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

With every move he made, Valentine’s skirt glittered as it flowed around him, and the crystal shoes sparkled and shone. They didn’t stop with one dance. But as the third waltz concluded, a liveried servant came to whisper in Cole’s ear.


To Valentine’s concern, Cole’s face creased into a frown, then he gave a curt nod and the servant hurried away.


“Sorry. I have to meet someone.” Cole took Valentine’s hand and led him away from the dance floor, and out into the hallway on the opposite side of the great hall. “I can’t get out of it. Don’t stay in there. I don’t want anyone other than me dancing with you, and I don’t want the curious questioning you.”


“I’ll wait outside.” Valentine pointed to where the crimson curtains billowed in the evening breeze. “Up on the hill. I can see down into the main hall from there. I may even dance alone until you re-join me. You have an excellent orchestra.”


Chapter 27