Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
One of them will choose me to be his.
My pulse thrums in excitement. I feel like I’ve been waiting all twenty-three years of my life for this moment. Hell, I’ve been preparing for it since before I knew how to tie my own shoes.
From a young age, I’ve known the truth about vampires. Not the cartoon or movie versions, but the real ones. The royal elites. The ones who aren’t showcased in the headlines but are so powerful behind the scenes they shape entire cities. My father says they control economies and foreign trade and industries across the globe.
My bloodline was confirmed when I was a baby.
“Rare,” my mom used to say while brushing my hair before school. “And special. That’s you.”
I am one of the lucky ones—one of the blood of the three. It’s Windsor blood, from my daddy’s side, and both my little sister Bonnie and I have it. But out of us Windsor girls, I am the next generation to be chosen. The last Windsor woman who was chosen by an elite vampire was my father’s great-aunt Estelle.
This isn’t white-picket fences and minivans. This is royalty. This is fairy tales. And I’m the next lucky Windsor woman who is destined to be inside this world and live a life that’s bigger than most girls could ever dream.
At this event, there are a lot of women, but not all of them carry the same bloodline as me. I have one of only three bloodlines in the world that can marry and have children with a vampire.
It wasn’t always easy growing up in a human-focused world where you never spoke about this world or the existence of vampires and bloodlines. This isn’t something I could talk about at school or with girlfriends or college dorm roommates.
Only those in the inner circle are allowed to know.
And tonight, everyone in this room knows.
It’s a relief, but it’s also a competition. There are formidable women here—some almost as beautiful as me—and my purpose is to catch the eye of my future vampire husband.
“Would you like a drink?” A masked man with chocolate-brown hair offers me a flute of champagne. His voice showcases this deep vibrato that I feel inside my chest. His eyes are a dark navy that almost looks onyx beneath the soft glow of the room, and they linger on me for a fraction longer than most would consider polite, but I understand. Anticipation is high for both of us.
“Yes.” I smile, but not too wide or excited. Just…confident. “Thank you.” I lift the glass to my lips, never letting my gaze stray from his. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times my mother made me practice exact scenarios like this in our kitchen.
In order to get the best, you need to be the best, my mom would say.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Blair Windsor.” I purposefully lick a drop of champagne off my top lip. I don’t ask him his name. I know the rules. They’ll tell you if they want to tell you. That’s how it works.
“You’re beautiful, Blair,” he says, reaching out to gently brush a few strands of hair off my shoulders, just barely missing my skin. They aren’t supposed to touch me until they claim me—it’s one of the highest rules of order for the whole selection process.
“Thank you.”
“I’m Damien. Damien Snow.”
The little girl inside me is squealing that he just told me his full name, but I keep her on the down-low and respond confidently. “It’s a pleasure, Damien.”
His lips press into each other, and I imagine him pressing his lips to my skin. “It certainly is a pleasure, Blair. A very exciting pleasure.”
I smile again. And I take another drink from my glass of champagne. The bubbles pop and fizz in my throat, and I play the role of being interested but not too interested. Men like Damien can smell desperation from a hundred miles away. My mother taught me that. She told me they can sense insecurity and doubt, and they know when a woman isn’t confident.
They don’t want to choose a girl with poor self-esteem, she’d say. They want beauty and elegance and poise.
I let the silence linger between Damien and me. Occasionally making eyes at him over my glass of champagne. I relish the moments when he rakes his eyes over me, taking in my hair and my face and the curve of my breasts.
And I give him the space to do it, sometimes letting my eyes move over the room as I take sips from my champagne.
Some of the girls here I don’t recognize at all, but some I’ve known since childhood, and we grew up in the same inner circles.
I’m surprised that a few of the girls look outwardly nervous. Amateurs. You never let them smell nerves. Did their moms not tell them confidence is currency like mine did?