Seras saluted with mechanical precision. "Yes, sir. Shall I prepare the interrogation chamber?"

"The reception hall."

Another hesitation. "Sir?"

"You heard me."

After she left, Velis moved to the window and studied the courtyard below. The first three wagons had already disgorged their human cargo—young men and women stumbling in the sunlight, iron shackles glinting against pale skin. They moved with the mechanical shuffle of people who had accepted their fate. Broken. Compliant. Useful.

The fourth wagon remained sealed.

He could see Federation guards clustered around it, speaking in hushed tones with his gate sentries. One of them—a man whose face looked like raw meat—kept gesturing toward the wagon and shaking his head. Whatever was inside had them spooked.

Fifteen minutes later, they brought Caelum Salutregui into his office.

Velis had executed men for breathing too loudly in his presence. He'd flayed the skin from Federation spies who'd tried to infiltrate his command structure. He'd stood in throne rooms filled with vampire nobility and felt nothing but professional detachment.

But when Caelum Salutregui met his eyes across twenty feet of stone floor, something shifted in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with professional interest and everything to do with the way sunlight caught the auburn highlights in his dark hair, or the way defiance sat on those features like it belonged there.

The intelligence files hadn't captured this. The clinical descriptions of height and weight and probable fighting capability had failed to mention the way this human moved—not with the broken shuffle of the other offerings, but with the controlled balance of someone who'd spent years learning how to kill efficiently. Not with fear, but with calculation.

And his eyes.

God's blood, those eyes.

Green as spring grass and twice as alive, studying the office with the kind of attention that catalogued exit routes and weapon distances and structural weak points.

This was no tribute. This was a weapon in sheep's clothing.

"Caelum Salutregui." The name tasted strange on his tongue. "Crown Prince of the Ashan Federation. Heir to the throne that signs our tribute treaties."

"Because your kind require fresh blood to survive, and mine are weak enough to provide it."

Velis almost smiled at that. Almost. The boy had spine, he'd give him that.

Most humans in this room either begged or wept. This one stood straight despite exhaustion and iron manacles, despite being surrounded by armed guards in the heart of enemy territory, despite knowing exactly what happened to Federation princes who fell into vampire hands.

"Fresh blood, yes. But yours..." He moved around the desk, studying the way Caelum's weight shifted subtly onto the balls of his feet. Ready to fight or flee, even shackled. Interesting. "Yours is special."

"Special enough to warrant personal attention from the Butcher of Blackmere?"

The temperature plummeted. Behind Caelum, the guards reached for their weapons. Seras took a step forward, hand on her sword hilt.

But Velis held up one finger—a gesture that froze everyone in place.

The Butcher of Blackmere. He hadn't heard that particular epithet in years. It referred to a Federation town he'd reduced to ash and bone during the border wars, back when he'd been young, but still pragmatic enough to believe that efficiency was the same as justice. Three thousand civilians had died in those flames, and he'd felt nothing but satisfaction at eliminating a supply depot that had been funneling weapons to human resistance fighters.

Now, looking at Caelum Salutregui's unflinching stare, he wondered if any of those three thousand had possessed eyes like these. Eyes that accused without words, that promised retribution without threats.

"Oh, little prince." Velis stopped just outside striking distance, close enough to see the pulse beating in that exposed throat, close enough to smell soap and sweat and something else—something that made his fangs ache with sudden hunger. "You have no idea how special you truly are."

Standing before him was the last heir to the Ashan Federation. Regal. Beautiful. Utterly defenseless.

And Queen Isabella Salutregui, in her infinite paranoia, had just delivered her greatest weapon directly into his hands.

Velis reached into his uniform and withdrew a blood-red scroll sealed with black wax.

"However," he said, his voice dropping to that dark, seductive register that was distinctly vampiric, "I'm prepared to offer you something infinitely more...comfortable than the standard arrangement."

He unfurled the scroll with deliberate slowness, letting Caelum see the elaborate calligraphy and mystical symbols that marked it as a binding contract. "A personal protection agreement. Think of it as...exclusive service, rather than shared servitude."

The back of his hand brushed against Caelum's cheek with feather-light contact. "Your life would be considerably easier with a master of significant standing. No rotating assignments. No uncertainty about who holds your leash." His voice became a whisper that seemed to vibrate through the air itself. "Just me."

Caelum's breath caught, his entire body going rigid at the unexpected touch. Velis interpreted the reaction as invitation rather than revulsion, stepping closer until mere inches separated them.

"I promise to care for you properly, my little prince," he murmured, his hand sliding to cup the back of Caelum's neck with a grip that was both firm and oddly tender. "I'll make you forget you ever wanted to return to that cold castle, to those humans who sent you here like a sacrificial lamb."

Velis leaned in, his lips almost brushing Caelum's ear. "I'll make you never want to leave..."

Their faces were so close now that Caelum could feel the vampire's breath against his skin. Velis's silver eyes had darkened to pewter, pupils dilated with predatory hunger. His free hand came up to trace the line of Caelum's collarbone.

The kiss was inevitable. Velis could taste it already and could imagine the moment when defiance would melt into surrender—

CRACK.

Caelum's forehead connected with Velis's nose in a vicious headbutt that echoed through the corridor like a gunshot. The vampire stumbled backward, blood streaming from his shattered nose and split lip, his hand flying to his face in shock.