Blood Guardian Beloved First Chapters!

I'm here, I'm impatient, and I'd love your feedback! This blog includes two entries to Blood Guardian Beloved. Which chapter snags your attention the most? Why? Which made you feel more connected with the POV character? What are you curious about? What did you HATE? Rage against the chapters!

NOTE: THESE ARE UNEDITED CHAPTERS. This is a draft, not a polished piece. You'll see plenty of errors, likely some typos (sorry, not sorry, my brain is like a toddler's playroom at this stage). This is the version where my mind is toying with the outlines and characters' arcs and backstories that I have handwritten.

You'll see from the picture above that I have since changed my MC's names (if you can even read my atrocious handwriting). Also, what I outline for each chapter doesn't necessarily become the actual events of that chapter. Stories and characters sometimes take on a life of their own.

Always brainstorming!

Without further ado, here are the two chapter intros, titled by their POV character:

Blood Guardian Beloved

Guard and bride. Mask and silence. Love was never part of the oath.

Chapter 1

Intro Option #1

Lottie

If I dance well enough, their eyes will stay on me instead of straying to the man in the falcon mask butchering our neighbor’s son. The thud of Ivar’s body hitting the dirt on the path outside our house signals that the executioners have positioned him for death. It’s loud enough that even I can hear it. The next sound will be steel against bone, louder still.

I try a new fan kick and leap to give my sisters something fresh to watch, but as soon as Ivar screams, they snap their attention to the window with their mouths falling open. They once looked at me like that, except when they parted their lips, it was in awe, not fear.

I sway in front of them, and almost tilt forward too far. It’s a desperate attempt to block the window before the executioner’s axe hits Ivar’s neck. The falcon-masked man is notorious for missing a clean strike, which meant he’d have to hack at Ivar’s neck with no less than five swings.

Children should never have to witness an execution, much less one as brutal as this. Even hearing it made me vomit when I was their age. All I have to do is keep dancing, and they’ll stay distracted. It’s what my mother said, and it’s what I’ll repeat to myself until their eyes are back on me.

I leap with my legs in a split, and the balls of my feet land hard on the creaking wood. If I practice that, my landing won’t be so heavy. My mother’s voice needles me again, but she’s right. I need to practice every waking hour, or I’ll be passed over.

My feet fight back as every muscle throbs, and my arms shake when I lift them above my head. My heels tip up, pushing me forward in a bend while I arch my back. Halle, Dahlia, and Suvi squeal and clap at my dance, but Linnea looks past me, eyes glued on the spray of blood that no doubt spotted our window with scarlet flecks. Since Linnea turned fourteen, her child-like features fading and highlighting the seven-year gap between her and the three youngest, my performances no longer captivated her. Not when she wanted to see—to make her own choice whether or not to watch the brutal reality of living in Mara.

I don’t blame her. Even at twenty-one, every decision is made for me. The choice to watch an execution is one of the last we claim for ourselves. But like me, Linnea needs guidance. She needs Mother and Papa to tell her to avert her eyes, to keep her head down in the market when a masked man or woman passes by, to dream of what our lives will be like when my dance wins an invitation.

“He’s dead,” Linnea says, her flat voice mirroring her words. I only heart it because she enunciates enough to make sure I’ve caught it. Though I hear plenty well enough in the quiet of our own home. It’s in the village or the market where I can’t distinguish words from noise, and where I rely on hand signing or reading lips. I look at her anyway, waiting to see if she’ll sign something else to add to her declaration of Ivar’s death.

She’s not scared, but her announcement makes Halle and Suvi’s eyes blow wide open. Dahlia whimpers.

I drop to my knees and gather her bony body in my arms. “It’s okay,” I croon.

“Crows, Lottie.” Linnea groans. “Stop lying to her. Ivar’s head is rolling into the street.”

I pin her with a glare, but my frown quickly melts away at the shimmer in her eyes. She’s fourteen, and she’s seen too much. Ivar’s father starving to feed his family, collapsing in the fields because he gave every bit of food to Ivar and his sisters. Executioners ending the lives of anyone who dared break the bloodshed law.

Dahlia buries her nose in my shoulder, and I hug her tighter. “Ivar isn’t okay, that’s true. But we’re okay. We have our house, and both Mother and Papa. We’re all healthy and strong.” I pull back and flex my arm, and then lift Dahlia’s arm. “Look at those muscles!”

