“Five minutes,” he growls. “Then I’m coming back in, Prez, ready or not.”
“Fair enough.”
The room empties slowly, reluctantly. Only Hades and Oracle remain, standing on opposite sides of the space. The necromancer and the phoenix. Death and rebirth. The perfect witnesses to what’s about to happen.
The door closes behind the others with a soft click that sounds like a death knell.
I turn to Sloane.
She’s standing in the center of the room, looking small, human, and terrifyingly fragile. Her eyes are wide, darting between me, Hades, and Oracle like she’s trying to calculate her chances of survival.
Zero,I want to tell her.If I wanted you dead, you’d already be ash.
But I don’t want her dead.
I want to understand what the hell she is.
“Sloane,” I say carefully, keeping my voice low and even. “What I’m about to show you, what you’re about to learn, changes everything. Once you see, you can’t unsee. Once you know, you can’t unknow. Do you understand?”
She lifts her chin, and despite the fear pouring off her, there’s steel underneath. “I understand. Show me.”
I know what showing a human means,what showing her means.I built this club to stop this very thing from happening. My vow is to stop humans from finding out about supernaturals—about breaking theLaw of Silence. And what I am about to do right here, right now, is going to doexactlythat. It will put usallin danger and break the law I have vowed to uphold.
But Sloane was attacked.
She already knows this world isn’t normal, and the Coven of Crows is already on its way.
My eyes meet hers, and I stare at her intensely, my Bloodfire coursing under my skin. My fangs descend fully, not the halfmeasures I’ve been using around her, but the real thing. Three inches of ivory death designed to tear through flesh and drain life. My eyes shift, the silver darkening to something ancient and hungry. The shadows in the room respond, reaching for me like old friends, as lovers, as the darkness that birthed me millennia ago.
I move.
Vampire speed isn’t something humans can process. I cross the twenty feet between us in a blink, appearing behind her before her brain registers I’ve left my original position. I allow my presence to wash over her, icy and unmistakably wrong in every way that counts.
“Do you know what I am?” I whisper against her ear.
She doesn’t scream.
She doesn’t run.
She turns slowly, deliberately, until we’re face-to-face. Her eyes meet mine, and I see it, the moment she truly understands.
“Vampire,” she breathes. “You’re a vampire.”
“Not justanyvampire.” I step back, giving her space. “I’m an Original. One of the first. Born from evil itself when the world was young and the night was absolute.”
Her hand reaches out, trembling, and I think she’s going to push me away. Instead, she touches my cheek. Her fingers are warm against my cold skin, and the contact sends an electric hum through both of us. I withdraw my fangs and ease my expression so I don’t appear so intimidating.
“How old?” she asks.
“A thousand years, give or take a few centuries. I stopped counting around the time Rome fell.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He wasn’t around when I was made, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
A laugh bubbles out of her, half hysterical, half genuine. “This is insane. This isactuallyinsane. I should be running. Why the hell am Inotrunning?”
“Because you’re not fully human,” Hades’ voice cuts through the moment like a blade. The necromancer steps forward, his eyes fixed on Sloane with an intensity that makes even my skin crawl. “I can see it on you.I can feel it.”
