The Fair Isle Princess

By Jayne Kinch

When Silvana’s brother, King Jonaton of the Fair Isle, summons her home to Foxwell Castle after a family tragedy, she sees an opportunity to flee her unhappy life with her husband, the Duke of Arundale. But then, on the journey to her brother’s land, Silvana is captured by Prime Mykael of Dornia – one of the feared vampire brothers, and taken to his court at Teragon House. At first a reluctant guest, Silvana soon finds herself becoming drawn to the enigmatic Mykael, and he awakens a passion within her like she has never felt before. But can she really save the man inside the monster, or is he lost forever?

Each book in The Land of the Blood of Allaron Legend series is stand-alone, but for the greatest enjoyment, the following reading order is recommended:

The Daughter of Teragon
The Fair Isle Princess
The Guardsman's Lover
The Duchess of Farrow
The Warrior Queen
The Lady of Saron

Intended for mature readers only.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jayne Kinch
• Release date: Jun 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370205592

Jayne Kinch

Jayne’s debut novel—The Daughter of Teragon—was published in 2016. Since then, she has completed a further seven novels and is currently working on The Cursed Dagger, the final instalment of The Mages of Thiar Trilogy.When she isn’t writing, Jayne likes to take countryside walks, travel the world, collect cacti, and read fiction. She also owns and runs a secondhand bookshop in a historical seaside town on the south-east coast of England. Her reading tastes are quite eclectic, with genres ranging from historical fiction, paranormal romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and crime thrillers to name a few.Jayne is forty-something and lives with her long-suffering husband, a deaf cat with a loud personality, dozens of cacti, and more books than she can count!Follow her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/jaynekinchbooks

Book preview

I was standing in the centre of the luxurious bedchamber, my friends gathered around me, the four girls laughing and chatting excitedly as they helped me get ready. Lady Abeline, one of my oldest and dearest friends, placed a garland of pink and white carnations on my auburn curls—the girl standing on her tiptoes in order to reach. I was taller than most girls, something Jonaton loved to tease me about. Two other girls were straightening my pale blue gown.

It was the happiest day of my life. My wedding day.

So why wasn’t I smiling?

Perhaps it was because, at sixteen years of age, I felt far too young to be married off to a strange duke I had never met. A duke who was over a decade older than me and lived on an island more than a three-day sailing away from Foxwell Castle. Perhaps it was because my future husband was from Farlow, a country which, up until five years before, had been at war with the Fair Isle. Perhaps it was because my mother wasn’t there to guide me through the biggest and most terrifying day of my life.

Mother, you should be here, I thought, watching Lady Anne as she placed a pair of white satin slippers lined with doeskin in front of me.

Behind me, Lady Beatrice was fussing with my hair, which fell in loose ringlets down my back, while Lady Katherine was running a hand down the front of my silk gown to smooth it.

My eyes moving away from Lady Anne, I stared about the candlelit room. As nervous as I was about the upcoming ceremony, I would be glad to leave this place.

I was in the Maiden Tower, which stood within the inner keep of Foxwell Castle.

In the Eastern Continent it was tradition for the brides of royal and noble families to be sequestered away in the days leading up to their wedding, as it was considered unlucky for the bride if she was seen by any male who wasn’t related to her by blood before she set foot in the temple.

I personally thought it was a ridiculous tradition.

As if a male setting eyes on me would make the slightest difference to my marriage. It wasn’t as though I was ever allowed to be alone with a male outside my family, so there was no question that I would come to the marriage bed anything other than intact. But knowing it would be pointless arguing, two days previously, I had gone with my maids and a small group of friends to the bridal suite at the top of the tower.

The tall and narrow windows were shuttered, preventing anyone from seeing the Princess walking about the rooms, so the only light was from the crystal candelabra hanging down from the high ceilings, and I couldn’t wait to feel the breeze and the warmth of the sun on my face again. At least when I returned to this room with my husband for our wedding night, the shutters would be open once more.

My stomach fluttered nervously at the thought of my impending wedding night. Thankfully, unlike other lands in the Eastern Continent, royal beddings in the Fair Isle weren’t witnessed. The last thing I would have wanted was my father and the Privy Council watching on as my husband claimed my virginity.

I had just slipped my feet into the slippers when there was a light knock at the door. At my direction, a maid threw open the door, and King David stepped into the room.

At the sight of the King, my companions curtseyed before shuffling through the connecting door to the next room, leaving me alone with my father.