She cracks a smile, but it doesn’t last. Not with the grumbling in her belly. All five of us get snappy and harsh when we’re hungry. Dahlia’s lower lip protrudes in a rosy pout. “But I’m not as strong as a dancer.”

“You don’t need to be,” I say as I tuck a curl behind her ear. “You get to do whatever you want. I’ll do the dancing so you can…” I tap my chin performatively as I look around, pretending to think deeply. “Hmm. You can be a baker!”

Her mouth drops open in that look of awe I’ve been chasing from her all evening. “In The Mara?” 

I hold a smile like someone holds a crying child. Everything within me tenses when that name comes up. The center of our world—The Mara—the castle looming on the highest peak in Vylheim is where I’ll die.

If I’m lucky.

No, actually, luck has nothing to do with it. Skill, practice, talent, hours and hours of bloody feet and breathlessness are the only things that will get me there. And I only have nine more days until King Alrick’s right hand travels the villages with invitations to offer entertainers.

I have to be perfect for when she comes to the eastern edge of Mara.

I glance at the window where the yellowed glass has droplets of red. Beyond it, only a matching stain is left in the dirt path. The executioners and Ivar’s body are already gone, thank the Kings.

“Yes,” I push out the answer with a breath. “In The Mara. If that’s what you want. Or in the village where Dani sells her bread. What about that? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Why not The Mara?” Mother’s voice chimes in. The back door slams shut behind her and

Papa, and he sheds furs covered in bristles from the weeds growing beside the tares in the wheat field. Sprinkles of white salt his blond hair and smile lines wrinkle at his eyes as he looks between Mother and me. “That’s where you’re going to be,” she says. “Would be lovely for two sisters to serve King Alrick together.”

I hold a watery smile and lift my shoulder limply. “I was just giving her options. More choices.”

Mother’s tongue clucks as she stokes the fire in the hearth. She keeps her eyes on me as she stirs the broth suspended in a black pot over the flame. “Too many choices are dangerous.”

Bored with the conversation they’ve heard dozens of times, Dahlia, Suvi, and Halle sneak out the front door to see what they’ve missed. At least the stain is nothing new. They’ve seen plenty of blood watching the chickens and pigs get butchered before our farms ran scarce.

Linnea sinks beneath the window, waiting in the shadows and hoping to catch more of the story Mother never fully reveals. It’s one I’ll never tell her either. Though I almost did a few months ago, when we both went to bed without supper so our sisters could eat.

“You should know, Lottie,” she says with a sigh, as if I could ever forget what I did.

Papa’s not much taller than Mother, and almost level with me, but when he steps in front of the hearth, the house falls into shadow. He commands the room with grace and a smile. “Let’s go to the market,” he says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.

It’s our signal of excitement. He claps his hands in anticipation every time I set up to perform another dance. And I always did it back when he’d sit me on his knee and tell me a story fourteen years ago, before any of my sisters were born. The gaps between Linnea and me and Linnea and the little ones serve as a constant reminder of their fertility struggles, but I relish those memories. Just me and Papa together when Mother was resting, and hoping to be pregnant. And then she finally was again, but Linnea wasn’t a boy.

And again and again, the little ones came out girls, not the strong lad Father needed for hooking up oxen and tilling wheat.

Not until little Alrick. Named after the king—named after he died.

“Yes, go.” Mother scans me, her wide chestnut eyes so much darker looking against pale blond hair.

I’m her mirror with my ash-white hair and slender nose. We even share the same lack of hips and other womanly curves. This shape works for dancing, but I can’t help wondering if I’ll struggle in labor and birth someday, too. If I’ll ever have a child, or a husband—a family. A chosen entertainer for the court serves an entire life of performance, not a villager’s or courtier’s life, where you choose a partner and build a home together.

But it’s a good life. One of splendor and more food than I can fathom. One dancing before an audience rather than endless hours of practice. One where I get to showcase what I do best, and inspire peace, ‌joy, and awe. The whole purpose I fell in love with dance.

Mother stirs the thin broth, and the scrape of the wooden spoon announces that there isn’t enough in the pot for all of us to eat. I need to earn trade in the market to feed us adults. My second purpose for dance. It earns any coin that villagers with better fare than us can spare for more entertainment. If I stop, another coin gets tossed into tin cup, and I perform again.

