Prologue
Athan
A century before...
“I’m going to stop in that shop for a moment.” My friend, Silas, pointed at a small vintage emporium across the street from the tailor where we’d picked up our suits for his wedding ceremony. “I want to purchase a little gift for my Victoria to wear with her bridal gown.”
I glanced at my watch to see that it was nearing seven at night. “Best hurry. I imagine they’ll be closing any minute.” Living a mostly nocturnal life could be a pain in the ass sometimes. Humans always wanted to close up before the sun went down.
However, seeing as we were vampires, night life was definitely preferred, despite being daywalkers. Simply because we were immune to sunlight didn’t mean we enjoyed it. Our skin was pale, which made it exceptionally susceptible to burning. And our light eyes had better vision in the dark.
Plus, Silas, my two brothers, Kieran and Stephan, and I often spent our nights chasing and slaying nightwalkers. Those were the evil, stereotypical vampires that humans read about in their stories. They hunted the mates of our kind, killing off our consorts to decimate the population of daywalkers.
In the long run, it was easier to get up a little earlier in the evening to run errands and complete other tasks than to constantly pay people to open their doors to us late at night.
Silas bounded across the street, and I followed at a much more sedate pace. He’d recently found his consort, and as happy as I was for him, his constant cheer and energy were a little irritating. The sweet way he talked about his consort gave me a fucking toothache. I wondered if I would act like such a pussy if I ever found my mate. But after four hundred years, I was beginning to accept that it would never happen.
By the time I reached the front door to the shop, Silas was already inside, talking animatedly with the man behind a long display case. I hung back, waiting for him to make his purchase so I could return home and get ready for the night ahead of me.
To my right was another glass enclosure that held ornate cuff links, and I found myself a little curious, so I wandered over to take a look. When I stepped up to the display, my eyes didn’t linger on the items in front of me. Instead, they immediately wandered to the left where a plethora of rings sat in a bed of white velvet.
Among them was a gold ring with a thin, delicate band and an oval amethyst—the deepest and most brilliant purple I’d ever seen—in a flat, diamond-shaped setting that held smaller diamonds all around the larger stone.
As I stared at it, something unexpected and completely foreign stirred in my body. It wasn’t as though I had no sensation or feeling in my body, but without a consort, everything was muted, and we felt no attraction or arousal. Not until I touched her would I ever feel those things, and it wasn’t what I was experiencing. It was almost as though my body was attempting to wake from a deep sleep, and there was a strange warmth in my chest, which was a little disturbing.
Still, I was curious. A young man, the owner’s grandson from the looks of it, was standing behind another case, arranging whatever was inside. I called to him, and he smiled as he quickly made his way over to me.
“How can I help you?”
I pointed at the ring. “I’d like to see that one. Can you tell me anything about it?”
He lifted the top pane of glass and reached in to retrieve the trinket. “I can tell you that it's from the 1880s, but we don’t have any history on it. My grandfather picked it up at an estate sale a few months ago. The man was rumored to have been a crook, so this could have come from anywhere.”
I held out my hand, palm up, and he dropped the ring onto it. The minute it touched my skin, the feelings I’d been experiencing intensified. My skin felt hot, but not like I’d been burned from fire; it was something different. Since I’d never felt it before, I couldn’t put a name to it.
Looking closely at it, I turned it over a few times, though I had no idea what I was expecting to find. Silas tapped me on the shoulder then, drawing me out of my stupor.
“Ready?”
I nodded and held the ring out to the salesman. When his fingers touched the top, I found myself snatching it back with a growl. What the fuck was happening to me?
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I tried to hand it over, but my arm just wouldn’t move. Rather than stand there looking like I belonged in a strait jacket, I grunted, “I’ll take it.”
“Since when are you into baubles?” Silas asked, his tone amused.
“Hell if I know,” I muttered.
I paid for the ring and tucked it into my pocket, still wondering if I’d lost my mind. When I arrived home, I tucked it into a drawer and got ready to work. The strangest sense of loss came over me, and once I was dressed and about to walk out the door, I paused beside the dresser. I stared at the drawer, willing it to give me answers, but it remained stubbornly silent.
What’s the holdup?
My older brother, Kieran’s, voice entered my head a second before I heard a pop, and he appeared before me.
One look at my face, and his mouth tipped down into a frown. “Is everything alright?”
I peeled my eyes away from the spot where the ring was hidden and pasted a careless smile on my face. “Absolutely. You know how it is spending time with Silas lately. I’m still recovering from being subjected to hours of his cheerful disposition.”
Kieran grimaced, knowing exactly what I was talking about. “I see. Well, shake it off. We’ve got shit to do.”
I nodded, and Kieran disappeared. Right before I followed him, I paused once again. My body was fighting me. Refusing to be stuck in this spot all night, I gave in to instinct and opened the drawer to withdraw the ring. I slipped it on the only finger it comfortably fit, then teleported to my front porch where my brothers were waiting.
Though it was clear that they both noticed it at some point in the night, neither mentioned the ring. I was grateful for their silence because had they asked about it, I wouldn’t have an explanation to give.
As I readied myself for bed later the next morning, I considered removing the ring, but I decided I was too tired to fight whatever force was tying it to me.
One hundred years later, I was still wearing it.
1
Selene
The past week had been a whirlwind of excitement as I prepared to surprise a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in ages. But now, I was finally here. Dressed up for the occasion, I impatiently waited for the woman of honor to join everyone in the ballroom of her and her husband’s gorgeous home. I’d arrived in town last night but had stayed at a hotel so as not to spoil the secret for Thana since I was a part of her birthday present.
Since I hadn’t recognized the number on caller ID, I almost didn’t pick up when Kieran called to invite me to her party. Although we’d kept in touch after my parents shipped me off to boarding school in Switzerland a little more than nine years ago, we hadn’t been able to meet up in person. By the time I’d come home for the holiday break after my first semester, she had moved because her parents had died. Her aunt couldn’t have cared less about Thana’s happiness, so she hadn’t let her come back for a visit. Since my parents hadn’t trusted her aunt with my safety and were too busy to take me on a trip to her new hometown, we’d been stuck with video calls as our only way to see each other.