His Fake Tears, My Real Crown

I was ready to leave the Vampire Academy's main campus with Liam, my childhood sweetheart. All because he told me he was being bullied.

He was the unrecognized bastard of the Vance clan. Born with a fraction of the power we pure-bloods commanded.

So I promised him. I would go with him to Duskfall Academy.

A campus that didn't care about bloodlines or power. A place where he could finally belong.

But the night before we were supposed to seal the transfer scrolls with our blood signets, he betrayed me.

I heard his friend's sneering voice. "You drank beast blood and faked the whole abuse act just to dump Isabella Thorne? Damn, Liam. That's cold-blooded."

Liam just shrugged. "I'm sick of her pure-blood, high-and-mighty attitude. And this is cleaner than having her clinging to me forever."

My world shattered.

I turned and walked away.

On the ancient transfer scroll, I took my dagger and slashed through the name of Duskfall Academy.

Then I wrote the name my family always intended for me: Crimson Fortress Academy, in the Evernight.

It seemed everyone had forgotten.

Even as fated blood-bond mates, I, Isabella Thorne, am the sole pure-blood heir to the Thorne clan.

Once I sever our ties, he can crawl back to me on his knees, and I wouldn't let him have a single drop of my blood.

He'll be nothing.

The moment I heard the truth, the blood in my veins turned to ice.

A month ago, Liam had come to me in tears, saying every vampire at the Academy looked down on him for being a bastard.

The Liam I knew was always so strong. Seeing him break down in tears, I swore I would protect him.

Later, when the heir to the Blackwood family locked him in a sunroom on purpose, I used my family's blood-will to pin that bastard to a wall for an entire night. It cost me half my strength and left me drained for three days.

When the Ashford heiress called him an "unacknowledged stray," I crashed her birthday party and made her kneel and apologize in front of all her guests. Even if it meant another draining magical duel.

When the other clans conspired against him, I used my mother’s influence without a second thought. It cost my family a fortune, but I made sure those clans lost three major territories within a week.

It all came to a head when Liam stood trembling before me, his pale face marked with the fresh, weeping lines of a silver-laced whip.

"Isabella, please," he begged. "I need to get out of here. I hate this place. I hate that everyone insults me because I’m not strong enough, because my blood isn't pure."

I looked at the fresh wounds on his face, and my heart felt like it had been pierced with an icicle.

No matter what I did, I couldn't protect him.

But we were blood-bond mates, a rarity in the vampire world, fated for each