Vampires weren’t a separate race.
They… werefae.
Fae who had been corrupted, bred, and twisted into something else through centuries of Lilivra’s manipulation. Every vampire in the estate, every vampire in the metropolis, every vampire who had ever hunted her people…they all carriedfaeblood in their veins.
They were family.
The realization made her want to be sick.
“Why?” Raziel’s voice cut through the stunned silence. He was staring at Lilivra with an expression Nadi couldn’t quite read—not horror, not fear, but something else. Something that might have been recognition. “Why do any of it? Why create a race of monsters to rule over humanity? Why hide what you are for centuries?”
Lilivra turned to face him, and her smile softened into something that might have been maternal. “Because I was tired, Raziel. Tired of watching my people be hunted. Tired of seeing the Wild shrink year by year as humans expanded their territories. Tired of being powerless to stop it. They would never accept us. Never understand us.” She moved closer to him, and Nadi tensed, ready to throw herself between them if necessary. But Lilivra only reached out to touch Raziel’s face with gentle fingers. “So I created something new. Something stronger. Something that could rule over the cattle that is humanity and the rest of our unevolved, uneducated ilk, once and for all. Finally, we would have peace.”
“Peace?” Nadi couldn’t stop the word from escaping. “You call what you’ve working toward,peace? Your vampires have hunted my people for centuries. Enslaved them. Traded them. That’s not peace—that’s genocide.”
Lilivra’s starlight eyes found hers, and Nadi felt the weight of that gaze like a physical force.
“Yes,” the ancient fae said quietly. “Those fae who forgot what they were, forgot what they were meant to be? They are not my concern. They convinced themselves they were something separate, somethingsuperiorthat hid beneath the ground.” Her expression flickered with something that might have been grief. “I tried to correct it. Tried to guide them back to the truth. But they wouldn’t listen.”
Lilivra turned away, her white hair swirling around her like a living thing. “Humanity was spiraling. Vampires were turning on themselves. And the savage fae were going extinct. The clarity of my vision, of the true rule of my kind—it was fading. I was ready to give up. To let them destroy themselves and take the fae with them into extinction. And then…” She looked back at Raziel. “And then I saw you.”
Raziel’s jaw tightened. “The prophecy.”
“Not a prophecy.” Lilivra shook her head. “Apromise. I watched you from the moment you were born, Raziel. Watched Volencia try to break you. Watched your siblings scheme against you. Watched you grow into exactly what I needed—a vampire who understood what it meant to be a monster. Who embraced it instead of pretending to be something else. Who had the strength to tear down everything your ancestors built and start again. One who shared even just an inkling of my true power. My true strength.”
The words from Raziel’s childhood echoed in Nadi’s mind.Tear down the walls. Burn the metropolis to the ground.
It hadn’t been a grandmother’s mad ramblings. It had been instructions. A mission, seeded in a child’s mind and left to grow.
“And Nadi.” Lilivra’s attention shifted to her, and Nadi felt her blood run cold despite herself. “You played your part so very, very well. The fae assassin who infiltrated my family. Who married my grandson. Who reminded him of what he was fighting for.” Her smile was knowing. “I could have not asked for a better companion to get him this far. Thank you.”
Horror crept up Nadi’s spine. “Don’t—don’t thank me.”
“Poor, confused thing.” Lilivra’s voice was gentle, which somehow made it worse. “I saw what you would become, and I knew you were exactly what my grandson would need. A partnerwho understood hatred. Who understood vengeance. Who could encourage him to become the ruthless Serpent our people need.”
Nadi wanted to scream. Wanted to rage. Wanted to throw herself at this ancient creature and tear her apart. But her body wouldn’t move—whether from shock or something else, she couldn’t tell.
“Enough of all this.” Lilivra clapped her hands once, and the sound echoed through the ballroom like thunder. “I am wasting time on explanations when there is work to be done.” Her starlight eyes swept across the room, taking in Mael, Lana, and Zabriel. “First, let us clear away the obstacles.”
With no other warning, Lilivra moved.
Nadi had thought she understood speed. She had seen Raziel move with vampire quickness. Had watched Asha blur across a room in the blink of an eye.
But Lilivra was something else entirely—a streak of white and silver that seemed to exist in multiple places at once.
The first guard died before anyone could react. His head simplywasn’t thereanymore, separated from his body by hands that moved faster than sight could track. The second guard managed to raise his gun before Lilivra’s fingers punched through his chest and closed around his heart. The third—the fourth—the fifth?—
In the span of three heartbeats, every guard in the room was dead.
Lilivra stood in the center of the carnage, not a drop of blood on her white gown, her expression as serene as if she had merely plucked flowers from a garden. She turned to the Rosov vampires who had accompanied Zabriel—half a dozen of them, frozen with shock and terror—and tilted her head like a curious bird.
“Kneel.”
The word hit like a physical force. Nadi staggered, feeling it wash over her—that familiar compulsion she had felt when Raziel used his power, only magnified a thousandfold. It was like being caught in a riptide, dragged under by something so vast and powerful that resistance seemed laughable.
She tried to fight the command, but she felt it burrowing into her mind. Gritting her teeth, she pushed back with every ounce of will she possessed. Beside her, Raziel was doing the same—she could see the strain in his face, the way his jaw clenched and his hands trembled.
The other vampires in the room had no such luck.