The death of his beloved wife had taken its toll on the King of the Fair Isle. Gone was the strong and formidable man I remembered from my childhood. In his place was a shell of a man who looked as though he was recovering from a long and debilitating illness, his gaunt face grooved with lines that hadn’t been there two years before. It pained me to see him so.

The cloak of House Foxwell was draped across the King’s shoulders and a gold crown decorated with purple diamonds—the rarest of all diamonds—rested atop his head, his waist-long greying hair arranged into a single monarch’s braid down his back.

‘Your Grace,’ I said, dropping into a deep curtsey.

Crossing the room, the King helped me rise, then kissed me on the forehead.

‘You look just like your mother on the day we were wed,’ he said, his eyes, the same forest green as mine, suddenly filled with sorrow at the mention of his dead wife.

‘Please, Father. Don’t make me wed the Duke of Arundale,’ I begged, taking his calloused hand in mine. The King of the Fair Isle had spent much of his life wielding a sword. ‘Can’t I wed a Fair Isle noble instead? Duke August of House Rynell is still unwed. He may be older than I, but he’s a kind and gentle man, and has more than once indicated a wish to court me. Why must I wed someone I’ve never met, who lives on an island over three days from here?’ Which means I won’t be near to make sure you are not holed up in your study, not eating.

‘Silvana, we’ve already been through this,’ David replied, his tone patient as it always was when talking to one of his children. ‘If things were more stable, then yes, I would happily allow you to wed August, but our truce with Farlow is tenuous at best. Marriage to a Farlowian duke—especially one who is cousin to King Tovak—will strengthen ties between our two lands.’

‘Meaning I am to be traded for peace, as though I was a cow at market.’

The King sighed. ‘That is the price we pay for being royal. We don’t always get what we want.’ He cupped my face gently with his free hand. ‘And sometimes, my beloved daughter, that includes our own happiness.’

He used his thumb to brush away the stray tear that had escaped my eye and fallen on my cheek, then offered me his arm. ‘Now, be brave, daughter mine. You are Foxwell and a King’s daughter. Never forget that.’

Releasing my father’s hand, I squared my shoulders, then linked my arm through his. ‘I am Foxwell,’ I said.

But I’m soon to be Arundale.

When we emerged from the Maiden Tower into the hot summer sun, the normally bustling courtyard was empty. Everyone who wasn’t involved in the wedding had been ordered to stay away from the vicinity of the Maiden Tower, so that they wouldn’t accidentally set their eyes on the Princess as she made her way to her future husband.

Lady Abeline and the others were waiting outside the tower, holding a canopy of cloth-of-gold, which they held over our heads as we made our way over to the ornate blue litter carried by two white horses standing in the centre of the wide courtyard. The horses’ handler was Queen Elia’s elder brother and Katherine’s father—Lord Owan of House Killeen.

‘Uncle,’ I said, smiling warmly at the grey-haired lord.

Lord Owan inclined his head. ‘My niece.’

Despite his smiling face, I knew the Lord of Killeen was unhappy with my marriage to the Duke of Arundale. He had wanted me to wed his eldest son, also called Owan, and while I didn’t particularly like the thought of wedding my cousin—Owan was my brother’s closest friend and very immature—at least I knew him and he wasn’t the enemy.

The King helped me into the litter, and once I was settled in amongst the furs and cushions, he climbed in after me and drew the lace curtains to protect us from both biting insects and prying eyes. Where the day was hot, it was stifling inside the litter.

At the front of the litter, my uncle made a chirping sound and the litter suddenly lurched forwards as the horses started moving.

My father and I sat in silence, me staring at my hands, as my uncle led the litter out of the courtyard and over to Foxwell Castle’s temple of the Moon Goddess which stood in the centre of the castle’s sprawling gardens.

We came to a stop at the bottom of the temple’s wide steps. The girls had followed behind us on foot, and once they had the canopy of cloth-of-gold in position, my father climbed out of the litter and held out his hand.

I placed a trembling hand in my father’s large, warm one and stepped out of the litter, the canopy of cloth-of-gold protecting me from the glare of the midsummer sun.

As we walked up the steps to the temple, Lady Abeline looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. I gave a nervous smile in response.

At the top of the steps, in a small room to the right of the temple’s entrance, two girls clad in the pale green robes of a novice priestess were waiting to help the King out of his knee-high leather boots, and his daughter, her slippers—footwear wasn’t permitted in the temple.

Behind the girls were rows upon rows of wooden shelves laden with shoes, boots, and slippers—their owners already inside the temple. Incense was burning in holders on the walls to help combat the smell of feet, but it did little to help.

