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

“Good. Outside. There’s no room here in which to fight.”


A moment later, the two sides had gathered outside, Mandrake swaying in front of his army as Hades strode away from his own.


“Since you like serpents, let’s see how much you like this.” Hades’ form shimmered like Mandrake’s had, but then Hades dropped down onto his hands and knees, his back arched, mouth open.


Valentine clutched at Seth’s shoulder, but the other man remained rigid. Valentine risked moving to take a quick glimpse at Seth. Although his midnight eyes were open, they seemed glazed, and Valentine wondered if Seth was in some way channeling his own power to Hades.


Chapter 32