---
Lily stared at him in open disbelief. "Do I really have Angel blood?"
"Yes."
Her mouth opened and then closed again. She wanted to say something but chose not to. She will discuss it later with Sekhmet.
Auri was looking at Lily now with a new kind of awe. Not just because she looked changed, but because the hidden shape of her bloodline had turned from a noble mystery into something much more frightening and much harder to measure.
Vera's eyes shifted once toward Vela. The twins were saying nothing, but both had understood enough to realize Lily now stood above the ordinary ladder of true vampire bloodlines. Not an enemy. Not yet a ruler over them either. But something clearly rarer.
Lily looked back down at herself.
"Then what am I now?"
Sekhmet answered that one directly.
"A hybrid true vampire."
The system had given the word. He chose to use it.
"A Cruoraphim."
The name settled over the Void Land in a strange quiet.
Lily repeated it softly. "Cruoraphim."