Once our footwear had been removed, my father and I walked through the curtained doorway, into the gloomy confines of the candlelit temple, the stone floor cold under my feet.

Nobles from both the Fair Isle and Farlow had come to witness the joining together of our two lands, meaning it was standing room only in the temple. King Tovak wasn’t present. Duke Lin, the newly-appointed Farlowian ambassador to the Fair Isle, was acting as the King of Farlow’s representative, and had arrived from Castleford—the Farlow capital—the previous week with chests filled with furs, silks, and jewels, as well as caged birds and a magnificent golden timepiece, its ivory face decorated with emeralds to mark the hours. Wedding gifts for the King’s cousin and his young bride.

My uncle stood near to the front of the congregation with his wife and three children, the Lord of Killeen and his daughter having removed their footwear and slipped into the temple while the novices were seeing to my father and me. Although I couldn’t see them in the crowd, Abeline, Beatrice, and Anne would be standing with their families.

Conscious of everyone’s eyes on me, I smiled nervously as my father led me down the aisle towards the stone altar where my future husband and the high priestess were standing, the latter dressed in traditional white flowing robes which reached to the floor, her fair hair tied at the back of her head in the intricate knotted hairstyle of the Sisterhood. The priestess wasn’t that many years older than me and had become the temple’s senior high priestess five years earlier, after her predecessor had died from old age. That she was the senior high priestess meant the priestess wore a gold silk sash around her waist rather than the white worn by the other priestesses.

My eyes going to my future husband, I saw Duke Leifur was dark-haired and taller than most. Across his broad shoulders was draped a deep blue velvet cloak edged with white sable, bearing House Arundale’s insignia of an albatross in flight, the blue representing the sea where the gigantic birds spent most their life.

I personally preferred the red fox’s head on a purple background of House Foxwell.

The duke was standing with his back to me, so I was unable to see his face, but according to court gossip, he was handsome.

To the left of the altar stood three tall and thin dark-haired women, who had to be the duke’s two younger sisters and his mother, the dowager Duchess of Arundale. The space where Leifur’s father would’ve stood was empty, the elderly Duke Henri having died three years previously.

On the other side of the altar stood the Crown Prince Jonaton, my fourteen-year-old brother and heir apparent to the Fair Isle throne. He was gripping the hand of our two-year-old sister tightly to stop Princess Marissa from running up the aisle at the sight of her father. King David doted on his youngest daughter. I wondered whether he would be as keen to pawn Marissa off to a stranger when she was of age as he was his elder daughter.

When we reached the altar, my father placed my hand on top of Leifur’s—symbolising the transferral of responsibility of my protection from my father to my husband—then joined his son and youngest daughter. The congregation laughed at the joyous squeal Princess Marissa let out as King David scooped her into his arms.

Father used to lift me like that, I thought sadly, watching my father with his youngest daughter. Now he was giving me away to the enemy.

Glancing up at Leifur, I smiled shyly at the duke. His muddy brown eyes stared stonily back.

Startled, I quickly looked away and stared at the three stone statues standing behind the altar representing the Goddess as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, their faces blurring as my eyes filled with tears.

He’s just nervous, I reasoned.

But at that moment, I realised my father had made a grave mistake.

I fought the urge to run as the high priestess took a length of white ribbon from the altar and tied it around mine and Leifur’s hands, binding us together as husband and wife, before sprinkling saltwater on our heads and waving a candle in front of us to symbolise the four elements. I tried to hide the tremor in my voice as I spoke the marriage vows.

In my nerves, I kept forgetting the words. Three times the high priestess had to remind me the correct words to say, and I heard Leifur’s tsk of irritation at my forgetfulness.

When it came time for Leifur’s mother to remove the cloak of House Arundale from her own shoulders and drape it over mine, making me the new Duchess of House Arundale, a sob escaped my throat.

To my surprise, the dowager duchess squeezed my shoulder gently, and when I looked at her, I saw sympathy in the older woman’s eyes. Clearly, I wasn’t the first terrified bride. Either that or the duchess knew what sort of man I was now married to.

The cloak safely in place, the high priestess led us around the back of the altar and through an arched doorway, into a room that was the most sacred area in the temple, a space where normally only those sworn into the Sisterhood were permitted to enter. The last time I had entered this part of the temple was when I was ten days old, when the King and Queen had brought me before the Goddess to ask that She bless their new daughter and heir.

