When Valentine’s sire is forced to take a mate by his Clan leader, Valentine is reduced to stoking the castle’s furnaces as nothing more than a cindered servant to the new matriarch. With his sire Libertine incarcerated and Valentine forced to wear a cursed collar, there seems no way to escape Belladonna’s hold on them. When a stranger appears, Valentine is surprised by how quickly he trusts the other vampire. He accepts the request to go to the castle of his Clan Lord, the ancient and powerful Hades, to uncover who is working to overthrow him. His reward is freedom for both him and his sire. No one is meant to know who he really is, and Valentine pretends he’s one of Hades’ favorites while in the castle, adopting the name Cinder and playing his Seductive nature to its full. But his world is shaken to its core when Valentine finds himself falling for the enigmatic Cole. As a Seductive, Valentine never imagined he’d want an Alpha Predator as a mate. Worse yet, it may be that Cole could be the very one he’s been sent to uncover. When the battle for dominance begins, where will Valentine’s loyalty lie?

Cinis

“My son is not part of this mating.” Libertine dropped his voice, his face becoming sharper as he shifted. “Whatever Imust endure, at the bidding of my Lord, does not involve Valentine.”


“How very noble.” Belladonna shrugged a scrawny shoulder. “Let the ceremony commence, brother. I’m most eager to take my place as mistressof Libertine’s castle.”


The ceremony was conducted by Mandrake himself. Although it was more common for a clan Lord to oversee such an occasion, in a Lord’s absence it would fall to the clan leader to officiate. As Mandrake’s words washed over Valentine, he tried to look unobtrusively around at the gathered guests.


Chapter 8