Page 128 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

Its presence filled the space around us as soon as she revealed it. The small metallic shard glinted softly, lines of iridescence running through its surface like veins. It thrummed in my bones, a soft, insistent pull that resonated with the echo of power still coiled in my chest.

Con turned his head slightly on the pillow, eyes half open. “Is something wrong?”

“I wanted to feel it before I put it back,” Raven said. “Rene asked through the bond. He is asleep again, but I can still sense his curiosity.”

She held the fragment between thumb and forefinger, careful and reverent, like someone handling a live charge.

The energy in the room shifted.

The light dimmed, though the bulbs did not flicker. The air thickened. A scent of ozone rolled across my tongue.

Raven’s eyes narrowed. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” I said.

Con tried to push himself up. Pain pulled his features tight. He settled for propping himself on one elbow instead. “Put it away.”

He was right.

Too late.

The temperature dropped without warning. A chill brushed the back of my neck. The shadows in the far corner of the room gathered, stretching upward, pulling into a taller shape that did not belong to any of us.

The darkness twisted in on itself, like smoke caught in reverse. A figure stepped out of it.

Not in the flesh.

I would have smelled him if he were truly here. I would have tasted the specific wrongness of his blood and magic in the air.

This was a projection.

Valerian Mobius looked almost relaxed.

He wore dark clothes that caught no light, his long hair smooth around his shoulders, his skin pale in a way that was not dead but dangerous. His eyes, a deep, uncanny blue, fixed on the fragment in Raven’s hand first.

Then he smiled.

The sight of it scraped along my nerves.

“Every piece you find brings me closer,” he said.

His voice filled the room without volume. It wrapped around us, soft and poisonous, like velvet dipped in venom.

Raven’s grip tightened on the shard. “Get out.”

“Such hostility,” he replied. “Is that how you greet your future husband?”

“You are not my husband and you never will be,” she said.

He tilted his head, considering. “We will see.”

I stepped closer to the bed, my shoulder brushing Con’s. His fingers found my hand on instinct, cold and solid.

Valerian’s gaze slid to me then stopped for a heartbeat, tracing the torn edge of my dress, the soot still smudged along my arms.

“You smell like fire,” he observed. “How nostalgic.”

“Try stepping into it,” I said. “See how nostalgic it feels then.”