Heavy boot steps filled the corridor, and Frederick braced himself. He didn't know how long he'd been in that cell-hours, perhaps days-but the number of soldiers that swarmed the place could only mean they were coming for him.

"This is his cell, Your Majesty."

"Get him out," Bront's voice commanded.

After a jangle of keys and the sliding of the metal, Frederick lifted his head, finding Bront standing before him. His brother looked clean and refreshed despite the heaviness in his gaze.

"You're free to leave," Bront said. "You have been pardoned for any and every war crime and conspiracy. You are to take your rightful seat in the House of the Moon, effective immediately. No privileges will be taken from you, and no harm shall befall you. Now get out of here and put your damned house in order."

Frederick shook as he ascended from the ground, shocked by the news of such a generous pardon. After all that had happened and all that he'd done, Bront ... was letting him go? "My father?"

"Will stand trial," Bront said simply. "He is not free to leave. Do not speak of him to me. Not now." Not ever.

"Where is Arabella?"

Bront raised his brow. "Not in a cell, if that's what you think. She is a victim in all of this. You don't think I'd punish her, do you?"

Frederick struggled for patience. "Then where is she?"

"She is resting in your chambers here in the castle. I have offered her my protection for as long as she wants it. Any act against her is an act against Thescan." Bront lowered his voice. "I warn you to approach her with caution. She's been through enough."

The trembling in Frederick's body worsened. "Bront, I-" His words died. He didn't know what to say. Had nothing he could say that would matter. Nothing to fix everything he'd destroyed.

"Go," Bront finished. "You've said it already. Don't say it again."

Frederick could hardly stop himself, tensing for an arm to grab him but no one did. He raced through the dungeons, hurried through the castle, then found the hallways that led to the royal quarters. His heart pulsed with the force of cannon blasts. He would be sick with relief later-once he saw her with his own eyes. Saw that she was all right.

Safe now. Forever.

His eyes were already wet before he reached her, and he lunged through his bedroom door and found her there, sitting by the window. "Ara ..."

She did not look at him, her profile highlighted by the gentle glow of daylight. Human now and she looked it. He didn't think he would ever be used to it. "So you're all right, then. Bront did promise you would be."

It took all his self-control to cross the room at an appropriate pace lest he spook her with his emotions. "Of course," he whispered, lowering onto his haunches at her side. "What can I get you?"

"Nothing at all," she said. "It's all been done. They've fussed so much that I won't be able to stand a second more of it. See to yourself. You've been in that dungeon for over a day."

"Ara, I'm-"

"Don't," she said with a wince. "There's nothing you can say that won't insult me."

But he couldn't control it, hot tears filling his eyes, blurring his much-needed view of her until he blinked and let them shed. Because it was different now and he understood that. It had to be. No life and death to draw hasty declarations of love, just the choices they'd made and had to live with now. "It's all my fault. All of this is my fault. I hurt you, and I'll never be able to take it back."

His heart broke over and over as he looked upon her. Wearing a pale pink dress as delicate as she was. Her chest swelled and released gentle breaths, each inhalation astonishing to him. "Freddie, I knew you would hurt me the moment I met you. Granted, I didn't know how spectacularly, but gods, you made sure it pained me like nothing else ever did. Nearly five thousand years on earth and I thought I was done with the worst of it. Until you. You managed to take everything from me singlehandedly. I'm quite impressed, really."

"I don't know what to do or what to say. I don't know what to do." He swallowed. The next words he would say would kill him. "Tell me to go and I'll leave you. I'll never see you again if that is your wish."

She gave a small shrug. "Frederick, would you like to know why? Why, even though I saw your every hateful thought, I let you do what you did? I let you do it all to me anyway because the alternative was being alone. I'd been alone for so long I was desperate for the company of another. I still feel that way, Frederick. Maybe now more than ever. I have no home, no power, nowhere to go. Without you, I have absolute nothing." Her hand tightened into a fist. "And gods, I loathe you for it, but I am terrified of this new world and who I am in it, and that is the truth of it."

So she would let him stay, and she only wanted him to stay because this place was unfamiliar to her now. But Frederick could not afford to be insulted. She needed him-wanted him around-and by the gods, he would stay with her for as long as he was able. "You have a home here. With me."

Cruel amusement twisted her mouth. "Well, thank you for letting me stay. I don't know how long I'll be but once I have the strength to concoct a plan, I'll be gone."

He shook his head. "You belong here-with me. Always with me. Ara, don't go. I-" His shoulders wracked with sobs. "I love you."

She inhaled sharply. "Shut up."

"I love you," he said, the words bubbling out of his chest where his heart pained him to beat. He didn't care if he looked and sounded pathetic. He would do anything now to keep her with him. "I love you, gods, I love you. Stay with me."

"Stupid, selfish man-"

"I love you," he said again, seizing her hand and gripping. "I know you cannot stand me now but from this moment forward, you will get nothing but the truth from me. Nothing but love from me. So long as we're together we can figure the rest out. Just-just stay with me. I'm begging you to stay."

They said nothing for a long while, and he wept at her side in silence.

"What do you want from me, Frederick?" she asked bitterly.

