"What if I want to escape?"
I looked at the man before me.
He was Alexei Cardis, vampire prince, and the one who would sacrifice me with his own hands at the Eclipse Ritual.
"Then escape," he said, lowering his gaze to meet mine, his tone calm. "Just don't get caught."
—
At seven years old, I was brought into this vampire castle.
From that day on, I had the best teachers, and the most dangerous guardian.
Alexei taught me to read, taught me to calculate, taught me how to survive amid lies and conspiracies.
But he never told me—that the meaning of my existence was to become the offering on the altar.
As the Eclipse Ritual drew closer, I began searching for a way to survive.
Forging evidence, sowing discord among nobles, stealing weapons, planning my escape.
Everyone wanted to use me.
Everyone wanted me dead.
Only Alexei was different.
He stopped others from getting close to me again and again, yet pushed me toward my destined fate with his own hands.
I could no longer understand him.
Until later, when I discovered a secret hidden in a wooden box.
It turned out that behind all these years of what I thought was captivity and exploitation, there was another, more dangerous emotion.
But if he truly cared about me—
Why would he raise me only to personally send me to the altar?
And when the night of sacrifice arrives,
Will I kill him and escape to freedom,
Or will he, for the sake of the entire vampire race, kill me with his own hands?
