Page 143 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

I’d told him that I was afraid. I was very afraid.

Now, hearing him struggle for breath in the fog, I’d never meant those words more.

Vale’s lips curled into a patronizing smile. “So impatient. Wanting to rush ahead without appreciating the… artistry of a moment.”

He lifted one elegant hand, fingers poised, almost lazy. With a sharp snap, the sound cracked across the water like a gunshot.

My hearing picked up the shuffle of multiple feet approaching through the darkness—too many to count. They moved with inhuman grace, their footsteps barely disturbing the wet grass. The sound came from all directions, closing in on us.

A wolf’s howl split the night—one of Dale’s pack, the sound carrying clear warning. Another joined it, then another, until the air vibrated with their calls. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as the howls shifted from alert to threat, Kit’s low growl joining them.

But something else was happening. The mist over Pen Ponds had begun to move against the wind, coalescing into thick, writhing tendrils that crept across the water’s surface. The temperature plummeted. Behind me, Flynn’s breathing hitched, a small sound of pain escaping him.

Vale’s theatrical demeanour shifted. His shoulders dropped, head inclining slightly as he took a step back from the water’s edge. Around us, the approaching vampires slowed their advance, their movements almost becoming more ceremonial than predatory.

Something was coming.

Something was coming, and I was powerless to stop it.

The certainty of it settled in my bones like lead. In five centuries, I’d learned to trust my instincts—they’d kept me alive through revolution, war, betrayal. Now they screamed at me to run, to grab Flynn, my team, and flee. But that wasn’t an option.

The surface of the pond began to ripple, though no wind disturbed it. Water moved in ways water shouldn’t, drawing up towards the sky as though gravity had forgotten its purpose. My fingers felt compelled to tighten around the crucifix in my pocket as each of my muscles coiled with tension. It was as if it was pulling me inexplicably towards the water.

A vampire lunged from the darkness, fangs bared. Kit’s massive form spun, slamming them back into the shadows with brutal efficiency, histeeth flashing in the moonlight. More emerged from the mist—ten, twenty, more than I could count. Vale had far greater numbers than we even knew.

Dale’s wolves met them with snarls and snapping teeth, but the vampires weren’t fighting to kill. They lunged and retreated, fangs flashing but never fully committing. Each strike pushed us further onto the causeway. They were toying with their prey, herding us exactly where they wanted us.

This was choreographed, like pieces being moved into position.

“Hold,” I commanded. “Everyone hold.”

The vampires pressed closer, and I scanned their faces, finding some familiar. But no, notjustvampires. There were cambions among them too, which surely meant…

My eyes scanned the crowd until—there.

Damien stood motionless among them, his imposing height making him easy to spot. Every cell in my body wanted to lunge forward, to tear him apart with my bare hands.

He was exactly how I remembered from the night I’d tracked him at Wilde Card—the same sharp jaw, leather jacket, silver chain still glinting at his throat. But something was wrong. The casual arrogance I remembered—how he’d smiled at me before scampering up the brick wall—had been stripped away, replaced by an unsettling neutrality.

Behind me, Flynn made a small sound of recognition. Then, despite everything—the ice in his veins, Kit’s warning growl—he stepped forward. “Damien!” His voice cracked across the night like a whip. “You fucking bastard!”

But Damien’s eyes, like those of his fellow cambions, remained fixed on the pond, waiting.

Each face was blank, reverent almost, as they formed a perfect circle around us.

We’d been played.I’dbeen played. This whole “exchange,” just steps in someone else’s dance.

All that remained was to see what horror was about to take centre stage.

“Seb,” Priya whispered, “something’s—”

A pillar of water rose from the pond, twisting impossibly high. The crucifix tingled against my palm as images scratched at the edges of my mind before slipping away like mist through fingers.

A choked gasp behind me. I spun to see Flynn convulsing, frost spreading up his neck like delicate lacework. He collapsed to his knees, and Priya caught him before he hit the ground. Kit and Rory’s protective growls died in their throats as they stared back at the pond.

I turned. The water pillar started to take shape.

Time seemed to slow. The crucifix pulsed against my palm in time with Flynn’s failing heartbeat, and for a moment I was drowning in half-formed memories. Incense. Laughter. A summer’s day. The scratch of a quill on parchment.

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