The Blood-Soaked Throne
The mist came first, curling low between the skeletal trees like something alive, something patient. Elena tasted it on her tongue—damp, mineral, threaded with the copper tang that always seemed to linger near the border, as though the ground itself remembered every drop of blood it had swallowed over the centuries.
"Too quiet," murmured Cassian at her flank, his voice barely a whisper beneath the creak of frost-laden branches. "Even the ravens have gone."
"Ravens have more sense than we do." Elena kept her gaze fixed ahead, scanning the tangle of black trunks that marked the edge of vampire territory. Beyond them lay a no-man's-land of frozen earth and dead grass, and beyond that, the deep, ancient forests that belonged to the wolves. "Which is why we're the ones out here and they're tucked away in their nests."
Six vampires moved behind her in practiced silence, cloaks the color of dried blood blending against the gnarled bark. She'd chosen each of them herself—Cassian for his speed, Bryna for her eyes sharp enough to spot a heartbeat in darkness, the others for reasons just as deliberate. A patrol was only as strong as its weakest link, and Elena had learned long ago never…
