The Vampire Lord's Substitute Bride

Hazel Sterling POV:

On the third morning I opened the bottom of my suitcase and found the garment bag Chloe had packed.

I unzipped the heavy vinyl and ivory silk came out over the bed. The dress was heavy with hand-sewn pearls. The tag still hung from the zipper. Thirty thousand dollars, printed plain.

It had been made for her wedding. The match had been settled between the two families years back, Chloe and Julian Beaumont, and his side had paid for the dress the way they paid for everything that touched the engagement. Then Chloe backed out, and the Sterlings owed the Beaumonts a bride. They needed someone to take her place. I was that someone.

I sat with my hand on the pearls.

Thirty thousand dollars. The exact number that would start my mother's treatment. The dress was bought and paid for, and the receipt was in the lining, and a bought dress can be returned. I did the math in my head twice before I let myself believe it. I wouldn't have to wait a year for the Sterlings. I could get her into the ward this week.

I put it back in the bag and carried it into the living room. Julian was at the table, running a chamois cloth down the length of a hunting knife with a silver hilt. The blade under the lamp was very clean.

"Julian." I kept my voice level. "I need to go into town. There's an errand."

He stopped. His eyes came up from the blade to the bag in my arms. "What's that?"

"A dress I don't need. I'm taking it back."

He looked at me for three seconds. Then he slid the knife into its sheath.

"Let's go."

We drove into Duskport in the pickup. Rain ran down the windshield. We parked across from Elysian, the boutique where the town's money went to be spent.

"Wait here," I said, and took the bag.

"I will."

I got out into the wind, pushed through the glass doors, and was hit by lavender and perfume.

A tall woman in a beige blazer stood behind the counter, looking at her nails. Her eyes went over my boots and my damp sweater, and her mouth made a thin line.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes." I set the bag on the glass. "I'd like to return this."

She unzipped it slowly. When the pearls caught the light from the chandelier she looked up fast, and then smiled.

"Ah. The Starfall gown." She pulled the receipt out of the lining. "Purchased under the Beaumont estate account. Which would make you Chloe Sterling?"

"My name is on the receipt."

"Everyone in town heard what happened to the glorious Miss Sterling." She leaned on the counter. "Engaged to the Beaumont name, and then married off to the man who lives in the trees."

Two salesgirls by the mannequins covered their mouths. Heat climbed up my neck.

"The dress hasn't been worn. The tags are on it. I'd like the refund."

"Custom bridal is final sale." She slid the receipt back across the glass with one finger. "No returns."

"The order is two weeks old."

"Then it's barely cold. I can offer you store credit."

"I don't want credit. I want the money."

"Store credit," she said again, slower, as if I hadn't heard it the first time. "Or leave the gown, and head office inspects it. Six to eight weeks. If it clears, we'll be in touch."

"Six to eight weeks."

"That's the process."

"And if it doesn't clear?"

"Then we'll be in touch about that, too."

The younger clerk laughed behind her hand. The other one didn't bother hiding it.

"Look at the state of it," she said, loud enough for the room. "She wants her money back for a dress she dragged through a field."

"It's clean."

"Sure it is." She came out from behind the mannequins. "And who bought it for you? You don't look like a woman who pays for this."

I put my hand flat on the counter and left it there.

"Write it down," I said to the manager.

"Excuse me?"

"The refusal. Dated. Your name on it. A line saying I brought the gown and the receipt, and you declined the return."

She stared at me. Something crossed her face and was gone.

"We don't do that."

"Then get whoever does."

The bell over the door rang before she could answer. It came out lower than a bell that size should.

Cold came in with it.

The laughing stopped. All of it, at once.

Julian stood in the doorway in the same black shirt and worn denim he had left the cabin in that morning. The room changed anyway.

The manager came back a step before she caught herself.

"Sir. This is a private boutique." Her voice came out unsteady. "We don't allow — if you're here for your wife, take her and her ridiculous dress back to the woods."