Mother says something under her breath, and I can guess what it’s about. Linnea leans forward, straining to hear what happened that made Mother keep us all under lock and key.

“You know she loves you,” Papa says as the door slams behind us. He sends the little ones back inside to eat and hurry to bed. Sunset casts a shadowy glow over the stain from Ivar’s beheading. The girls have kicked up enough dust that the memory of his loss is almost already erased.

“Ma?” I ask. We follow the path draped with trees toward the village. This far inland, the woods are thicker, usually blocking the smell of foaming salt and the crash of waves from Mara’s eastern shore, but today the wind thrashes with more violence, and a blackbird catches my eye. The raven suspends itself against the wind, floating, its black feathers spread wide. “Ma loves my dancing.”

“She loves you, Lottie. We all do. And of course your dancing too. Who doesn’t love that? You spin and jump like a goddess. I swear Suvi thinks you’re an actual goddess some days.” He bumps me with his shoulder, and that perpetual smile keeps his face bright as the sun dips below the horizon.

“Did you see her try to copy your steps this morning? You’re her hero, Petal.”

I grab his arm and hug it, resting my head on his shoulder for a moment, just as I did the first time he called me Petal, when a poppy petal caught in the tin of rainwater and spun around with the wind. He said it looked just like my dancing.

“Well,” I hum, “I just hope King Alrick will think so too. Then we’ll have money to shop at the market instead of only sell.” I glance at the scant bundle of seeds he holds wrapped in burlap. “Bloodshed won’t even be illegal for us.” Not that it mattered, but in case Suvi’s temper got to her and she punched the boy down the street for taunting her, even she as a child would suffer the Grimward’s punishment. We wouldn’t have to worry about these things anymore. Exhibitioners are forgiven, and sometimes their families are granted access to a life of full freedom. King Alrick prizes talent and skill, and passion for entertainment above all else, and these liberties encourage people to pursue this higher calling, raising the beauty and opulence of the entire kingdom in a world where our enemies wield impossible glamour coveted by our courts. Though very few peasants ever succeed.

Papa’s voice rumbles in his body, a low vibration that I don’t hear over the wind. I lift my head and trace the shape of his moving mouth with my gaze.

“Do you really plan to leave us?” he asks. “I can’t imagine the farm without our Petal. Suvi will think you’ve gone to visit Valhalla, where only we mortals can see when we’re dead.”

“You’ll miss me, but you won’t miss skipping supper,” I say. I shake my head and flick my eyes up to the raven again. Cocking its head, a single beaming dark eye flickers in its skull, pinning me for a moment before its beak cracks and a screech sounds. Wind swallows the pitchy scream, and the raven dives forward. The black body blurs in front of us as it plummets toward the earth.

I hold my breath, waiting for this animal’s suicide when it swoops up at the last second. It lands on the shoulder of a masked man approaching us.

The crow mask pinpoints this executioner as one everyone, even my sister’s, know, and though I’ve never seen him before, it’s obvious this is the most decorated—yet youngest-–executioner in Mara’s history based on the size of his mask. It covers so much of his face, more than any other executioner I’ve seen, and the clay, etched with features of a crow, has pieces of real bone in it.

He pushes past us without notice while two other masked men follow in his wake. Ivar’s already dead, so whatever they needed on this side of Mara’s village is a mystery.

I breathe again when they’re out of sight, and the lively conversations at the market drown the howling wind.

Papa signs for me to set up between where Sigrid and her husband sell smoked fish and Dani’s bread stores. He says it’s good to dance where there’s food, so the audience doesn’t have to venture far to get their fill and miss out on the show. He’s been proven right when I end up with more coin every time I perform near them.

Plus, I love hanging around Sigrid and her husband. She’s only a year older than me, but after marriage and three children and a home of her own, she knows things I only dream about.

I wave as I move into place. Smoke billows up in front of her face where she cooks her husband’s catches, but I can see her white teeth flashing behind the puffs.

I turn and face the crowd of bodies milling about the market. Some glance my way, but I’m doing nothing of interest yet.

My fingers quiver, and I stuff them into my pockets before I take a slow inhale. This is the exact spot I’ll be when King Alrick’s exhibit advisor comes. Nine nights from now, I have to do this without a single hitch.

