Chapter 3

The car didn't make it to the border.

We were twenty minutes outside the city when the driver's phone rang. He answered, listened for three seconds, then slammed the brakes.

I flew forward. The seatbelt caught me across the chest, and the impact sent a white flash of pain through my already-wrecked body.

"New orders," the driver said. He didn't look at me. "We're going back."

"No," I said. "Caspian signed the papers. I'm free."

"The papers haven't been filed yet." The driver was already turning the car around. "Queen Vivienne needs you."

Queen Vivienne. The title made my stomach lurch.

"For what?" I asked, though I already knew.

"Blood prep for the coronation bonding ritual. Her Majesty's levels are insufficient."

Of course they were. Vivienne had never produced a single drop of Solaris blood in her life. Every vial, every glowing ceremony, every miraculous healing — it had all come from me.

The car sped back toward the city. I grabbed the door handle. Locked. Child-locked from the driver's console.

"Let me out," I said.

The driver ignored me.

I looked at Dominic's black card in my hand. I thought about smashing the window. But I was too weak. My arms felt like wet rope. If I tried to run, I wouldn't make it fifty feet before collapsing.

The tower appeared on the horizon, golden and gleaming. The car pulled into the underground entrance. Two guards in ceremonial black opened my door.

"This way, Miss Voss."

Not Mrs. Valdric. Not anymore. Just Miss Voss. The vessel. The storage unit.

They took me to the extraction room. I knew it well. White walls. A reclining chair with leather straps. A row of medical bags hanging from steel hooks. And the machine — a centrifuge designed specifically for Solaris blood, separating the luminous plasma from the red cells.

Vivienne was already there.

She sat on a velvet chaise in the corner, her golden coronation dress pooling around her like liquid metal. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with triumph. She held a champagne glass filled with something dark and red.

My blood. From this morning's extraction. She was drinking it like wine.

"There she is," Vivienne said, smiling. "My favorite little blood bag."

"The divorce is signed," I said. "You can't keep me here."

"The divorce isn't filed until Caspian submits it to the Court Registrar," Vivienne said. She took a delicate sip. "And Caspian is busy. With me. All night. So those papers will sit on his desk until morning. Which means, legally, you are still a member of this household. And household members contribute."

She set the glass down and stood up. She walked toward me. Her heels clicked on the marble floor.

She stopped inches from my face. Up close, I could see the cracks. The glow on her skin was already fading. The stolen Solaris light was metabolizing fast, burning through her non-Solaris body like fuel in a cheap engine.

"You look terrible," she whispered. "How much do you have left? Three liters? Two and a half?"

"If you take any more, I'll die," I said.

"That's not my problem."

"It will be when your wards collapse because there's no more blood to power them."

Vivienne laughed. It was a bright, musical sound. She had practiced it for years.

"I'll find another source," she said. "There are other Solaris descendants. Scattered, hiding, but findable. You were just the most convenient."

She snapped her fingers. Two medical technicians entered.

"One liter," Vivienne ordered. "Express extraction. I need it before the bonding ritual at midnight."

"One liter will kill her," one of the technicians said. He was young. His hands were shaking.

"Then take half a liter and synthesize the rest," Vivienne snapped. "I don't care. Just make it glow."

They strapped me to the chair. I didn't fight. I couldn't. My body had nothing left to fight with.

The needle went into the port in my neck. I felt the familiar pull — the slow, cold drain of my life flowing out through a tube.

I stared at the ceiling. The fluorescent light above me had a crack in it. I had stared at that same crack a hundred times before. I knew its shape better than I knew my own face.

'Half a liter,' I thought. 'I'll survive half a liter. Barely.'

The machine hummed. The bag filled. Dark red, then brighter, then luminous gold. The Solaris blood separated from the rest, rising to the top like cream.

Vivienne watched with hungry eyes.

"Beautiful," she breathed.

The technician removed the needle. He pressed a cotton ball to my neck. His hand was trembling.

"Done," he said. "Please, Your Majesty. No more. She won't survive another extraction."

"Noted," Vivienne said, taking the bag. She held it up to the light, admiring the golden shimmer. "You're dismissed, Lena. The car will take you to the border. For real this time."

She turned and walked out. Her heels clicked a rhythm that sounded like a countdown.

I sat in the chair. The straps were undone, but I couldn't move. The room was spinning. My heartbeat was thin and fast, like a bird trapped in a jar.

The young technician lingered. He looked at the machine's readout.

"Two point three liters," he whispered. "You're at two point three. That's..."

"Fatal range," I finished.

He looked at me with wide, horrified eyes. "You need a transfusion. Now. I can get normal blood from the bank—"

"It won't help. Solaris blood rejects foreign transfusions. My body will attack it."

He stood there, helpless.

I dragged myself out of the chair. The floor swayed beneath me. I held onto the wall, then the doorframe, then the corridor railing.

'The car,' I told myself. 'Just get to the car.'

Halfway down the corridor, I heard it — the ballroom, one floor above. Music. Laughter. The roar of a crowd cheering their new queen.

And Caspian's voice, amplified by microphone, announcing: "Tonight, I bond with my true mate, Vivienne Solaris, the light of our kingdom!"

The crowd erupted.

I kept walking.

The garage. The car. The driver, looking bored.

I collapsed into the backseat. The leather was cold against my cheek.

"Border," I croaked.

The car moved. The city lights bled together through the window.

I pressed Dominic's black card against my chest. The metal was warm now, pulsing faintly, as if it had a heartbeat of its own.

Two point three liters of blood.

Every minute, my heart worked harder to push less.

I was leaving the kingdom of the man who had married me, bled me, and replaced me.

And somewhere above me, the wards that protected his entire world were running on the last drops of my stolen light.