Until Regret.

Meredith
I never wanted any of this. My parents said sending me to a vampire college would "help me adapt." Adapt to what-being hunted? Being stared at like a snack? They don't get it. I'm not like them. I don't crave blood. I don't read minds. I'm human.
And yet, here I am, surrounded by creatures who could kill me with a look. Especially Derrick Wright-the prince with a smile sharp enough to cut glass. I might've survived if I'd just kept my mouth shut. But no, I had to insult him in front of everyone. The way he looked at me... like he was already imagining the blood running down my throat.
I thought that was the end of me-until someone pulled me away. Elias Wright. His brother. Quiet, cold, terrifying in his own way. I don't know why he saved me, or why I made the deal I did. But now, I'm supposed to marry him. A vampire prince.
It's just politics, just survival. That's what I keep telling myself. But sometimes, when he looks at me with those red eyes, I feel something strange-like maybe he's the only one who doesn't see me as prey.

⸻

Elias
I should have let her die.
That's what I told myself when I saw her standing there-small, trembling, human-facing my brother's rage. Derrick doesn't forgive insults. He collects them, burns them into his victims, enjoys the fear. And yet... I stopped him.
I don't know why. She's nothing to me. She should be nothing. But when I touched her wrist, I couldn't hear her. I couldn't read her thoughts. Silence. That's impossible.
Now she's my wife-at least by name. A desperate human clinging to a monster she barely knows. The others call it a political arrangement. I call it an inconvenience. But there's something about her-her defiance, her scent, her impossible mind-that unsettles everything I thought I knew.
She's supposed to be human. And yet, every instinct in me says she isn't.