As I stepped into the small, candlelit space, I heard the congregation shuffling from the temple. They would be going over to the inner keep’s Great Hall, where the wedding feast was being held.

Looking around the small space, I saw that on three of the room’s four walls a figure dressed in robes and with long, flowing hair had been lovingly etched into the stone in minute detail.

The figure of a young, lithe girl on the wall to my left represented the Goddess as the Maiden, the figure of a woman heavy with child directly in front of me represented the Goddess as the Mother, and the figure of the same woman with her back bent over with age and wrinkles on her face on the wall to my right represented the Goddess as the Crone.

Around the Mother were dozens of small alcoves, filled with circles of white ribbon, and on the small altar in front of Her stood a silver goblet, which I knew contained a fertility drink. Leifur was hoping to conceive the next Duke of Arundale that night.

Resting in the small alcove just inside the door was a crystal vase containing two small posies of carnations the same colour as the ones resting on my head. The high priestess motioned for us to each take one, and once we had the posies in our hands, she led us over to the statue of the Mother, where we knelt before the altar.

‘Mother Goddess, please take my offering and bless us with a happy marriage and many children,’ I whispered, placing my posy on the altar, to the left of the goblet.

‘Mother Goddess, please take my offering and bless us with a happy marriage and many children,’ Leifur said, his voice bland and his face stony as he placed his own posy on the altar, to the right of the goblet.

Seeing his expression, I didn’t hope for the first part of the prayer.

At the high priestess’s direction, Leifur took up the goblet and held it to my lips, still refusing to meet my eyes. I drank some of the contents, the sweet-tasting liquid nearly choking me. Once I’d had my share, Leifur drank the rest of the fertility drink and set the empty goblet on the altar. The priestess then carefully removed the ribbon binding our hands together, without undoing the knot, and once we were on our feet once more, handed the ribbon to me. Stepping forwards, I placed it in one of the small alcoves surrounding the Mother, on top of the ribbons that had been placed by countless brides before me—many of the ribbons had turned yellow with age. Somewhere amongst them was the ribbon that had been placed there by a young Princess Elia.

Once the ribbon was safely in its new home, I stood back and took a silent Leifur’s calloused hand once more. I wondered if he had gained the calluses while fighting my father’s men.

‘You are now one,’ the priestess told us.

‘We are now one,’ we echoed.

I noticed Leifur didn’t look particularly thrilled at this.

The ceremony over, it was time to join the others in the Great Hall for the wedding feast.

The wedding feast consisted of over thirty dishes prepared by chefs from both the Fair Isle and Farlow. It was probably delicious, but full of nerves, I mainly picked at my food, not even tasting it.

Leifur was seated next to me on the high table, but I may as well have been sitting next to a corpse for all the conversation there was between us. When I told him that I was looking forward to seeing my new home and asked him what Arundale Manor was like, he responded, in his nasal Farlow accent, I would find out when I got there, putting an end to that conversation. I then tried a different approach and asked him what he thought of the wedding feast.

‘About as much as I would expect at a Fair Isle wedding,’ was his response, which I thought was rich, considering the rate he was shovelling food into his mouth. ‘I would have preferred the wedding to have taken place at Arundale Manor, but your father refused.’ Leifur glared at me over the rim of his wine glass as though it was my fault that my father had denied him.

‘Royal weddings are always held at Foxwell Castle,’ I explained.

‘That’s what your father said,’ muttered Leifur, signalling for a serving boy to fill his glass.

Once his glass was filled, the duke waved the boy away without gesturing that he fill my glass. The boy filled it anyway, not that I was going to drink it. I was getting a headache and knew wine would only make it worse.

‘I hope you’re enjoying your visit to Foxwell Castle and your quarters are satisfactory,’ I said, once the boy had moved down the table to where my father was talking to the dowager duchess. It was nice to see the King with a smile on his face for once, though I wasn’t happy at the way the duchess was touching his arm. Queen Elia was less than two years in her tomb.

‘If, by satisfactory, you mean cold and draughty, then yes, they are more than satisfactory,’ was Leifur’s haughty response. ‘As for Foxwell Castle—it’s what I’d expect from a land such as the Fair Isle.’

I chose not to say that, if he thought so little of our land, why had he agreed to wed me? Instead, I held my tongue and reminded myself what my mother had once told me about her marriage to King David.

