“I will bite you.”
“You keep proving her point.”
Moira taps the sketch.“The mark has appeared on invitations circulating through old vampire channels.Private events.Rare blood.No phones.No familiars.No witches unless bound or bought.”
“What is the location?”I ask.
“You make demands like you have leverage.”
I smile, but it feels wrong on my face, and Moira’s gaze sharpens.
“He is trying very hard not to create leverage out of your spine,” Krishka says flatly.
“Again,” Cruz adds, “that was advice.”
Moira studies me for a long moment.“A human woman escaped them.”
My hands curl at my sides.No names.No names.I keep chanting it in my head over and over.
“Yes,” Krishka says.
“They want her back.”
The room disappears beneath a wash of red.Cruz steps in front of me this time, blocking my path before I take one.“Breathe.”
I don’t want to breathe.I want blood.I want screams.I want every creature who has ever whispered about Briana like she is property to learn the difference between a Minotaur standing still and a Minotaur unleashed.
Moira’s voice slides through the fury.“Not merely because she escaped.Because she heard something she was never meant to survive knowing.”
“What?”Krishka asks.
Moira looks at the covered mirrors, and fear moves across her face.Real fear.And that gets my attention.
“I don’t know the whole of it,” she says.“Only whispers.Lucius is building something beneath the city.Not a club.Not only a ring.A court.Old blood families.Exiles.Creatures who believe Malichai’s rule has made the world too soft.”
Cruz’s face hardens.“A rebellion.”
“A correction, they call it.”Moira’s mouth twists.“Monsters adore pretty words for ugly things.”
“And Crimson Door?”Krishka asks.
“A feeding ground.Recruitment.Blackmail.Pleasure.Punishment.All the usual sins dressed in velvet.”
“Where?”I repeat.
Moira looks at me, and for the first time, there’s no teasing in her face.
“Under a closed theater in Gowanus called The Marrow House.The entrance changes depending on the night, but the next event is tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
The word tears through me.It’s too soon and somehow not soon enough.
Cruz swears under his breath, and Krishka’s expression turns lethal.“How do you know?”
Moira moves to a cabinet and removes a black envelope sealed in wax.She places it on the table but keeps her fingers on top.“I was invited.”
The seal is the same.Circle.Slash.Three drops.My beast rises violently.
