Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Sebastian leaned forward. “That’s three attacks in three territories now. One in the Highlands. One near the vampire northern border. Now Romania.”
I hadn’t heard about the one attack near the vampires’ borders, but I had been preoccupied… with my mate.
“They’re not targeting individuals,” I said. “They’re testing defenses.”
Dad’s eyes met mine. “Exactly.”
Cian pulled out a map marked with recent supernatural skirmishes—most small, some oddly precise. “These attacks follow a pattern. They’re probing for weaknesses is my best guess.” Cian pointed to an area on the map. “The first hit was on what they deemed a weaker Lycan outpost. The second, a vampire transport. Now, a key Eastern European Lycan region. Every move is calculated. I just donna kno’ the end game, yet.”
“These aren’t the savage fucking Therabus that we kno’,” Adryan muttered. “They’re trained. Coordinated.”
“Controlled,” Father added. “We’re no’ looking at isolated incidents with brutal Otherworld fookers. We’re looking at a trained operation.”
I stared at the map again. “So what’s their goal? No’ just destruction. There’s no message. No claim.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “But think about it—who benefits from destabilizing every supernatural faction?”
Cian answered before anyone else could. “Someone who wants control. Someone who doesn’t want peace between the bloodlines. Someone who wants tae rise from the ashes of fractured unity and become superior.”
Father nodded. “They’ve always been known as crazy and less than intelligent. After the fall of the Assembly, we should have known someone would try tae be an opportunist with a shift in the power balance. Things were uncertain. They banked on that.”
Adryan tilted his head. “Maybe this isn’t just one faction. Maybe it’s a collective. Maybe Therabus and… others are working together.”
“Like who?” Kane asked. “Rogue scientists? Mercenaries? Someone with enough money and vision to use the Therabus as living weapons?”
“There are creatures older than all our species. Ones who we donna even kno’ about,” Cian added. “For all we kno’, something much bigger and dangerous is using the Therabus as a pawn.”
“They’re being used,” I hissed. Because that’s the only thing that made fucking sense. The Therabus were not known for their stealth or intelligence. They were equivalent to an animal simply surviving out of luck.
Father growled low in his throat. “Definitely a possibility. Probably what’s actually happening. But we need to dig deeper. Cian, get the tech team on this and donna stop until we have answers. Get the witches involved to see if they can spell some insight.”
“Whoever is doing it… they’re building toward something bigger. They’re escalating, testing, learning. They’re studying us,” one of the Guard said.
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “Which means they haven’t launched the full plan yet.”
“No’ yet,” Father said. “But they will.”
I looked up, locking eyes with each male in the room. “Then we unify. All of us. Vampires. Lycans. And anyone else who wants tae keep the Otherworld from being wiped off the map.”
“We’ll need Luca and Ren brought in,” Father added.
Sebastian nodded. “And we tighten protections around the females. Who’s saying they won’t go after mates…”
The growls erupted at the very thought of the females being harmed, and the scent of male aggression and the need to protect saturated the air.
A silence settled again. Not out of fear—but from determination. The kind that builds in the chest of men who have fought and bled before.
This was war. Planned. Calculated.
Whoever was behind this was about to know the lengths we’d go through—the level of coordination we’d take—to put our differences aside and take them down.
21
AISLING
Istood at the threshold of his room, gripping the doorframe so tightly my knuckles turned white and ached.
Lennox had come back from the meeting and immediately stripped down. Now he wore nothing but a pair of black combat pants. His bare torso clenched and relaxed with the slightest movements.
He moved like a man preparing for battle… because that’s exactly what he was doing.
The massive walk-in closet had been left wide open, and the inside looked more like an armory than a place to store clothes. Rifles lined the back wall. Tactical vests, Kevlar, and blades were strapped to racks.
A digital keypad blinked red on the built-in safe before he punched in a code and opened it to reveal something far more lethal. Something I’d never even seen before and for sure couldn’t name.
And I just stood back watching, letting him prepare because the tension was high and the air was thick with all the danger that was approaching.
He reached for a dark tactical shirt, and I was transfixed at the sight of his sinew and I was transfixed by the sight of his sinew rolling under his skin and the flex of his muscles.
Scars crisscrossed his skin—some old, some newer—and every one of them told a story I hadn’t yet heard. He slid on the shirt, then a vest, and finally clipped on the custom set of knives across his waist and in a shoulder harness with the precision of someone who had done this too many times.