‘I didn’t always love your father,’ Queen Elia had said, when her young daughter had asked about marriage and love. ‘I wanted to wed another and was devastated when my father told me I was to be betrothed to King Willem’s eldest son. I had only met him the once, when I had come to court with my father and mother the previous year, and I had found the Crown Prince stuffy—more interested in his horses and hunting than he was talking to the girls at court—but I soon learnt to love him, as will you learn to love your husband.’

I hoped my mother was right.

At the end of the evening, I nervously left the Great Hall for the bridal suite at the top of the Maiden Tower. My cousin Katherine and the other girls came with me, and they giggled as they helped me out of my wedding silks and into my nightdress, joking about the wedding night.

Despite their laughter, I could detect an undercurrent of jealousy in their tone. I was the first of our group to wed and was entering a stage of life they were yet to experience, and until they were wed themselves, there would always be that difference separating us.

They wouldn’t be jealous if they knew what sort of person Leifur was proving to be, I thought.

I instantly regretted my unkind thoughts. My husband’s rudeness was probably down to him being nervous. He would be different once we returned to his land.

Once I was safely in the immense feather bed, its velvet hangings done in Foxwell purple and Arundale blue, the girls left the room for their own quarters on the floor below mine, leaving me to wait for my husband.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Eventually, the candles started guttering, forcing me to climb out of bed and light new ones, but there was still no sign of Leifur. I considered going to look for him, but worried he would come to the room and discover me gone, I decided not to. Perhaps he was just as nervous about the wedding night as what I was.

I was just dozing off when the sound of someone stumbling and cursing outside the bedchamber door startled me awake. The door flew open and Leifur practically fell into the bedchamber.

Swaying back on his heels, the duke belched loudly, then looked over at me sitting upright in bed, his brown eyes red with drink.

‘Oh good, you’re awake,’ he said, his voice slurred. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

He started to strip out of his clothes, nearly toppling over when his foot got caught in his trouser leg. I would’ve laughed at the sight, if I hadn’t been so nervous about the impending bedding. Once he was undressed, he staggered across the room towards the bed. I stared at the bedcovers, too shy to look at my husband’s naked body. Leifur climbed on the bed, and after yanking away the blankets and furs I had lifted to my throat, put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me backwards so that I was lying flat on the bed with him kneeling next to me.

When I had thought of my wedding night, I had imagined my new husband gently lifting my nightdress, kissing the exposed flesh as he went. What Leifur actually did was grab the front of my silk nightdress with both hands and tear the delicate fabric apart, exposing my nakedness. I was too shocked by his behaviour to protest it was a brand-new nightgown I had worn especially for the occasion.

Leifur stared silently at my ample breasts and slim waist, his expression impassive, making me squirm with self-consciousness, before clambering on top of me, using his leg to open mine. He started fumbling around between my legs, and my hands gripped the bed linens and I bit down on my lip to stop myself crying out at the sudden searing pain as he pushed himself inside me, breaking through my barrier.

I lay there, frozen, as Leifur moved and panted on top of me, his wine breath making me feel ill, his fingernails digging painfully into my hips as he invaded my body. This was nothing like how the ladies at my father’s court had described being bedded. They had made it sound so exciting and enjoyable. What Leifur was doing to me was anything but exciting and enjoyable.

On top of me, Leifur suddenly stopped moving and stiffened, his face twisting as he let out a peculiar sound that was a cross between a roar and a grunt. He then climbed off me and collapsed sideways on the bed.

‘Hopefully, you’re with child so we don’t have to do that again,’ he muttered, rolling over so that his back was to me.

He pulled the covers around himself, then promptly started snoring loudly, leaving me to sob alone as the ugly truth about our marriage suddenly became clear.

Chapter Two

Sixteen years later.

I was standing on the top deck of a ship berthed in the busy main port of Albatross Island. It was a couple of weeks after Midsummer, and the summer sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, making me feel uncomfortably warm in my black mourning dress.

King David—my beloved father—was dead and I was on my way to the Fair Isle to attend both his funeral and my brother’s coronation.

It was the first opportunity I’d had to return home since leaving the Fair Isle the morning after my wedding sixteen years earlier. Not that I hadn’t wanted to.

Far from it.

I had begged Leifur more times than I could remember to give me a ship so that I could visit my ailing father, but he had always denied me. He would’ve denied me this time, too, were it not for the fact Jonaton had demanded that I attend his coronation. Leifur wouldn’t dare ignore a King’s Order. But I had felt his wrath.

I lifted my hand and touched my face. I could still feel the sting of Leifur’s hand making contact with my cheek when I had presented him with Jonaton’s letter, complete with the King’s Seal. It was the first time my husband had ever struck me, although I knew from his eyes that he had wanted to do it many, many times before.

