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

Still standing behind the stone dragon, Valentine stared after him. I get a good feeling from him.Valentine patted the gargoyle’s head.


“I think I can trust him. But not too much, and not too quickly.” An unexpected sound, almost a snort, caused Valentine to look around. Although he saw nothing, he caught the faint scent of smoke. “Odd.”


With a shrug, Valentine continued along the hallway.


The next days were spent wandering around the castle. Valentine already felt more at home there, and he was getting to know his way around. He discovered recessed stairs, unnoticed the first time he passed them by, and he followed them to balconies and semi-hidden mezzanines which overlooked different rooms and hallways.


Chapter 17