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Chapter 21: The Photograph
Selene.The gala ended at two in the morning. At two fifteen, Selene's phone buzzed with a single word.Victoria: Up.She took the private elevator to the penthouse with her veil still on and her heart barely beating.She knew what was coming. She had seen Rourke lean toward Victoria near the platform. She had seen the phone. She had seen Victoria's eyes lift from the screen and find her across the ballroom, slow and shining, the way a snake finds a mouse in tall grass.The elevator doors opened.Victoria stood by the windows in her silver gown, barefoot now, her diamond heels kicked off on the marble floor. The city glittered below her like a jewelry box. She was holding Rourke's phone."Come here, darling."Selene crossed the room and stopped three paces away.Victoria turned the phone around.Snow. Pine trees. A young man in a black jacket, and a woman in dark glasses standing close enough to touch him. Her gloved hand on his cheek."Rourke took this two days ago," Victoria said pl
Chapter 20: The Moonlight Gala
The Moonlight Gala was held every year on the night of the first full moon of winter, in the glass ballroom at the top of Hale Tower.Eighty floors above the city, beneath a dome of crystal and steel, the most powerful creatures in the city gathered in silk and diamonds. Alphas of every major pack, flanked by their Betas. Witches from the old covens, wrapped in velvet, their fingers heavy with rings. A handful of pale, ancient vampires from the families that had survived Victoria's rise, standing apart from everyone else like statues in a museum.And in the middle of it all, in a gown of liquid silver, Victoria Hale moved through the crowd like a queen.Ethan walked one step behind her in his new tuxedo, his hands folded, his face carefully blank.He could feel every eye in the room on him.He tried not to look at the floor beneath his polished shoes. Somewhere eighty stories below this glittering ballroom, in rooms without windows, were the people Victoria called her basement guests.
Chapter 19: Stay Away From Me
"Saturday night," Victoria said from the back seat. "The Moonlight Gala. You'll drive me, of course. And then you'll come inside."Ethan's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "Inside, ma'am?""Every important creature in this city will be there. The packs. The covens. What's left of the old vampire families." She smiled at her phone. "Half of them have heard about the human who beat Derek Reed with his eyes closed. They're dying to see you. I intend to show you off."Like a trophy, Ethan thought. Like a dog that learned a clever trick."Yes, ma'am.""Graves will have a tuxedo fitted for you this afternoon. Try not to look like a driver." She glanced up. "Oh, and Ethan? Smile more. People find it reassuring."He smiled.In the mirror, her eyes lingered on his face a moment too long. Then she went back to her emails.***Rourke was waiting in the estate garage when Ethan parked the Bentley.The hunter leaned against a pillar with his hands in his pockets, as if he had all the time in t
Chapter 18: Sublevel 3
Selene. That same morning.The fever came in waves.Selene lay on the narrow bed in her quarters on the seventy-ninth floor, curtains drawn against the grey morning, and stared at the ceiling while her body burned. Vampires didn't get fevers. Vampires didn't get sick. But vampires also didn't carve pieces out of their own souls and plant them in a reborn Golden Alpha, so she supposed she had stopped being an ordinary vampire a long time ago.Seal 2 had taken more than she expected.She had felt it break on fight night, sitting beside Victoria in the VIP box with the dagger in her lap. A deep, tearing pull, as if a hand had reached into her chest and closed around something vital. She had kept her face perfectly still. She had closed the box with steady hands, or almost steady. She had walked back to the car without stumbling.Then she had come up here and collapsed on the bathroom floor, and she hadn't been able to stand for two days.Five Seals left.She didn't know if she had five S
Chapter 17: The Woman at the Window
He made it in thirty-one minutes.He broke every traffic law in the city doing it. He ran four red lights, drove the wrong way down a one-way street, and took a corner so fast the Bentley's tires screamed. When he finally pulled up in front of Hale Tower, the dashboard clock read 12:16.Sixteen minutes late.Victoria was standing on the steps in her cream coat, her assistants hovering behind her. She didn't move toward the car. She just stood there, looking at her watch.Ethan jumped out and opened the rear door. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Traffic on the bridge."She looked at him for a long moment. Then she walked down the steps and slid into the back seat without a word.He closed the door, walked around, and got behind the wheel. His father's box was locked in the trunk. His heart was pounding so hard he was sure she could hear it."Home," she said.He drove.For ten minutes, the car was silent. Then she spoke, in that light, conversational voice that he was learning to fear more than any
Chapter 16: Unit 214
Harbor Lockers was a long, rusted row of storage units squeezed between a fish market and the old shipping cranes, so close to the water that the air tasted of salt and diesel.Ethan parked the Bentley two streets away. A black luxury car outside a place like this would draw more attention than a fire. He walked the rest of the way with his collar turned up and his father's key clenched in his fist.[Time remaining before Victoria's meeting ends: 3 hours 21 minutes.]The units were numbered in faded white paint. 210. 212.And there it was. Unit 214.The padlock was rusted almost solid. The key stuck halfway, and for one horrible second Ethan thought it would snap. Then something inside the lock gave with a crunch, and the shackle sprang open.He rolled up the door.The unit was nearly empty. A folding chair. A broken lamp. Cobwebs thick as curtains in the corners. And in the middle of the concrete floor, a single cardboard banker's box, its lid sealed with tape that had yellowed and c
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