Chapter 18

Damien’s POV

After speaking with Henry, I started to feel uneasy. I couldn’t explain why, but I’d learned long ago to trust my instincts rather than question them. It was part of what had kept me alive this long.

So I excused myself from the banquet and returned to my wing, and my tower, and up to my rooms.

My Rose wasn’t there.

I stopped a moment, focusing, listening for the sound of her heartbeat. But no, I was alone in this room.

Immediately, I swiveled on my heel and approached the door. Drawing it open, I found one of my subordinates guarding the door.

“Sir?” he asked as I looked at him.

“My pet is missing,” I said. “Find out where she is.”

“Yes, Sir,” the man said, then hurried down the stairwell.

Waiting for his return was very annoying. I tried to sit at first and read, but I couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I took to pacing.

What could possibly be taking so long?

A knock on the door signaled his return. I rushed there faster than I would admit to and opened the door.

My subordinate was holding the collar I had given Rose. I immediately snatched it away from him.

“Where did you find this?” I demanded.

“By the back exit, Sir. By the wanderers’ woods.”

“Was my pet there as well?”

“No, Sir. And others had also not seen her. We suspect she tried to make an escape.”

An escape attempt through the wanderers’ woods would be impossible. The abandoned of my kind took to haunting those woods, hopeful for the scraps those within the castle might toss over the side.

Serves my Rose right for trying to escape me, to be captured and killed at the hands of an abandoned vampire.

Yet, at the same time, the thought of another vampire sinking his teeth into her and tasting that blood… my chosen blood… it made me angry.

Angry enough that I commanded my subordinate, gather others and meet me at the back exit. I will not wait for you.”

I moved with incredibly speed that came from my age and experience and arrived at the back exit well before my subordinate or anyone else he could gather.

There was another guard posted there.

“Open this door,” I demanded of him. The guard did at once, and I flew forward, searching.

Almost immediately, I could hear her heart racing with fear and smell her blood.

Following that scent, I found her quickly, with a starving vampire latched to her neck.

Foolish, treacherous abandoned should know its place.

My rage burned hot as a sheen came over my vision. One moment, the abandoned vampire looked up at me in shock, then he screamed, then he was nothing but ash scattering among the brush and the tree roots.

I dashed forward and caught Rose as she fell. She had totally fainted.

Hoisting her up into my arms, I turned back toward the back exit to the castle and returned us home. As we entered through the wall again, I glanced around, confused about how my pet even knew about this place.

This back exit was on Henry’s side of the castle, and not somewhere that Rose had ever been before. Most of my slaves and servants never make it over to this side.

Had someone told her about this exit? But who, that she could talk to, would have even told her about this place?

With sudden clarity, I already knew the answer.

By now, my subordinates had appeared at the back exit. I ordered them, “Find Henry’s blood pet, and learn if she is responsible for this.” I gestured my chin down to Rose in my arms.

“Yes, Sir!”

Thirty minutes later, my Rose was in the pet hospital while I was down in the dungeons, watching as Henry struck the whip again and again across the back of his despicable blood pet.

Eventually, the pet was unable to handle any more pain and collapsed, going unconscious.

“Henry,” I said as he stopped the torture. “Get rid of this one immediately. She is far too much trouble.”

“Yes, Damien,” Henry said obediently.

When the matter was dealt with, Henry met me at the top of the dungeon stairs, and together we walked back to the pet hospital to check on my Rose.

Curiously, and annoyingly, when we entered the hallway, we found the werewolf doctor standing in the hallway, frowning as he looked in through my pet’s open door.

My Rose was lying on the bed, her cheeks sunken, her face pale.

“I’m sorry, Vampire Duke,” the pet doctor said. “But she is dying from excessive blood loss. There is nothing I can do.”

This happened sometimes, when vampires lost control, so I did not doubt the pet doctor’s diagnosis. And yet, I also found it entirely unacceptable.

The anger made my voice chill, and I watched the doctor pale as I addressed him, “You will find a way to save my pet, or I will kill you.”

The pet doctor swallowed hard and trembled slightly. “There, uh… maybe one way to save her, Vampire Duke.”

“Then do it,” I snapped.

“It is not something that I can do, Sir,” the pet doctor said. “You would need to give her a drop of your blood.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Henry scoffed from beside me. “No vampire gives up their blood so easily. For a vampire of Damien’s ranking… it is an insult to even suggest such a thing!”

“I’m sorry,” the pet doctor said, lowering his head. “But that is the only way I can think of…”

“Sharing vampire blood creates a blood bond. This… pet… is entirely undeserving,” Henry continued. “Such a thing requires a grand ceremony. It’s nothing so casual. A werewolf pet is entirely undeserving of such an honor, especially with Damien’s noble blood.”

Unlike Henry, I had no care about my nobility or importance. Nor did I care about my blood, especially one mere drop.

I had taken the time to carefully cultivate my pet, shaping her into something obedient after she had been so very defiant. I had invested so much energy, if my pet were to die now, it would be a terrible waste of my time and resources.

Especially when all I needed to save her was a single drop of my blood.

“Henry,” I said.

“Yes, Damien?”

“Prepare a blood ceremony for my pet and me,” I said.

Henry blanched, and had to look at me twice. “B-But…!”

“If she dies while you tarry, I will not be kind,” I threatened, already irritated by his lack of action.

“Yes,” he said, recovering. “At once.”

He turned and walked out of the hospital.

I lifted my gaze to the frail woman clinging to life in the hospital bed while the pet doctor looked at me curiously.

I didn’t care if he understood, or if Henry did, or if anyone else did.

What did they need to understand?

This was my pet. Her fate was mine to decide. And I was deciding this.

Hours later, just before dawn, in the presence of all the royal vampires, who had crowded into the pet hospital to watch the ceremony, I pricked my finger with a ruby-crusted dagger, pulled open my pet’s lips, and allowed a single drop of my blood to drip into her mouth.

At once, I felt my blood connect with her, stretching out through her entire body.

The blood bond was complete.