Papa raises his hands and expands his chest—his sign for me to breathe, to relax and ready to perform. Because as much as I love every step, I hate having to do it alone, and today, Father didn’t bring his bone drum. The vibration of the rhythm gives my dance guidance. But he plans to sell his seeds this time. We have to split up to make as much money for trade as possible.

A warm hand lands on my wrist and gives it a squeeze. I flash a smile at Sigrid.

“You don’t need his music,” she says, her mouth shaping each word carefully enough for me to follow.

I smile, but she’s wrong. I can’t think of how to start. This isn’t like dancing for my sisters. Papa slips away in the crowd, and now I’m truly alone in this performance. No vibration, no rhythm to follow.

A man has already stopped to eye my tin cup and wait for me to do something. Do anything, literally anything at all. What leap did I do earlier? A split? And then followed by…crows, I have no clue what sequence to string together. Everything feels clunky as I do a few light stretches.

I start moving but it’s as wrong as Sigrid, so I freeze. The man shakes his head and wanders away.

Sigrid rubs her belly, swollen with pregnancy as she shouts my name and cheers for me to continue. She’s a godsend, but I don’t want to move.

“I need a rhythm to guide me.”

She shakes her head, her thick braid swaying side to side. “No, you just need to trust yourself.” Her lips spell it out for me, but it’s as if she’s speaking a foreign language.

Papa’s smile appears in the mass of faces again, and I can finally draw breath. He makes the shape of a petal with his hand and then twirls his finger.

It’s enough to spark my movement. I copy the same choreography I strung together for the girls. It’s easy enough until I get to a split leap, and I feel too tight in this space with so many eyes on me.

I kick and spread my legs in the air, and it ignites a gasp from someone. Or so I guess, based on the way the woman’s mouth pops open. My gaze locks on my father’s head behind her. He moves through the crowd, slipping in and out of groups, sometimes visible, always nearby.

The first man who wandered away comes back to watch as the woman and two more men dip forward and toss coins into my cup. I smile my appreciation, and it inspires another coin from the first man.

I close my eyes and let my body lead the way. Even if there’s no drum to carry the lead, I use the faint murmur of conversation like music to follow, until a shout, deep and reverberating, shocks me from the dance.

My eyes pop open. The crowd watching me has spread open, like water splitting around a stone, except that stone is my father and a man with my father’s throat in one hand and a wolf’s mask in his other hand.

My arms fall heavy at my sides and my heart sinks. What’s an executioner doing grabbing my father? And with his mask off?

A towering figure shoulders through the crowd, the face of a crow plastered over his flesh.

My heart thuds as I try to catch the sound of his voice. The crowd has quieted enough, too shocked, or amused, or whatever by this scene. I can’t even move.

“What the fuck are you doing, Wolf?” The Crow barks.

“This rat stole from me,” Wolf nearly spits in my father’s face as he speaks.

The Crow folds his arms. “You’re sure of this?”

“The oath, Crow, I never lie about a crime.”

“Even if it gets you arrested too?” The Crow says.

Wolf balks at that, his jaw hanging open for a moment before he snaps it shut and straightens. “What—”

“Your mask is off, and you’re mingling with villagers as one of them. The oath is broken.”

Wolf’s hands fly to his face as he replaces the mask over his nose and eyes. “Stealing is an offense punishable by trial and death,” he nods. “If I didn’t report it, I’d be betraying the oath more than this.”

Punishable by death. My throat tightens. I’ve only ever cared about the bloodshed law. Don’t fight. Don’t draw blood. That’s all that’s ever mattered. I’ve heard nothing of a punishment so heavy for stealing. And my father… a thief?

I tilt my head, trying to catch Papa’s eyes. It can’t be true, but when his hand flexes, I know there’s something in his fist. It’s the same way he holds on so tightly to the bundle of seeds. Like they’re life or death, and they almost are, considering we need everything we can get to eat before the winter will make our farm even worse off.

The Crow shouts at two other executioners who seize my father’s arms.

No. I’m frozen to the earth. My bare feet have grown roots like a stagnant tree.

“You’ll be taken and tried with likelihood of hanging,” one of the executioner’s says as they grip Papa’s bicep so hard the skin turns white. Wolf pries Father’s hand open and yanks the coins from his palm. “Your crime has been witnessed by an executioner. You have a fortnight’s trial.”

No, no, no!

They force my father through the crowd without giving him the chance to look back. The Crow follows, his grip just as brutal on Wolf’s arm. Both are arrested, but only one will be killed.

