The Name She Wrote in Blood novel · Chapter 1 of 12
Chapter 1: The Book of Names
I woke up with a silver stake driven through my heart.
That was the first thing I felt.
Then came the ceiling.
A ceiling of black beams, with golden cobwebs and an unlit chandelier.
I sat up with a jolt, my hand pressed to my chest.
There was no stake.
There was no blood.
My heart, still for two hundred years, wasn't beating.
But my body remembered the pain.
Every fiber remembered what it had felt like to die.
I was sitting on the edge of the bed in my old room, in the east tower of Moon Hall.
I was wearing a white nightgown I hadn't put on in a hundred years.
On the vanity, a silver mirror reflected my face.
Twenty-six years of appearance, dark hair, gray eyes.
The same dark circles as always.
And not a single scar.
The night before I died, I'd had scars on my neck, my hands, my back.
The kind a hundred years of being someone's shadow leaves behind.
I got up.
I went to the window.
Down in the courtyard, the servants were hanging lanterns for the ritual.
I recognized every one of them.
The blood ritual.
Tonight, at midnight, Prince Ansgar Valmont's chosen one would write her name in the Book of Names.
It was the blood bond.
The companion.
The consort.
She who would feel what he felt, and of whom he would feel everything, for eternity.
I had been that vampire the first time.
I had dreamed of that day for forty years.
Ever since the night I was presented to the prince and he, without smiling, told me I had the eyes of a library.
And I got it.
I became Ansgar Valmont's consort.
I lived at his side for a hundred years.
A hundred years of long tables, of courts, of salons, of diplomatic wars.
A hundred years of feeling like I didn't belong.
Because there was another.
Her name was Calista Roth.
She was blonde, cheerful, with a sweet smile and small hands.
And she was the woman Ansgar adored, without even knowing it.
The one he protected at every gathering.
The one he looked at when he thought I wasn't watching.
I did everything I could to be enough.
I wrote him letters when he sank into the hunger.
I prepared his blood wine when he couldn't sleep.
I covered his mistakes before the Council.
And on the night of the Solstice Gala, the vampire hunters came in with their silver stakes.
I saw my husband run.
He passed right by me without looking.
He ran toward Calista, who was bleeding on the floor.
I fell to my knees with a stake in me.
I whispered his name.
He didn't turn his head.
I closed my eyes.
And I woke up here.
I stood at the window, my forehead pressed against the freezing glass.
I thought: this isn't a dream.
I thought: I've been given the night of the ritual again.
I thought: what do I do with it?
I didn't hesitate long.
I dressed in the dark gown reserved for great occasions, pulled my hair back, and walked down the tower stairs with steady steps.
Moon Hall was full.
Three hundred vampires of the Court, in velvet cloaks with crystal goblets in hand, waited beside the stone altar.
In the center, on an ebony lectern, rested the Book of Names.
A massive volume, with black covers and parchment pages.
Beside it, a small silver knife and a crystal bowl.
Ansgar stood by the altar.
Tall, with black hair down to his shoulders, in a dark blue cloak and eyes of ice.
He looked at me when I entered.
With his usual coldness.
With his stone expression.
It hurt to see him, though I didn't want it to.
The master of ceremonies struck his staff three times.
"Your Highness, it is time."
Ansgar nodded.
"Let the chosen one approach," said the master.
I took a step.
Ansgar extended a hand to me, formal.
I refused it with a slight bow of my head.
A murmur rippled through the hall.
I crossed the room alone, up to the lectern.
I took the knife.
I made a clean cut on the pad of my finger.
The blood fell into the bowl, dark and thick.
Ansgar was watching me, intrigued.
I dipped the quill in my blood.
I opened the book to the first blank page.
And, with a steady stroke, I wrote a name.
It wasn't mine.
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