He dashed the water from his eyes with his knuckles. "What I have no right to have. I want all of it. A chance with you. A future. A family-"

"That will not happen."

"Then whatever you will give me, I'll gladly and greedily take. So long as I get to have you in some way, I'll take it. Any of it. Even if you want to degrade me for sport, I'll-"

"Degrade you for sport?" she repeated, but there was no bite in her words. "You think I'd really subject you to even a second of what that creature did to me? What he already did to you. You think that would make me happy? I couldn't stand to see you suffer then, and I still can't stand to see you suffer now."

"I'll do anything you want, and I'll pay in flesh. If you want to see me hang then so be it. I will hang for you, Arabella."

She lowered her head. "You are the last of the House of the Moon. Bront told me you are to be the new Prince of Aldren Heights. It's not a kingdom but still, it's something to live for."

"Do you think I care?" he asked. "I don't. You are the only thing I care about. You will be the only thing I care about until the day I die."

"You should care," she said, her chest heaving. "For you are the last, and if you hitch your heart to me then you will be the last forever."

"Then so be it."

She shook her head, removing her hand from his grasp. "I think it's time to tell you what I did-what I paid Tessande for your safe passage out of Thescan. Would you like to hear it?"

His stomach hardened into ice. He wanted to know this very thing. Had pestered her for an answer but she hadn't been able to bring herself to speak. But now he didn't know if he had the strength to hear this. He was no longer ready. "Maybe we should speak of it at another time, once we-"

"Our unborn child," Arabella said hoarsely. "I paid her with our unborn child. A fetus makes for powerful, potent ritual."

Frederick stilled. "You-you promised a child of ours to a sorceress?" The thought of it alone was enough to send him careening over the edge of madness. "She isn't getting our child. I will hunt her and ensure that she can't-"

"She already took our child, Frederick. I sacrificed our unborn child-to do with as she wished in whatever ritual she deemed it fit for. I let her take the child from me in order to grant you safe passage from Thescan. But you didn't leave Thescan."

"What are you-" Suddenly it hurt to breathe. Hurt to stay there. Hurt to exist. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt-so much more than anything ever had. "What are you saying?"

"I was with child when Saebane captured me. She was the first to sense it. He would have been the next to find out. He would have ripped it from my womb or worse-he might have allowed me to carry the child until gods know what. If it was a girl, he might have-" She closed her eyes. "I was pregnant and now I'm not. I have her to thank for that."

Frederick blinked. "I thought that it was rare for vampyres to conceive. I thought-"

"It's done now," Arabella said. "And knowing that spiteful bitch, she probably took away my ability to have a child entirely-all magic has a cost, you see. But perhaps in doing that, she's granted me a favor. For I do not want a child. Not any longer."

"A baby," Frederick whispered numbly. "You were pregnant with our baby? And you ... you let her take it from you?"

"What was I going to do with it?" she barked. "It would have been born some human-vampyre monstrosity just like Viscon, who still hates his fucking parents to this day."

Viscon. Soon Frederick would have to go out into the world and find Viscon and Gheorge to apologize. But he couldn't think about that yet. Not now when his heart felt as though it would rend in a thousand places. "I should have known. I would have-"

"Put yourself in some greater danger because you're a stupid fool." She turned her face to him then, showing him a smile that chilled him to the quick. Yes, she was human now, but in her lived no trace of humanity. "Now this is unexpected. You really expect me to believe you're upset over some halfling bastard?"

"Bastard?" Frederick said, wiping away fresh tears with his thumb. "No child of mine would ever be bastard."

"Oh, Frederick. Control yourself, man. And stop sniveling in my presence. The child is gone. You can't get it back. And I wouldn't want it back even if I could have it. I'm not fit to be anyone's anything anymore. Especially someone's mother."

He couldn't help it. Couldn't help the violent emotion coursing through his body at the very thought of it. A child. He might have been a father. He would have had a child with the woman he loved ...

If he hadn't betrayed her to begin with.

"I'm sorry," he croaked. "I am so fucking sorry. This is all my fault."

"Shut up," she hissed, casting her eyes upon the window as her hands clenched the armrests. "Just shut up before I make you. I might be mortal now, but I'm not without my lethal talents, and you'd be wise to remember that. So don't tell me you're sorry again-it's already done. And don't tell me you love me-I'm already lost."

Rocked with sadness so great he lowered his head to the carpet and wept. Wept like the broken thing he'd become. And neither of them said anything more. There was nothing to be done.

For Frederick had made all the wrong decisions, and they would cost him dearly now. They led him to lose the love of a great woman and the chance to have a child with her. And soon he would have to return to the public, stand before the people of Thescan, and face the consequences of his actions.

But for now, he could do nothing else but feel overwhelmed by a hatred for himself so great that it bolted him to the floor. He might never be able to figure out how to set the world to rights or repent for all he'd done, and above all he wasn't ready to admit he'd lost Arabella forever. But she would stay with him because he'd taken everything from her, ensuring she had nowhere to go with no one else to turn to.

So he stayed at her feet. Near her. With her. Wallowing. Suffocating. Blazing with shame and self-loathing.

And he feared he could weep forever until there was nothing of him left.

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Book 2, Queen of Widows, in progress. Release date TBA.

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