Chapter 7

The great hall of Vincent’s ancestral estate had never been so terrifyingly opulent.

The air thrummed with the low vibration of ancient power, expensive perfumes masking the scent of old blood, and the watchful silence of predators at a parlay.

Vampire lords and ladies from allied and rival clans mingled, their elegance a sharp weapon.

I stood apart.

The dress I wore was simple, dark, meant to fade into the background. At my throat, resting against my unmarked skin, was the Starlight Pendant.

A teardrop of obsidian set with a single, minuscule diamond that caught the light like a trapped star.

The first piece I ever crafted, a foolish girl’s idea of eternity.

I had given it to Vincent years ago. A week ago, it had been returned to me in a plain velvet box by Marcus. No note.

Lilith found me first. She was a vision in a gown of liquid silver that seemed to drink the light, her pale hair crowned with diamonds that were likely older than the country.

Her gaze swept over me, lingering on the pendant with icy delight.

“What a curious trinket,” she murmured, her voice a melody of false sympathy.

“A little piece of captured night. How sad it must feel, separated from the greater darkness it was meant to adorn.” She leaned in slightly.

“Does the emptiness ache, Elena? Knowing you were just a temporary vessel for his… appetites?”

Before I could form a reply, Vincent was there, materializing at her side as if summoned by her need.

His arm slid around her waist, a gesture of pure possession. His eyes never touched me.

“My love, you’re neglecting our other guests,” he said to her, his voice warm.

Then, without shifting his gaze, he added, “Elena. Maintain your position. This is not a social gathering for you.”

His dismissal was absolute. I was part of the security detail. Furniture with a pulse.

“Of course, my Lord,” I said, my voice flat. I raised a glass of untouched champagne in a mockery of a toast, a perfect, empty smile on my lips.

The music swelled, a haunting waltz. Vincent led Lilith to the center of the floor. They were the undisputed monarchs of the night, a vision of predatory grace.

I watched, the cold pendant a weight against my sternum.

The attack did not come with shouted warnings or blaring alarms.

It came with a sudden, profound silence as every light in the great hall died at once, plunging us into a darkness that was absolute to human eyes.

For the vampires, it was merely a shift in shadows.

But my family’s blood, even denied the bond that had sharpened it, carried its own legacy. My vision adjusted not with supernatural speed, but with a hunter’s ingrained, genetic instinct.

I was already moving as the first hawthorn wood splinters and silver-grain pellets ripped through the air, not from guns, but from silent, pneumatic launchers.

Screams erupted of rage and pain from wounded vampires.

The smell of burned flesh and ozone filled the air.

“Lilith!” Vincent’s roar was raw, a sound of pure terror I had never heard from him. It cut through the chaos. “To me!”

I had dropped the glass and drawn a pair of compact, silver-coated blades from my thighs, the movement fluid from a decade of drilled instinct.

My body, though aching from recent injuries, remembered. I didn’t have vampiric speed, but I had the preternatural agility and spatial awareness of my lineage.

I flowed behind the cover of a stone plinth, not as fast as them, but with a precision that kept me from being an easy target.

Through the strobe-like flashes of muzzle fire and magical discharges, I saw them.

Vincent had Lilith wrapped in a protective sphere of his own power, his back to the onslaught. They were on the far side of the chaotic dance floor.

A glint in the shadows above. An assassin, perched on a rafter, leveled a compact, crystalline projector.

A sun-javelin caster. A weapon meant to fire a concentrated beam of synthetic daylight. It was aimed directly at Vincent’s exposed back.

Time didn’t slow. It crystallized. The calculus of the moment was brutally clear: the shot would pierce his defensive focus, potentially killing Lilith in the backlash, or forcing him to drop his shield and be vaporized.

In that shard of frozen reality, Vincent’s head turned.

His hell-red eyes found mine across the wrecked hall. He saw my position, saw the attacker I had spotted.

He had a choice: shove Lilith one way and dive the other, scattering the target… or use the fixed point I provided.

His choice was instantaneous.

He didn’t shove Lilith away. He gathered her closer. And as he coiled to leap sideways, his foot pressed down not on empty floor, but on the base of a heavy, overturned marble urn right beside my cover.

He used it, and by extension, my fixed, human-positioned presence, as the leverage point for his explosive push away from the epicenter of the coming blast, carrying Lilith with him.

The sun-javelin fired.

The world dissolved into searing white heat and concussive force.

I was thrown back against the stone pillar, the breath blasted from my lungs. I felt a sickening crack in my side, and warmth bloomed across my ribs. My dark dress hid the blood, but not the wet heat.

Through ringing ears and swimming vision, I saw Vincent rise from a smoldering crater, Lilith cradled, unharmed, against his chest.

His formal coat was in tatters, his skin smoking, but his focus was entirely on her face.

He murmured something, then, moving with his full, terrifying speed, he was gone, carving a path through the chaos toward a secured exit.

He never looked back. Not a flicker of attention toward the pillar where I lay, the human woman with the broken ribs and the fading instinct, who had once again been the stable ground he used to propel himself to safety.

The fighting began to ebb, the attackers melting away.

I lay in the cooling silence, the chain of the Starlight Pendant severed by a flying shard.

The obsidian teardrop lay beside my hand in a small, dark smear of my own blood.

He had made his choice. He chose his queen.

And once again, he had used the weapon he was discarding to ensure her safety.