Chapter 7 — The Scandal

The scandal broke at dawn.

By nine a.m., every vampire phone in New York had the same headline: NOCTURNE LORD'S 'PARTNER' EXPOSED: THIRD-PARTY OR BLOOD PURCHASE?

Someone had leaked the check. Someone had leaked her debt. Someone had leaked a photo from the brunch—Lila, laughing, hand in Kael's—captioned: Five million reasons to smile.

The vampire social circuit, which had spent a century being bored, was having the time of its unlife.

And human social media, which didn't know vampires existed, was having its own party: Lila Reed, freelance illustrator, doxxed to the world. Her address. Her landlord. Her student loan balance. Threads calling her a gold digger, a hooker, a girl who'd sell her soul for a penthouse.

Maya called at 10 a.m., voice hoarse: "Lila. There are men outside your—no, wait, you're not at your place. There are men outside my building. With cameras. What the hell is going on?"

Lila, standing in Kael's penthouse, watching the city through floor-to-ceiling glass, said: "I have a very dramatic boyfriend."

"Lila. They're ruining you."

"I know."

"And you sound weirdly calm."

"I'm saving my panic for later." Lila's voice was steady. "Maya, listen. Stay inside. Don't answer the door. I'll fix this."

"How?"

"I have five million dollars' worth of reasons to."

She hung up. Turned. Kael was standing at the far end of the room, phone in hand, face like carved stone. He'd been on it for an hour. Aldous stood behind him, uncharacteristically silent.

"The Moon leaked it," Aldous said quietly. "Lady Vivienne's hand is all over this. They want the Council to rule the match void."

"On what grounds?" Lila asked.

"On the grounds that you were purchased." Aldous's voice was careful. "If the Council rules the contract is a transaction rather than a bond, they can void it. And then, Miss Reed—you'd be a human with vampire enemies and no protection."

The room was very quiet.

Lila looked at Kael. "Can they do that?"

"Yes." His voice was flat. "If the match is a fraud, the contract is void, and you are nothing to me in the eyes of their law. They can take you, use your blood, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

Lila felt the floor tilt. "Then—"

"Unless." Kael looked up. His eyes were ice, and in the ice, something burning. "Unless the match isn't a fraud."

"That's what I've been performing—"

"No." He crossed the room and stopped in front of her, close enough that she could feel the cold radiating off him. "I mean make it real in the only way their law can't argue with. Blood shared. Body claimed. A bond they can't fake and can't void."

Lila's heart stopped.

"You mean—"

"I mean," Kael said, very quietly, "that I'm going to issue a statement. In public. I'm going to tell them you're not a purchase. I'm going to tell them you're mine—and that the first vampire who touches you will answer to me personally."

"That's insane. That's declaring war on everyone—"

"I've already declared war," Kael said. "A war I'm going to win."

He turned to Aldous. "Prepare a statement. In my name. Then send a copy to the Moon—and to the Council." He looked back at Lila, and his voice dropped: "My things—even borrowed—stay mine."

Lila stood there, heart in her throat, as Aldous bowed and left.

"You didn't have to do that," she said, when the door closed.

"Yes," Kael said. "I did."

"Why?"

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he said, in a voice she'd never heard from him—rough, almost gentle: "Because no one has ever laughed at me and meant it kindly. And I'm not letting the world take the only thing that's made a hundred years bearable."

He left before she could answer.

Lila stood alone in the penthouse, and realized she'd just watched the Lord of the Nocturne line burn his political bridges for a girl with a student loan and a craft knife.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

She did both.