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Taking a slow breath, I tried to filter them apart, reaching for the memory of Mark’s scent from the woods: rotting cedar laced with the faint, sickly sweetness of death. The moment I inhaled deep, it was like slamming into a wall of it. Pungent. Heavy. Suffocating. The stench came from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It pressed from every angle until I coughed.

Kleitos noticed the crease forming between my brows as I scanned the streets, bewildered. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice low but edged with concern.

“You don’t smell that?” My tone came out rattled, sharper than I intended.

Bomani inhaled, following my lead, and his face twisted as if he’d bitten into something rotten. “Oh, shit.” He drew in another deep breath, his head pivoting as his eyes swept the square. “I’ve never smelled so many from the same sire.”

Kleitos’ disbelief was plain as he tilted his chin up, taking his own long inhale. The moment it hit him, his nostrils flared, his expression souring at the punch of decay. “I can’t even tell where it’s coming from,” he muttered, the disbelief now giving way to unease. “What the hell kind of magic does this coven have?”

We stood there for a beat, trading glances, the cold night air heavy with the same overwhelming stench. I thought finding him would be simple: hunt, track, catch. Instead, the square was crawling with an army of Elguto carrying Mark’s exact scent, each one a walking ghost. Neither Valentina nor Arianna had warned me about this. It was a mass moving under the same putrid signature. And now that I knew… it didn’t make the hunt easier. It made it a hell of a lot harder. The odds of this not ending in a bath of blood had just dropped to near zero. I should’ve known better. It was a cruel reminder that the blood I’d hoped to spare was never going to be spared at all. The stench wound itself around me like a noose in the dark, an omen I couldn’t shake.

My chest ached as my mind began to spiral.

What side was Mark on? And what side was this even?

Turning slowly, I swept my eyes over every shadow that clung to the edges of the square. For a moment, paranoia gripped me, a caged-animal awareness that there was something far larger than me moving unseen in these streets. I tried to shake it off. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions too fast. But the feeling wouldn’t loosen its hold. It sat in my gut like a stone. Would this be the kind of ending everyone saw coming… or one I’d look back on and be proud I’d fought my way through?

Inhaling again, I searched desperately for the one scent I knew by heart. My father’s. It was like trying to find one flame in the middle of an inferno. Everything blurred together, burning hot and indistinguishable.

Closing my eyes for a beat before I spoke, my voice was low and uncertain. “What should we do?” Looking between the two of them, my eyes were a storm of fear, wonder, and confusion. I was a symphony of emotions, every note ringing sharp through my ears. From my perspective of this world, there were only two sides: you were either for King Victor and his Queen Eliza, my mother, or you were for death.

If these rebels knew nothing of me or the reign that was foretold to come… then who were they for? Were they for William? The man in the shadows who had driven my father into paranoia. He still had no face in my mind, just an empty canvas stained across my history. Did he crown himself a God among his people? How had he come to mean so much to these turned vampires?

And then there was Mark.

Mark knew exactly where I stood on this chessboard. Even if it wasn’t until he was reunited with my guardians from the shadows, he knew. The question was… How much of that knowledge would he share with people I knew nothing about? Would he betray me? If any of these questions were answered in a way that didn’t suit me… I knew exactly what I had to do. No hesitation.

Would I feel guilty? That was the harder question. But even there… I knew my answer. And I already felt the weight of it.

Kleitos waved a hand in front of my eyes, pulling me back from the distance I’d been staring into. My heart was pounding beneath my ribs, beating at an erratic rhythm. It skipped and jolted in my chest before my focus finally locked on his face. “Hey, Alex… it’s okay,” he murmured into the wind. “Whatever you’re thinking about, you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” I replied coolly, my voice flat but steady. “Everything will be okay. Let’s get started. We don’t have any time to spare.” Raking my hand through the coils of my hair, I pushed it back from my eyes as I cracked my neck. I couldn’t afford to carry any softness forward. As that thought settled, I felt something inside me shift, a heavy boulder rolling into place over my heart, sealing it off. The emotional side of me was cut away, replaced with a sharper edge. Life wasn’t a fairytale; it was a tragedy, and the best we could do was carve out our moments of happiness where we found them. Everything else existed to forge us into what we were meant to be.