I finally get my toes to wiggle and my feet peeled off the ground. I shove through elbows and shoulders.

“Wait! Papa! Boe!” I scream his name so that he’ll turn back.

He twists as much as he can. Tears swim in his eyes as he shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says. “Stay back, Lottie. The Crow is ruthless, please—”

I can’t. I won’t let them take him. My father isn’t a criminal. He just wants Ma and Linnea to have food.

I push my way in front of the towering man in a bear’s mask. He halts and glares down at me as I clasp my hands like a child pleading for one more story before bedtime.

“Please, don’t take him,” I beg. “Please. He’s my father. My best friend—he has a whole family who loves him. We need him. I need him!”

The eyes behind the mask, dark green and narrowed, soften slightly. Or so I hope.

He says something, but I don’t hear it. The noise is too great again. He’s not shouting, and that damn mask covers too much of his mouth in shadow.

The Crow steps to the side and marches on.

“I love you, Petal,” Papa mouths as they pass by. Then he fixes his gaze ahead.

“I’ll follow you,” I say. “To The Mara. I’ll be there in less than a fortnight and I’ll change the king’s mind…” My voice dies away as Father gets too far. The stone wall of man between us will block the sound, anyway. I can’t tell if I’m even loud enough.

The Crow's muscles flex beneath his tunic as he shoves Wolf onward. I’m frozen again, like a stupid tree, as I watch them leave until I can no longer see my father.

A warm hand slips into mine, and I turn to Sigrid with tears blurring my vision.

She leans toward my ear and speaks clearly. “I’m sorry.”

The tears spill over, and claws seem to close around my throat. Everything squeezes, and I don’t know when I’ll breathe again.

“That’s what he said,” Sigrid speaks again. “The Crow. He said ‘I’m sorry’ when you asked him not to take Boe.”

My gaze trails toward The Crow again, but he’s gone. Distance has swallowed him and my father, and I won’t see them again unless I earn that damn invitation and dance in The Mara.

Blood Guardian Beloved

Guard and bride. Mask and silence. Love was never part of the oath.

Chapter 1

Intro Option #2

Viggo

A twitch ripples along my back, settling between my spine when I lift the ax. I grit my teeth and align the blade with the protruding nodules of the man’s spine as his head dips forward in one last bow of shame. The twitch jolts through me again and radiates across my shoulders, knocking the ax’s alignment from the back of the man’s neck. Killing always triggers the ghost feeling of my wings before King Alrick used this same ax to cut them off.

The tremor in my shoulders triggers my crow to take flight. Phantom launches his spindly legs off from the leather pauldron armor protecting my shoulder. The bird lands on the prisoner’s head and plucks a lock of the man’s hair between his beak. He tugs, hard, to signal for the man to look up. Phantom cocks his head and peers at me with one beady black eye to see if he’s helpful. He never helps with protecting, the other most important part of my job, but when it comes to killing and interrogation, the little asshole joins right in, following my lead.

As I line the weapon up again, another member of the Grimward drops to one knee before our prisoner, and his fingers adjust the snake-shaped mask fitted to his face.

I grunt a warning, and Snake frowns up at me. “I’m not completely removing it,” he hisses. “Just a little tweaking. When they see my eyes, interrogation goes better. Trust me. They spill more when the eyes aren’t shadowed.”

“The mask stays,” I say.

Snake doesn’t question it. Nobody questions me. Not after King Alrick granted me the highest title in the Grimward—his own personal guard. Something of which I had to sacrifice one of my last remaining fae features to swear my allegiance to the vampire king. Though instead of guarding a fanged king who can run faster than me, I take care of what he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with.

With a jerk of my chin, I motion for Snake to get on with the ultimatum, but the gesture is also a silent signal Phantom understands; meaning to fly above and check for nearby humans. Let’s get the name out of the farmer, or execute him. I’m not waiting around for Snake to play with the vampire’s food. There could be accomplices lurking in the ash trees surrounding this path between the castle and Mara’s closest village. Phantom obeys, expanding his midnight wings and soaring overhead. That damn twitch zips down either side of my spine again. Five-hundred and seventy-one days passed since I had wings of my own.

