A sharp howl tore through the thick fog of the Black Forest.
Freya clutched her right ribs. Three blackened gashes split her silver plate armor, and an enchanted armor-piercing arrow was still buried deep in her flesh. Its poisonous barbs gnawed and burned beneath her skin.
Behind her came the low panting of hellhounds, followed by Captain Caven’s furious roar.
“Freya! Hand over the Primordial Wolf Core, and the Senate might grant you a whole corpse!”
Freya didn't stop. Her leather boots crunched over dead branches as she swiped the sticky blood from her chin. Her emerald eyes blazed in the dark.
The betrayal was brutal. Her royal guard had been drugged during the night shift. Barely three hours after the old Wolf King drew his last breath, Caven and the Senate’s enforcers had sealed the temple.
A cliff loomed ahead.
Below wasn't soil, but a sprawling sea of black spires. Gothic towers stood dead and silent under the pale moon.
The forbidden land. The domain of the Vampire Monarch, Lucian. A place every living creature avoided.
“She's jumping! Loose your arrows!”
Arrows ripped the air. Their shrill whistle raced toward her back.
Freya didn't hesitate. She leaped.
Wind roared in her ears. The fall tore her wound wide open. She locked her gaze on the highest blackstone dome, crossing her arms to shield her head.
Crack!
Heavy stained glass shattered under her weight. Shards of colored glass sprayed everywhere. Freya slammed onto the marble floor, rolling twice before crashing into a cold stone sarcophagus.
The air reeked of rotting wood and dried roses.
No torches burned in the vast hall. Pale moonlight spilled through the broken ceiling, illuminating the intricate rose-and-thorn carvings on the coffin lid.
The lid shifted.
Scrape.
A pale, long-fingered hand hooked over the edge.
Freya whipped a quenched silver dagger from her boot, coiling her core and lunging for the sarcophagus.
“Move, and I’ll slit your throat.” Her voice was a harsh rasp. She pressed the blade tight against the man rising from the coffin.
Moonlight fell over his face. Black hair spilled over his bloodless neck. Sharp, ice-carved features, thick lashes, lips bleached almost transparent.
This was Lucian.
The millennium-old Vampire King. The madman who slaughtered three wolf legions in the Holy War.
Lucian opened his eyes. Pure crimson ignited the darkness.
He ignored the silver blade at his throat. His gaze traced Freya’s blood-soaked armor, then locked onto the bleeding artery thrumming beneath her neck.
“A wolf cub.” His voice rumbled, dry and rusted after centuries of silence.
Freya shoved the dagger forward. The blade nicked his pale skin. No blood spilled.
“Shut up. I’m hiding here.” Freya gasped. Poison flooded her veins, blurring her vision.
Lucian lifted one hand. He moved too fast for wolf eyes to track.
Snap.
He broke the silver dagger clean in half with two fingers.
Freya’s pupils blew wide. She threw a punch, ancient wolf power surging through her fist. It flew straight for his face.
Lucian dodged. He snatched her wrist, slamming her hard onto the marble floor.
Ice cold. His body was as frigid as frozen stone.
Freya thrashed wildly, lifting her leg to strike. His knee pinned her down, trapping her.
“Your blood smells divine.” Lucian leaned in. His nose brushed the raw wound on her neck. He inhaled deep.
It wasn't ordinary wolf blood. It burned with the primal fire of the first ancestors. For a starving millennium vampire, it was deadly poison. And irresistible honey.
Freya bared her fangs and bit into his shoulder. Wolf fangs tore through fabric and pierced his cold flesh.
Their blood mixed. A single drop from Freya’s wrist splattered onto Lucian’s black ancient ring.
Boom!
The ouroboros carving blazed crimson. A blood chain burst into existence in the hall, and a violent shockwave cracked the marble floor into a spiderweb of fractures.
Freya felt a cold fist squeeze her heart.
At the same time—Thump. Thump.—Lucian’s still chest began to beat.
“Damnation.” Lucian’s crimson pupils contracted sharply. His fingers dug harder into Freya’s shoulder. “How do you carry Cain’s forbidden covenant trigger?”
Scarlet light flooded Freya’s vision. A searing symbol branded deep into her soul, hot as red-hot iron.
A symbiotic blood oath.
Life and death bound together. Senses fused as one.
Bang!
The hall doors burst open. Caven stormed in with dozens of elite wolf soldiers, silver torches flaring in the dark.
“Freya, you can’t escape… A Vampire?!”
Caven’s roar died in his throat the second he laid eyes on Lucian.
Lucian stood up slowly. He stepped in front of the collapsed Freya, shielding her with his frame. His black coat billowed in the night wind.
His crimson eyes swept over the wolves at the door, staring at them as if they were nothing more than rotting meat.
“Who gave you permission to interrupt my feast?”