POPPY: For you? Yes.
My hand tightens on the phone. In two hundred and fifty-seven years, no one has ever said that to me. No one has ever promised patience, offered understanding, stood in front of the mystery I present and chosen to stay anyway.
ME: Sleep well, Poppy.
POPPY: Sleep well, Julian. If you sleep.
POPPY: Heart
A green heart. The color of the dress I sent her.
I smile.
At 8 AM, another message arrives. Not from Poppy.
Unknown number. European country code—the kind the Council uses for untraceable communications.
UNKNOWN: The girl is lovely. You always did have good taste.
UNKNOWN: Walk away, Julian. While you still can. —D
I stare at the screen.
He isn’t threatening Poppy directly. He’s threatening me. Promising to do what he did in Prague—stand back and watch while everything I love burns.
I type a response.
ME: If you touch her, I’ll end you.
His reply comes in seconds.
DAMIEN: Touch her? I don’t need to touch her. I just need to show her what you are. What you’ve done. The bodies in your past. The centuries of feeding and hiding and pretending to be human. I just need to tell her the truth, Julian. And then I’ll watch her run.
DAMIEN: That’s the beauty of it. I don’t have to hurt her.
DAMIEN: You already did.
I set down the phone. My hand is shaking—an old response, a human response, the kind I shouldn’t still have after this long.
He’s right.
That’s the worst part. He’s absolutely right.
I could kill him. I have the strength, the resources, the ruthlessness when necessary. I’ve destroyed enemies before—the Council looks the other way for self-defense, and Damien is clearly a threat.
But he’s not threatening to kill her. He’s threatening to tell her.
And if she learns the truth before I’m ready—if she finds out what I am from him, framed in the worst possible light—she’ll never look at me the same way.
She’ll run.
They always run.
I spend the morning making arrangements.
Security for Poppy—discrete, invisible, the kind that follows at a distance and never makes itself known. Blackthorne Security has operatives positioned throughout the city, each one vetted and trained for exactly these situations. They’re not all human—some have been with me long enough that “human” no longer applies—but they know how to blend in. How to watch without being seen.
Run a background check on every guest at Violet’s wedding—names, histories, connections. If Damien plans to appear there, I’ll know before he arrives.
