Ashton's POV
The search had dragged on for days, and still I'd come up empty. Ravensreach was a town shrouded in mist and secrets, every alley and crooked street a labyrinth of shadows that seemed designed to mock me.
I'd checked every abandoned chapel, every boarded-up tavern, every cellar that smelled faintly of rot and yet not a single trace of the vampires' den revealed itself to me.
Each night I returned to the hunters' house with nothing, and each night their stares grew colder, their whispers sharper.
"Incompetent."
"Unfit to lead."
"Maybe it's time for someone younger."
Their voices carried just loud enough for me to hear, and I knew it was deliberate. They wanted me to feel the weight of their scorn. And I did.
My reputation, once hard as steel, was cracking. Both the veterans, grizzled by decades of the hunt, and the fresh recruits eager to prove themselves, now looked at me with the same disdain.
