Sloane turns to him, and I see her trying to process his appearance. The pale skin. The hollow eyes. The way he moves, like he’s not quite anchored to the living world.
“What do you mean?” she demands.
Hades tilts his head, studying her as though she’s a corpse on his table. “Death has touched you. Not in the way it touches everyone, the natural entropy of mortality. This is different, older, darker.” He moves closer, and I resist the urge to step between them. “You’ve been marked by something evil. It swims through your veins, poison threaded with power.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
“The residue,” Hades continues, circling her slowly. “It’s all over you. Every drop of blood you carry remembers something ancient. Something that should have stayed buried.” He stops in front of her, reaching out but not quite touching. “You shouldn’t exist. And yet here you are.”
“Why me?” Sloane asks the question that’s been haunting me since this started. “Why am I like this? I’m nobody. An orphan who grew up in foster care and became a nurse. Nothing special. Nothing that explainsanyof this.”
Oracle speaks for the first time, his voice carrying the weight of flame and ash. “I’ve been watching you since you first walked into our bar, Sloane. Trying to see your path, your future, your fate.” He shakes his head, and actual smoke rises from his shoulders. “I see nothing. Just darkness. An absolute void where your story should be.”
“That’s impossible,” Sloane says, but her voice wavers. “Everyone has a future. Even if it’s only death.”
“Death would be a kindness compared to what surrounds you.” Oracle’s phoenix fire flares brighter, illuminating the room in shades of gold and crimson. “Your past is dark. Your present is dark. Your future is so dark it makes my flames dim just thinking about it. I’ve walked through fire for five centuries, and I’ve never seenanythinglike you.”
The fear I’ve been sensing from Sloane shifts and transforms into something sharper. Anger.
“So what?” she snaps, her voice rising. “I’m some kind of monster? Some evil thing that shouldn’t exist? Isthatwhat you’re telling me?” She turns to me, tears brimming in her eyes, but they’re fury-tears, not fear. “Isthatwhy you’ve been watching me? Studying me? Trying to figure out how to kill me?”
“No.” The word comes out harder than I intend. “That’snotwhy.”
“Then why?Why bring me here? Why tell meanyof this?” Sloane throws her hands up in the air with frustration.
“Because you deserve to know what’s happening to you. You’re changing, and you need to understand what you’re becoming before it consumes you,” Oracle tries to calm her.
“I didn’t ask for t-this!” The crack in her voice hits harder than it should. “I didn’t ask to be whatever the hell I’m becoming. All I ever wanted was to be normal. To save lives and go home and pretend the world made sense. But it doesn’t,does it?Nothing makes sense anymore.” I reach for her, but she jerks away. “Don’t. Just…don’t!”She wraps her arms around herself, trying to hold the pieces together. “Tell me what I am. No more hints. No more cryptic bullshit.What. Am. I?”
Before I can answer, the reinforced door, the one that’s withstood police raids and rival club attacks and every threatwe’ve faced in a decade, detonates inward. Wood and metal shred like paper, and through the smoking hole strides Viktor.
And he’s not alone.
Twenty vampires pour through the opening, moving with coordinated precision. Too coordinated. These aren’t feral newborns or random mavericks but soldiers.
“Well, well,” Viktor purrs, his voice carrying across the chaos. “The great Draven, caught with his guard down. How poetically tragic.”
I move instinctively, putting myself between Sloane and the threat. Around us, Hades is already summoning his death energy, bones rising from the floor in defensive spikes. Oracle’s flames ignite, his phoenix fire creating a barrier of heat that makes the air shimmer.
But it’s not enough.
Viktor’s vampires spread out with military efficiency, cutting off every exit. I hear my brothers outside, trying to fight their way in, but Viktor’s brought more than these twenty.
He’s brought a goddamn army.
“You’ve made a critical mistake, old friend,” Viktor continues, strolling through the wreckage as though he owns it, victory already in his stride. “You exposed the supernatural world to a human. Broke theLaw of Silence. And for what? A woman?” He laughs, the sound like knives skittering across glass. “The mighty Crave, brought low by something as pathetic as feelings.”
“Fuck you, Viktor.” I let my fangs descend fully again, my Bloodfire rising. “You want me? Come take me. But you leaveherout of this!”
“Oh, I’m not here for you.” Viktor’s eyes lock onto Sloane, and the hunger in them makes my vision turn red.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Chapter Ten
SLOANE
The world explodes into violence so fast I can barely process it. One second, I’m standing in the clubhouse surrounded by supernatural beings. Next, the doors are blown off their hinges, and creatures that look like walking nightmares pour through the entrance.
