothing.

The Dominion treated it like a second miracle.

I didn't say anything. I just watched him cross things off his calendar and thought about the unbinding spell working quietly through my bloodstream.

—

Day three was the anniversary of my mother's death.

She'd been gone for four years. Every year on this date I went to the small cemetery in Queens, left white lilies, and sat with her for a while.

Conrad remembered without me telling him.

"I'll come with you," he said that morning. "We'll go at sunset, before the district business starts."

"You don't have to."

"She mattered to you. Of course I'll come."

Sunset came. I was dressed and ready at the front door by six.

At six-fifteen, my phone buzzed with a message from Elias.

Running late — he says go ahead and he'll meet you there.

I stood at the front door for another minute.

Then I went alone.

—

I sat with my mother for an hour.

The lilies were already wilting by the time the sky went fully dark. I'd bought two bouquets — one from me, one I'd left space for Conrad to add.

He didn't come.

I placed both bouquets myself.

On the cab ride back, I watched the city lights blur past the window and thought about nothing in particular.

Conrad called at nine-thirty.

"Mara, I'm so sorry — something came up with Isabeau, she—"

"It's okay," I said.

"It's not okay. I promised you—"

"Conrad." I kept my voice level. "What did she need this time?"

A short pause.

"She had a conflict with one of the outer-borough clan representatives. It almost turned into a blood-right incident. I had to mediate before it escalated. I was the only one they'd both listen to — I had no choice."

I thought it through quietly. He had missed the entire evening for a mediation that any senior council member could have handled.

"I understand," I said. "Get some rest."

I hung up before he could say anything else.

—

He was waiting in the sitting room when I got back.

The moment I walked in, he crossed the room and pulled me into his arms without a word.

I stood there with my hands at my sides.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have been there."

After a moment I stepped back.

"I'm tired," I said. "I'm going to bed."

He caught my hand. "Mara—"

The sitting room door opened.

Isabeau walked in like she lived there.

Ivory dress. Dark hair pinned up. Not a single thing out of place. She stopped when she saw me, and her expression arranged itself into something soft and apologetic.

"Oh — Mara. I didn't realize you were back. I just came to return Conrad's signet ring. He left it at the meeting hall." She held it out on her palm.

I looked at the ring. Then at Conrad.

His jaw was tight.

"Thank you," he said, and took it from her.

Isabeau smiled. Then she turned to me, and something shifted behind her eyes — too quick for a human to catch.

"I really am sorry about tonight. I tried to handle it myself, I did. But you know how it gets with the old clans." She paused. "Conrad was the only one they'd both listen to."

Perfectly reasonable. Perfectly regretful. Nothing to object to.

"Of course," I said.

"It must be exhausting," she continued, "navigating all of this as a human. The politics alone would wear anyone down. And with the Turning still days away—" A small sympathetic tilt of her head. "I can't imagine what you must be feeling. Not knowing what it'll be like to finally be one of us."

The room went quiet.

Conrad said her name. A warning.

"I'm just saying it must be a lot to carry." She raised both hands. "I only meant it with kindness."

I picked up my coat from the armchair.

"I need some air," I said.

"Mara—"

"You two finish whatever you need to finish."

—

I walked four blocks before I stopped.

Stood under a streetlight and breathed.

Exhausting, navigating all of this as a human.

She never said anything technically wrong. That was the thing about Isabeau. She never did. Everything she said came wrapped in just enough warmth that objecting to it made you look unreasonable.

What she meant was always simpler.

You don't belong here. You were never built for this world. And everyone — including him — knows it.

I thought about the cemetery. The two bouquets of lilies I'd placed alone.

I thought about the fever, and the jewelry order.

I thought about the unbinding spell moving through my blood, slow and certain.

Nine days.

I walked back to the manor.

Conrad was alone when I returned. He stood up the moment he saw me.

"I know how important today was. I should've been there."

"I know you meant to be," I said.

And I meant it. I did know he'd meant to be there.

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that meaning to was the most he ever managed when Isabeau was involved.

I didn't say any of that.

"Goodnight, Conrad."

He watched me walk up the stairs.

I didn't turn around.