Snake flicks his tongue out over his lips—a habit for which he was named when he became an executioner, and grips the man’s chin, forcing him to look up. “Who told you?” he asked. I frown, pity swelling within me for the sour smell of Snake’s breath in his face. If I spent my last moments alive with that idiot breathing on me, I’d beg for the mercy of death sooner.

“Long live the people of Vylheim,” the prisoner says with a puff of white air from his mouth.

Ice floods with the push of my pulse through my veins. Autumn is ending, and though this coming season will yield nothing grand, the Winter Court will rise again. I’ve written this on the bone of my wings before they burned on a pyre in a traditional Viking funeral, allowed for this piece of me by King Alrick as a sign of respect. I was welcomed into his kingdom, a part of it now, and when the Winter Court returned, I’d make him a part of my kingdom. Brothers in our impossibly long lives, despite the war that brought us together. It isn’t the fault of vampires that the human’s gods created humans and gave them life in the Winter Court. The vampires didn’t take our home, but they kept it.

Still, King Alrick was merciful to end the war between us with a simple bargain. He never pushed back into West Anglor where the displaced fae of the Winter Court are forced to share with the Spring Court after we attacked and raided his shores.

Snake grabs the man’s throat and shakes him. “Tell us now or you will have the shortest life of all of them.” He tilts his head, eyes unblinking, obvious even from beneath the shadow of his mask because my second-in-command is terrifying to look at when he gets like this. “Or are you not a person of Vylheim?” He snickers and moves the man’s head from side to side as if to examine him. “Perhaps not. Vylheim doesn’t breed cowards anymore, does it? We Vikings are monsters.”

I flinch. We were the first to go Viking, raiding the Summer and Spring Courts for powers and luxuries the Winter Court did not possess. The ancient humans only copied us. But monster wasn’t an inaccurate depiction of the people here, not even the Grimward. I was the only monster born from the Winter Court, and the only monster in Vylheim.

“So share with inquiring minds,” Snake continues, “who told you about the courtiers?”

The man hawks a wad of phlegm and spits it onto Snake’s cheek. “Long live the humans of Vylheim.”

That’s enough. I wave Snake away, line the weapon up again before lifting it, and then slam blade against bone, once—twice, before the man’s head severs entirely and drops to the dirt with a thud. Twice, because I’m jarred. I’m always jarred when the impossible cold of Vylheim returns.

Snake breaks ‌into a hysterical laugh as he kicks the man’s head, and I expect this shit to turn my stomach, but I’m growing used to his presence. He’s the least idiotic of the Grimward, even if that’s not saying much. It’s no wonder King Alrick selected me, as an outsider, to lead this band of executioners and ensure the secrecy of vampires while supplying them fresh blood.

I grab the ax higher on the hilt, flip the blade toward me, and smash the oak handle against my second’s shoulder. It does little to deter his laughter, but instead of using the man’s head like a ball in a game, he rolls it back toward the lifeless body and throws a canvas over it. His next task is to return the body to the castle while it's still fresh to avoid wasting any blood. Lower-classed courtiers feed on the executed while the higher classes and King Alrick only accept blood that still flows through sweet veins. Made sweeter by the individual human’s countenance.

“Crow!” A familiar voice sends my heart thumping at the same time that it warms the chill in my veins. Other than Phantom, King Alrick is my only friend here, even if he doesn’t know my real name.

The leather armor strapped over nearly every part of my body shuffles as I turn to greet the king and drop my head.

Before I offer a bow, he waves a lazy hand and then rakes his fingers through his blond waves. His bright, wispy hair and pointed chin always remind me of a child, like the younger brother I never had, and it makes me more protective of him and his kingdom. Especially with the shadowed crescents hugging his lower eyelids and red shot through the whites of his eyes. As I understood it, it took the weight of an entire kingdom for a vampire’s body to display signs of exhaustion, and suddenly he didn’t look like a child anymore, but a worn-out king, desperate to stave off all the other fanged men and women who wanted his crown.

I stop the bow short and stand at attention, though half of my attention is tracking Phantom circling the forest overhead. If he’s found accomplices, I don’t have time to stand here and tell King Alrick we haven’t found the infiltrator. I’ll be too busy tracking them.

“Crow, my brother.” the king slaps his palms against my shoulders, a far reach for the vampire whose crown of his head only reaches to the center of my chest. The glamour I share with him and the vampires cannot make him any taller; it can only alter their appearances so that the humans don’t know they don’t age and never die. I look down, meeting his pale blue eyes. The only time I’m beneath him is when I’m bowing, or when he cut off my wings. “There is wonderful news.”

