The sound of a slow, rhythmic clapping cuts through the humid air.
Clap... Clap... Clap.
The Pack freezes. The wolves stiffen, turning toward the sound.
I spin around, pulling Miranda behind me, the iron spike already in my hand.
Standing on the ruined porch of my cabin, illuminated by the flickering light of a dying floodlight, is a woman.
She is pristine. Her white coat is spotless, contrasting sharply with the mud and gore covering the rest of us. Her blonde hair is swept up in an elegant, timeless style. She looks like she just stepped out of a ballroom, not a war zone.
Matilde Duval.
She stops clapping. Her lips curve into a smile that doesn't reach her dead, shark-like eyes.
"Bravo," she says, her voice carrying effortlessly across the clearing. "A truly inspired performance. I haven't seen violence like that since your mother tried to run, Miranda."
She steps down onto the first stair, her heels clicking on the wood.
"But the intermission is over," she says, her fangs descending slowly, glistening in the dark. "Now, the real show begins."
30
MIRANDA
Matilde Duval stands on the edge, a beacon of pristine white in a world painted in mud and blood. She doesn't hold a weapon. She doesn't need one. She holds history, and she wields it like a scalpel.
"She looked just like you," Matilde says, her voice a conversational lilt that carries over the crackle of the burning brush. "Céleste. My baby sister. She had that same defiant tilt to her chin. That same delusion that she could rewrite the laws of nature because she found a pet dog to warm her bed."
I stand ten feet away from her, naked, blood-streaked, and vibrating with a power I don't have a manual for. Jax is beside me, a low, constant growl rumbling in his chest, but I put a hand on his arm to hold him back.
Wait.
"You killed her," I state. It’s not an accusation; it’s a clarification of the data.
"I corrected an error," Matilde sighs, smoothing the lapel of her coat. "She was messy, Miranda. She cried so much when we found out about you. Not for herself—she knew she was dead themoment she crossed the line—but for the Wolf. And for the thing growing inside her."
She looks at me with pity that feels like acid.
"I burned her," Matilde continues, her eyes gleaming in the firelight. "I lit the match myself. Do you know what burning vampire flesh smells like? It smells sweet. Like caramelized sugar. She screamed until her vocal cords snapped. It was... inelegant."
Rage flares in my chest, hot and blinding. The Wolf inside me wants to launch at her throat. The Vampire inside me wants to tear her apart with magic I don't know how to use.
But the mechanic? The mechanic is watching the clock.
I force my breathing to sync with the ticking in my head.
Fifty-eight... Fifty-nine...
"You're trying to make me angry," I say, my voice flat. "You want me to attack you. You want me to break the Truce so the magic kills me for you."
Matilde smiles, exposing those needle-sharp fangs. "I don't need the magic to kill you, little mongrel. But it would save me the trouble of getting blood on my coat."
I look at the sky. The moon is high, obscured by smoke.
"You talk too much," I say. "Inefficient."
"And you are just a spare part," she sneers, raising a hand. Shadows gather around her fingers, thick and oily. "A glitch that needs to be deleted."
