The Sanguine Coven did not inhabit a castle; they inhabited a monument to cold ambition. The Spires of Glass and Bone rose from the jagged northern cliffs like frozen needles stitching the sky to the earth. Inside, the air was perpetually scented with frankincense and the metallic underlying sweetness of stored vitae.
Morwenna glided through the arched corridors, her boots ghosting over the polished black marble. Every shadowed alcove held a watcher—vampires older and hungrier than she, their eyes tracking her movement with the predatory boredom of the immortal.
She felt the weight of Gideon's gaze still burned into the small of her back. The warmth of his presence was a stain she couldn't wash off, a heat that made the Coven's sanctum feel like a tomb.
"You are late, Morwenna."
The voice was like a razor sliding over silk. She stopped at the threshold of the Obsidian Throne room. High above, the ceiling was a mosaic of stained glass depicting the first Great Slaughter. At the center of the room stood Lord Valerius, her Sire. His skin was the color of bleached parchment, stretched tight over a face that had once been handsome but was now merely a mask of cruel perfection.
Morwenna knelt, the cold of the floor seeping into her knees. "The Iron-Moon patrols were dense, my Lord. I had to take the long route through the Whisper-Glade."
Valerius stepped down from the dais, his movements unnervingly fluid. He stopped inches from her, his presence a suffocating pressure. He reached out, his long, pale fingers tilting her chin upward. His touch was like ice—not the clean, stinging ice of the forest, but the stagnant chill of a cellar.
"You smell of the woods," he murmured, his violet eyes narrowing as he inhaled deeply. "And you smell of... wood-smoke. And wet fur."
The silence in the room became absolute. Suspense coiled in Morwenna's gut like a serpent. If he scented the specific pheromones of a werewolf tracker on her, she would be flayed before the sun rose.
"I crouched in a hollowed log to avoid a scout," she lied, her voice a steady, hollow chime. "A beast had marked the territory nearby."
Valerius's grip tightened, his thumb pressing into the soft skin beneath her jaw. He leaned in close, his fangs grazing his lower lip. "The Alpha is planning something. The Iron-Moon grows restless. I need more than maps, little shadow. I need their strategic weak point. I need to know which throat to cut to make the whole pack bleed out."
He released her abruptly, turning his back. "Go back. Do not return until you have the name of the Alpha's favored Beta. We will start the Purge by breaking his spirit."
Morwenna bowed her head, her heart—that useless, treacherous organ—leaping. The favored Beta. She knew exactly who that was. She had seen the way the forest seemed to bow to him. She had seen the amber fire in his eyes.
As she backed out of the room, she felt the eyes of the Coven on her, thick with suspicion. She wasn't just a spy for the vampires anymore; she was a keeper of a secret that could incinerate both worlds.