“You have found the infiltrator?” I ask.

King Alrick smirks and shakes his head. His overgrown, curly hair bounces, and he looks far more innocent than I know he is. “For now, I ask you to abandon this task and take up a new investigation.” His eyes flash with excitement, and I almost feel it too. “You’re going to love this, brother. I know you miss the exuberance of the courts you grew up in.” King Alrick’s exhibits have grown in the past few years from a few simple singers to illusionists, rope walkers, fire breathers, minstrels, and beast tamers. I never knew if he expanded the court’s exhibits because of what I told him about the entertainment available in the fae courts, or because the exhibit was really a cover for seeking and claiming the most desirable human blood. Those with talent and skill, goals and aspirations, are supposedly of higher value to drink from. Though I didn’t know if the king bought into the superstition that humans who offer art and entertainment could grant the vampire who drank from them a similar talent. “This winter will have the grandest exhibit yet.”

Phantom swoops down behind the king, one of his claws clipping the iron crown nesting in King Alrick’s curls. The crow lands on my shoulder and lets out a single, unwelcome caw at the most powerful person in the kingdom. Why King Alrick allowed me to keep my companion when Phantom so clearly did not like him, I didn’t understand. Maybe calling me Crow, then, wouldn’t make sense, and he’d have to admit that he didn’t know my name—or me, at all.

King Alrick only glances at him before grinning at me, sharp fangs bared. “There is rumor of an insanely talented dancer in (name) village. I must set eyes upon her, and she must audition for the exhibit this year. Please find her for me, and we shall have the most wonderful winter together watching her dance.”

I offer him a nod.

“Speak up, Crow,” he says, smirking at my usual silence. “I’m tired of talking to myself.”

“Can your advisor not locate her?” I ask. “Myrah conducts the auditions, right?”

“I need someone I can trust.”

My brow furrows beneath the clay mask plastered to my face. Didn’t he trust his advisor? The shield maiden who retired from battle just to serve him? “Does this dancer have a name?”

He chuckles and slaps his hand against my shoulder again. “You fae are so finicky about names.”

“I’ll find her faster with a name.”

He leans in. “I don’t know that yet. It is only a rumor, you see?” His voice drops lower with each word, and the scrape of blade against bone grinds from it. “Find her. Bring her to me.” With his fingers gripping tighter on my shoulder, Phantom releases another caw.

“What about the infiltrator? How is culling the exposure not more important than a single girl?”

“I didn’t say it’s more important.” he lifts his chin, a lighter tone returning to his voice with the gesture. “It’s equally important.” His unblinking gaze unsettles me, unlike when Snake stares for too long. With King Alrick, it’s unnatural for him to appear so wild, so out of his mind. Worry beats through my chest for the only person I trust in this entire forsaken land. This isn’t the first time he’s become too…obsessed with something until he lost himself long enough that I had to glamor another vampire to step in as king and appear as him. Alrick is strong, but not strong enough to be king for as long as he has, he would appreciate the luxury of rest in the Winter Court.

“If I find the girl, or the infiltrator, may I have leave this winter to visit the dying lands?”

He recoils, offended. “You would leave me for that sorry patch of dirt? And during the exhibit?”

I clear my throat. “If I find the girl, or the infiltrator, you will grant me leave from this post and I will return to watch the exhibit at the Winter Court with you at my side, right?”

His near-transparent blond eyelashes flutter, but as he has no concept of the seasonal courts, he finally relents. “Yes, of course. But you must find both.”

I smirk, knowing this would be his stipulation. The scarred flesh on my face pulls taut where a Vylheim warrior once tried to cut the Fae glimmer from my cheek.

“Is it a deal?” I ask, confirming the final agreement between knight and king.

“Yes,” he repeats. “It is a deal.”

I suck in a breath. One should never make a deal with the Fae, especially not Fae from the Winter Court, but this is for his own good.

Now is your chance to tell me your thoughts! (Feel free to DM me on socials, or comment here). Who pulled you in more? Viggo (Crow) or Lottie? I can't WAIT to share more of Blood Guardian Beloved with you. If you'd like to reserve a copy, check out your options here - BLOOD GUARDIAN BELOVED.

Thank you, love you, byeeee! With love and vibes,

Elsa