Page 3 of Crimson Shifter

“My guess is that I’ll be going asher.” I glanced past her to the panther sitting at her side, currently cleaning herself withmassive paws. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d posed as the panther, but usually that was just to fuck with Cassandra.

“Absolutely not.” Cassandra’s eyes widened to an almost impossible size.

“I’m afraid so,” Alek said.

“Better pet me really nicely or I’ll bite.” I winked. If I was going to be stuck with Cassandra for however long this took, I was going to be just as much of a pain to her as she’d been to everyone under this roof.

Alek couldn’t take his revenge for the hell she’d put him through, but I could.

This was going to be fun.

CHAPTER 2

Cassandra

My fingers trembled as I reached for yet another silk dress that hung on a satin hanger in my wardrobe in my temporary room—gifted to me when the vampire nobles flocked to the Domum seeking refuge.

Normally I would allow my talem, Conroy, to pack for me, but I wanted to be alone. If my father were alive, he would’ve had an absolute conniption over me packing for myself, not to mention his head would probably explode knowing the secret mission I’d accepted from the vampire king.

The same vampire king I’d tried to seduce some years ago, all at the urging—or ratherdemanding—of my father that we align ourselves with the royal family. It’d been instilled in me since I was a youngling. I needed to sit on a throne and rule, putting our family on the highest rung of the social ladder. Neither of my parents ever stopped to askmewhat I wanted. And after so many years, I’d stopped asking myself that too.

I’d been living in a numb sort of bubble in the months since my father died. Since I realized just how deep his deceptions lied. Since the rest of my family had abandoned me at court, leaving me to face punishment from the king.

I may have sought refuge here, may have put on a brave and elegant face for every single evening repast spent schmoozing with some of the vampire world's finest nobles, but on the inside? I was crumbling. Wasting away into a vast sea of uselessness.

And guilt. There was so much guilt.

But that all changed when Alek called me into his study last night and asked me if I would do this for him. I’d thought he’d called me in there to finally kill me for one grievance or another, the least of which being the spawn of a traitorous family. One that I now had to reintegrate myself into as if I’d never left.

The trembling increased so much that my hands shook, and I had to ring them together to make it stop. I may be an immortal vampire who looked like a perfectly carved statue on the outside, but Iwascapable of fear. And the fear of facing my mother was unmatched.

Everyone here always spoke about my brothers, or my father, but if anyone cared to look past my mother's elegance and charm, they would know where the true evil lay.

A lifetime of memories swirled like a churning storm in my mind, and I had to sit down on the bed, the motion causing my suitcase to tip over just slightly.

Shadow shifted from her resting spot on the bed, moving to place her heavy head in my lap. I stroked her silken fur, silently thanking her for the comfort.

My entire body shook as memories combated with the very real present. I was no longer a youngling being held at the mercy of my parents. I was a grown female, with strength and status of my own. She could not starve me into submission if I misbehaved. She could not throw me in that godsforsaken closet of hers if I showed anything other than the excellence the Zorin name demanded.

My stomach churned at the memory of that closet—the one coated in Night Thistle-laced paint. The cramped room sucked the life and power from any vampire locked inside. I remembered more details about that closet than my bedroom in my familial home.

And now I was going back.

I swore I’d never sleep under that roof again. Swore I’d never allow myself to be locked inside the mansion that held so many terrors for me. So many demands, so many agendas. Ideologies that were forced down my throat until I numbly echoed the same sentiment, lest I be punished in unspeakable ways.

But for my brother, for Warrick, the one I knew without a doubt was good at heart, I would do anything.

And yes, part of me was doing this to win favor back with the king—not from any ridiculous notions of affection, but to pay for the sins I’d committed.

I stopped petting Shadow, my shaky fingers absently tracing the marred skin where I’d burned off Alek’s mating mark. The mark my father had inked on my skin while my mother held me down. I’d screamed and fought every second.

“He already has affections for you,” my father had said. “He'll see this mark, and everything will fall into place. It will give him the last shove he needs to know that you're the one. And after you are married, the real mating mark will show up or it won't. Either way, you’ll be a queen, and our family will finally be where we deserve.”

I clenched my eyes shut at the sound of my father's voice ringing in my head. He was in there so often it made me sick. But it wasn’t half as frequent as my mother's. Even years of separation hadn’t erased the decades of torture I received from their hands.

Warrick and I had somehow managed to snap out of the rigid upbringing that they’d put us through. But Edward? I fearedthere’d be no saving him. He’d always clung to my father's harsh ways, never once showing an ounce of compassion like Warrick had whenever things got particularly rough for me. And they were often particularly rough, being the lone Zorin female who gave my parents a chance at the throne they so thirsted for.

I'd often thought about doing something drastic to ensure they never got what they wanted, just to spite them—if I didn’t exist, then neither did their shot at an alliance with the king or royal court. But even in my darkest moments, I’d never had the courage to actually step into the sunlight.