Bomani’s thick hand landed firmly against my back. “Lead the way,” he said. “You’re the one most likely to find him out of all of us.”

It was my turn to move, no more talking, no more circling the same thoughts. Drawing another long breath of the cool night air, I saturated my lungs until the stench of Mark’s coven smothered everything else. It was rancid, an acrid rot that clawed at my stomach. The other Elguto I’d crossed paths with had carried the grounding scent of earth, forest, moss, soil. But this… this was wrong. This was decay masquerading as life. It was as if the land itself rejected them, calling out its false prophets.

Darting toward the edge of the night square, keeping low, my gaze swept the shadowed corners of the city. The scent pulled me in jagged, unpredictable currents, and I let it guide me as far as it could. The wind worked against us now, hurling the smell around in every direction like it wanted to keep their location a secret. I thought I was close until we rounded a narrow alley and came face-to-face with a small blonde woman pressed against a wall, her partner’s hands braced on either side of her head. His deep green eyes flicked to us just long enough for me to notice the chestnut strands falling across his brow. The two of them were clearly… occupied, in the most biblical sense.

The three of us passed them without a word, a blur of cloaks and boots on stone. Kleitos and Bomani stayed tight on my heels as I cut from one building to the next. Every lead ended in another dead end. We slipped through the door of a low-lit pub, and there it was again. That same foul perfume, clinging to the air like smoke. My eyes swept the room until they landed on five figures gathered together in the center of the floor. All women. They moved as one, laughing, spinning, their skirts swirling in time to the music.

Kleitos’ gaze moved from me to Bomani, then to the women. No words passed between us, but the plan was set. Bomani and I cut straight through the crush of bodies on the dance floor, while Kleitos angled toward the bar, disappearing into the dim light and noise. Before we parted, I caught the faintest tilt of his chin toward the counter, a signal.

Pushing my hood back, I let the cloak fall loose over my shoulders. No sense approaching them like a shadow in the night; a little charm would get me further than menace here. My movements softened into a familiar sway, a rhythm carried over from my past life, weaving through the crowd until I reached the edge of their circle. Bomani didn’t bother with grace. He moved like a soldier threading enemy lines, purposeful, direct. But he did flash them a small, practiced smile as we closed in.

They didn’t notice us at first, lost in their own laughter and the pull of the music. Then my eyes found her, a woman with a mane of black curls spilling in waves down her back. Her dress was deep blue, the fabric ruffling down her legs in soft layers. A tightly laced corset hugged her full figure, pushing her curves forward so the line of her chest all but dared attention. She caught me looking and held my gaze, a slow smile blooming over her lips.

“Ladies,” I called over the thrum of the music, my voice carrying just enough to make it sound like an invitation.

Turning as one, giggles rose like champagne bubbles.

Bomani’s smile widened as he leaned down just enough to let his voice thread through the noise. “Don’t you all look beautiful tonight,” he said, smooth as silk. “Would you care for us to get you a drink?”

The raven-haired woman was the first to speak, her voice ringing over the music like windchimes, light, lilting, but with a note of command. “You sure you want to offer that? My ladies can drink you out of house and home. We’ve got some newborns with us tonight.” Her smile was playful, but her eyes stayed locked on mine, unblinking.

“Whatever the ladies want, they can have,” I replied smoothly, letting a crooked smile curl at the corner of my mouth. “Newborns, hm? That’s something to celebrate.” I forced the note of enthusiasm, even as the thought of them being ripped from their old lives made my stomach knot. But outwardly, the mask stayed fixed.

“Exactly,” Bomani boomed, his voice rolling easily over the music. “Come on, we’ve got another friend waiting at the bar for you.”