Rain hammered the empty road, drumming like gunfire on the asphalt. A lone stretch of pavement vanished into the night, flanked by skeletal trees that stood like withered sentinels at the edge of a forest.
Far ahead, two pale headlights flared in the darkness and grew rapidly brighter.
Zooooom.
A black car-streaked past, tires hissing through standing water, engine snarling with desperate haste.
Inside, Selene kept her pale blue eyes fixed on the tunnel of light carved by the headlights. Her hand was steady on the wheel, but her mind was far from the road.
Only minutes had passed since she'd left Tanis's hidden exile. The cunning historian was already packing when she walked out; he had no intention of waiting for the Order to come find him.
His warning still rang in her ears: if the order ever intervened in the coming war, of those involved, none would survive. Exile hadn't stripped him of the possibility of burning with them; he was the one arming the lycans, quietly feeding the war for his own survival. If he was ever to be caught, he would be done for.
Enemies surrounded him. Viktor would tear him apart the moment the century-old slumber was over. Marcus might stay his hand and not mind the treachery, but Tanis refused to gamble on that mercy.
Selene herself had considered ending him there in the dust and candle-smoke. A single pull of the trigger, and the problem would vanish. Yet a mind that sharp, crammed with secrets, histories and leverage, was worth far more alive than dead. She told herself that was why Viktor had merely banished him instead of ordering his execution centuries ago: Tanis was a weapon best kept sheathed but ready when needed for his political advantage.
She almost believed it.
Truth was uglier. Tanis had handed her knowledge that cracked the foundation of everything she thought she knew—about the coven, about Viktor, about the blood that had made her. Worst of all, about the ancient tie between Marcus line of vampires and the very Order she'd just uncovered.
Questions burned in her chest, and she had no answers yet to satisfy her curiosity.
She flicked the indicator and merged onto the highway, the car slipping smoothly into the sparse late-night traffic.
Amelia might already be at the manor. Consequences for her earlier actions waited.
Awakening Viktor early was the correct decision. She knew she would be put on trial, but she was prepared.
Her glance slid to the passenger seat. A heavy, leather-bound tome lay open, its illuminated page showing five armored knights on their knees in a vast throne room, heads bowed over their swords in mourning. Beside them, a hooded figure held aloft an enormous, inhuman heart—frozen forever in some unholy rite.
In her left hand she cradled a small orb, the elder memory sphere, still warm from Tanis's blood.
A forced confession.
Lucian lived.
The war was about to reignite—and this time Selene intended to be the one holding the torch that would purge the beasts to extinction.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In another part of the city, a convoy glided in tight formation, engines rumbling as it sped along the isolated hill roads toward its destination.
Inside the cars, armed men in trench coats scanned the darkness beyond their windows, tense and alert, as though expecting an ambush at any moment. They surrounded the center vehicle in a protective box—where Amelia sat.
She was still in bad shape. Lycan wounds always healed slower, and she had lost far too much blood in the fight.
"Lady Amelia?"
A voice called out but she didn't react.
Her gaze was fixed forward, blank and glassy, as if she were drifting somewhere far from the present.
"Lady Amelia," Kahn repeated, firmer this time. The call pulled her from her trance.
She blinked and turned toward him. In his outstretched hands rested a goblet filled with blood.
"Please drink," he urged, his voice low and respectful. "You've lost too much. You must recover."
Kahn felt this duty more heavily than most. As chief of the coven's security detail, he should have been the one to lead the retrieval of the vampire elder and her council. But Kraven had ordered his own personal guards to go instead—and refusing the regent, especially one favored by an elder, was a risk Kahn could not take.
Amelia studied the goblet for a moment before taking it from his waiting hands.
Her stillness on the outside hid the turmoil twisting through her thoughts. She wasn't shaken by the attack she had barely survived—but by memories.
The four she saw at the station. it was like a day had not passed since she saw them last. a bit different in bearings but still the same men who served "Him".
Time had changed them. Hardened them. Shaped them into something like the force of nature, born out of the cruelty of the past, the burdens they now bore, and centuries of survival.
Although unspoken, she knew,
they had come to the old coven during her century-long slumber. They broke into the prison she had built for her "Him", the vault she had crafted with her own hands for...."Him".
They stole him from her. He was meant to be safe, far from the extermination that Viktor had carried out.
When she finally awoke, she had found the old coven in ruins, torn apart by lycans… and "His" resting place empty.
She had hunted for their traces, but they always slipped away. For centuries they remained hidden—until they emerged again, leading an organization that now controlled most of the world's supernatural forces. Their banner brought order, ended the dark ages of chaos and tyranny… but at a cost she could never forgive, they birthed a God.
She had always known they would surface again. It was only a matter of time.
But why here?
Why Budapest?
Why so close to the coven?
Why return to the nightmare they had once escaped in flames?
Blood dripped from the corner of her lips as she drank, her eyes glowing faintly blue. Her wounds knit together slowly. But her thoughts did not settle.
Why here? Why reveal themselves to me, when they always avoided my pursuit?
There was only one reason—but she forced the thought back before it could bloom into certainty.
They would never come without "Him".
Their master never left their sight.
Four of them are here… meaning the last one is close.
Her jaw tightened. Her eyes sharpened, fear and anticipation twining into something electric in their pale glow.
He is here.~~~~
The thought chilled her as it slipped through her mind.