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 a dart of speed, Valentine flew around to get a view of the main ballroom. He stared as the guests parted and Hades entered, the clan Lord was not masked. But he wasn’t alone. Cole was on his arm. Valentine couldn’t hear what was said but he didn’t need to. By the way the rest of the guests bowed and curtsied, Valentine now understood why Cole had never wanted to be seen with him.


This is the man the ball was being held for. His name isn’t Cole at all. It’s Blade, Hades’ favorite. Valentine’s head spun. No wonder he wasn’t afraid of making love with me. He knew I wasn’t anything to Hades. The only question is why? Why didn’t he give me away?


A moment later, Belladonna came in behind them, her hand on Mandrake’s arm, and her daughters a step or two right after. When Belladonna presented them to Hades and Blade, Blade held out his hand to Cerbera and as they walked out onto the dancefloor, the orchestra resumed playing.


Chapter 28