It hadn’t taken me long for my delusion that my husband’s rudeness was down to nerves to be completely destroyed. He was, quite simply, the nastiest person I had ever met. A bully who took pleasure in belittling everyone residing at Arundale Manor, including his wife, and preferred drinking and gambling with his lord friends and bedding their wives to spending time with his own. Which was fine with me. As far as I was concerned, the less time I had to spend with my husband the better.

The last decade and a half had been a trial. I had no allies among those of my adopted land—the dowager duchess, the closest I’d had to a friend among my husband’s household, and the only one able to keep a leash on her son, had died during my first winter at the manor. Leifur’s two sisters had left Albatross Island for their new husbands’ castles on the Farlow mainland soon after, thankful to finally be free of their tyrant of a brother.

All the ladies who visited Arundale Manor were the wives of Leifur’s friends and, in some cases, his lovers, too, and I knew if I complained to them about how unhappy I was, word would soon get back to Leifur. For the same reason, I couldn’t speak to any of the staff. Neither could I write home and tell my father of my unhappiness, as Leifur insisted on reading my letters before they were sent. He didn’t want me exposing the truth of the sort of person he really was. Instead, I was forced to lie in my correspondence to my father, informing the King that I was happy with my life at Arundale Manor and apologising that I was still too busy to come and see him, but hopefully I would be able to visit soon once things were quieter. Had my father not been wrapped up in grief for his dead wife, I knew he would have been suspicious of his daughter’s short and infrequent letters and the fact I hadn’t visited him once in my sixteen years of marriage. At least, I hoped he would’ve done. I didn’t want to think that perhaps my father had abandoned me to my fate.

Even Violet—my latest lady’s maid and a gift from Leifur—was in the duke’s pocket. And, I suspected, his bed.

At least he didn’t visit my bedchamber anymore. Those unpleasant, and thankfully infrequent, interactions had stopped fourteen years before, when I had given birth to Ari.

I smiled.

My little Ari. He was the only decent thing to have come from our farce of a marriage.

I hadn’t seen Ari for over two years, not since that cold and wet winter’s morning he had left Arundale Manor for King David’s court. It was usual for the grandchildren of the King or Queen to be educated at Foxwell Castle, as my brother and I were when our grandfather, King Willem, was King. But unlike Princess Elia, I hadn’t been permitted to go with my child. Nor had I been allowed to visit him.

Another spitefulness on Leifur’s part. The duke couldn’t care less about his only legitimate child, seeing him as merely an heir, and a weak one at that. According to Leifur, Ari was too much like his mother. I had lost count of the times the duke had said he would’ve had another child, perhaps the second time around he’d get a son he could be proud of, if it wasn’t for the fact it would mean having to lay with me. Not that he openly admitted he no longer came to my bed. Instead, he made out that I had been unable to become pregnant a second time; yet another thing I was useless at.

I didn’t know how many knew the truth—that the duke preferred the beds of whores and mistresses to that of his own wife’s—but I had seen the smirks on the faces of those visiting Arundale Manor to know it wasn’t exactly a secret. There had also been fewer and fewer of the duke’s friends visiting the manor over the years. They obviously hadn’t appreciated Leifur taking their wives to his bed and filling their bellies with his bastards.

If only I had been able to escape so easily.

‘The captain asks if we are ready to go, princess.’

Startled from my thoughts, I turned my gaze to the blond-haired, grey-eyed vampire who had come to stand alongside me—the only one of the guards on the ship whose dark-coloured guard’s cloak bore the red fox’s head of House Foxwell rather than the Albatross of Arundale. Guardsman Bren had been my guard since the day of my birth, and the only person to have come with me to Albatross Island. For the long years I was at Arundale Manor, Bren had been my only friend and the only person I trusted—a small piece of home.

Not that Leifur was happy when he had discovered Bren would be accompanying the new Duchess of Arundale to Albatross Island, saying his bride could have one of his own guards assigned to her, but King David was adamant.

I didn’t know if the reason my father had insisted that Bren accompany me was because he had wanted his daughter to have a familiar face in her new home, or if he had known the sort of person that he was giving me to. Either way, I was grateful for my father’s insistence. Bren was probably the only reason Leifur hadn’t struck me before, and the guardsman’s company had stopped my life from being completely unbearable.

Muscular, as all male vampires were, Bren had been Turned late in his third decade nearly fifty years before. I