Coercion spoils the taste.

It should not have been reassuring to hear, not at all. But it was. It was a practical answer to a practical question. The sort that doctors had often given to him, when Rey asked probing and difficult things of them.

It was the kind of honesty that defied niceties—a brutal truth that cut to the core of a thing.

That is not a promise, or a guarantee of your safety, his better angels told him. But Rey had been disregarding them long enough to quiet their pleas with ease.

In the end, the King seemed to know roughly as little as Rey himself did about who Rey was now.

They were, apparently, complete strangers.

“The taste,” Rey parroted, the words soft on his tongue. “Of me?”

“Yes.”

The King sat neatly in an armchair, watching Rey with silent, unsettling patience and offering him—with the same eerie voice as before—answers to any questions he had that may assist him in making his decision.

According to him, Rey had wandered onto Palace property without being spotted by their tight external security, and promptly collapsed in the snow outside the main entryway. The guards here didn’t take kindly to strangers skirting the tightly controlled perimeter, especially not strangers with no clear identification. He had been detained as a suspected spy, and sequestered in the dungeons to await an audience with the King.

Then, Rey had been remanded there as they awaited the King’s verdict.

Rey, for his part, was struggling not to make it painfully obvious that he had absolutely no idea where he was, let alone what it would mean to become the sole “blood source” for a creature that, as far as he knew, hadn’t existed outside of fiction a week ago.

Part of him wanted to ask for more time to decide. For a chance to really mull it over, and weigh his options.

But what was there to consider, when he knew so little about this place at all? Could he even make it in the world outside of this Palace? Did he have anything he could barter or sell, when he had so little knowledge about the skills that were valued here?

The person Rey had inhabited didn’t even have shoes. He could not have come from means. It was very likely no one was missing him at all, if he had wandered all the way to what seemed to be enemy territory.

Could a person like that, armed with a soul who knew nothing and no one, survive even a week in the whistling cold of this tundra?

And that was all Rey could think of, even now.

Survive.

There were a few things that were becoming increasingly obvious to Rey now.

First and foremost, he was probably dead. Well, the real Rey Antony, in any case. No hallucination was vivid enough to replicate, with appalling accuracy, the panging, hollow feeling of hunger and dread that had lingered with him in that dungeon prison.

Which meant, secondly, that someone, somewhere, had given him another chance.

More than that, they had given him an opportunity to live his life healthy and whole. No ancient pains lingering in every extremity, or unpleasant fatigue and haziness coloring every interaction.

“Are you thinking over my proposal?”

Rey blinked back to the present. Right, he was in a luscious purple bedroom filled with all of the trappings of excess, luxuriating on a bed so soft it felt criminal.

With the Vampire King.

Rey peered up through a fan of unfamiliar lashes, wringing his fingers together in his lap. They felt too long and too soft. “Does it hurt?” His voice sounded meek, even to his own ears. Now that he’d had a taste of what life was like without overwhelming, inescapable pain, he wasn’t eager for it to resume any time soon. “You know, when you…eat.”

The King, the tips of his sharp teeth peeking out just beyond his lip, seemed impossibly uneasy. Even as still and calm as he was, there was something hesitant and uncertain about his body language. Yet he was proud, too. Rey couldn’t quite put his finger on what made him look so…imperial, but he did. Established and well-bred and infinitely smug. All stirred and blended together and deposited into a single person. “At first, yes. After a moment, it should not be painful.”

Rey frowned. He didn’t quite feel at home in this body yet, and his head was swimming. “And why do you need me for this?”

“Your smell is…singular.”

Rey squirmed.

Singular? What the hell did that mean?

As if sensing his question, the King sighed, and gestured absently at Rey. “Your blood smells quite appealing to me. It is not something that has happened in many years, and it is growing more…necessary for me to feed on a vital source. I won’t bore you with the why, it does not seem that you are terribly interested in our affairs. It is part of what convinced us of your innocence.”

“Why would I choose to do it? What do I get in exchange?”

The King seemed even more imposing now, cutting an unusually slender profile as he rose to his full height. All except for his impressive shoulders, emphasized by that long, long cape, was narrow and tapered. His maroon eyes still made Rey want to crawl away and hide. They were almost serpentine. “This room will be yours, and yours alone. You will be showered with exceptional food and lavish gifts. No one, not even other heads of state, will be able to touch you. At my side, you will live a full life of decadence and peace. I can guarantee it.”

Untouchable luxury. After a lifetime of chronic illness, that sounded…wonderful.

“And in return, you expect…?” Rey began, voice still unsure.

The King gave him a fulsome appraisal with his eyes. Some of the discomfort seemed to have bled out of him, now that Rey was expressing interest. “I would be the only one allowed to drink from you. While I will never force you to allow a feeding, I will need to attempt to eat at least biweekly.”

Rey couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all…familiar.

He should’ve been utterly unmoored by the concept. He should have been more afraid. He’d been reincarnated. There were vampires. The vampires wanted to eat him.

Whoever him was, in this world.

So why didn’t any of it surprise Rey the way it should have? Why was his every instinct to accept instantaneously, and live out his days in the dour, dark place with people he did not know?

Vampires were meant to be fearsome and monstrous. That was what he’d always seen. But beneath that fear he felt a strange, ancient kinship. Like he belonged here.

“I…would like to try,” Rey said, the words tumbling out before he’d truly considered the enormity of what he was agreeing to. “I can leave at any time? If I change my mind?”

The King’s irises flashed that same liquid silver from before. Rey thought his teeth seemed bigger. He looked just a touch off balance. “Of course. Your freedom is yours, even once you agree. But I do ask for a bit of notice, so I can secure another source that suits my tastes.”

“Right.”

Was he hungry now? Rey’s better instincts flinched at the thought. But something, misplaced concern, or ignorance, or the same nameless voice that had been whispering to him this entire time, drove him to ask.

“Did you need to…you know. Eat? Now?”

The King looked tempted. Enough so that a gentle breeze could’ve blown through the cavernous room and tipped him just over the edge. But instead he pressed his pink lips into a thin line and gave a stern shake of his head, seemingly more to himself than Rey.

“No, you are still recovering from your fever. You were feverish when we found you, and our soldiers’ ignorance of human needs did not make it better. If you are well, we will try in a fortnight. Until then, it will be your priority to get accustomed to your place here and recover your health. I will seek other means.”

Rey worried a cracked lip between his teeth. “Okay.”

The King nodded his farewell and swept from the room as quickly as he’d come. Rey watched him go with an overwhelming sense of incredulity.

He knew, deep down, somehow, that there was no going back.

But it still felt like he may open his eyes and realize this was all a lucid dream. That the fever had simply sent him on another in a long-line of trips to the emergency room. His parents would be beside him for the first time in months, fresh tears springing to their eyes when he woke up and asked, as he always did, what happened? Then they would all leave the hospital just a few days late and a few prescriptions heavier.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Rey said, quietly and to no one. “I tried to hang on for you.”

But he was alone in this silent room of comforts. Just him and the only thing he’d ever wanted: an exquisitely healthy body.

Except, as he was starting to realize, that didn’t mean so very much when it wasn’t shared with everyone else who’d wanted it with you.