The forest had long forgotten the moon. Branches groped at a sky that never brightened, and the wind carried the copper scent of blood through the mist. Valois moved beneath the trees without a sound, his cloak whispering over the roots. Behind him, his soldiers kept their distance—pale-eyed phantoms waiting for his command.
Tonight was no patrol. It was an execution.
“Six rogues,” murmured his captain, breath frosting in the cold. “They wiped out an entire village. The council demands their heads.”
Valois inclined his head once. The order was clear. Yet the air itself felt wrong—too still, too heavy, as if the woods held its breath. He caught a pulse that wasn’t his own. A wolf’s scent, female, close.
He raised a hand. The troop halted. Silence settled so thick it seemed to press against their throats. Then a howl broke the dark—low, fractured, full of pain.
Valois blurred forward before the echo faded. Branches splintered as he crossed the clearing. By the river’s edge knelt a figure in the mud, cloak torn, one arm shielding a small, trembling shape. A child—no, a pup. In her other hand she gripped a silver dagger.
When she looked up, her eyes burned gold.
“Back,” she whispered to the pup. Then to him: “Come any closer, monster, and you’ll regret it.”
Valois’s mouth curved. “I doubt that.”
He moved faster than sight. Steel met claw, sparks leapt. She twisted free and slashed upward; the blade grazed his throat—a sting he hadn’t felt in decades. Her stance was clumsy, untrained, but fury lent her strength. He could have killed her three times already, yet something in her gaze rooted him in place.
Behind her, the pup whimpered. “Run!” she cried. The child bolted into the trees. Valois should have gone after it, but his focus stayed on the woman. Fear clung to her scent, sharp and honest—but beneath it lingered something cleaner, like moonlight on frost.
They circled each other.
“You hunt my kind for sport?” she spat.
“I hunt murderers,” he said.
“And who hunts you, vampire?”
She lunged. He caught her wrist, spun her, and pinned her to a tree. The dagger fell away. For a heartbeat they stood chest to chest, her breath hot against his jaw. He expected the stench of wolf—but what filled his senses was wild honey and rain. The shock of it loosened his grip.
Her heart thundered. He could have ended her. Instead, he found himself whispering, “What are you?”
She answered with a growl and a desperate shove that broke his hold. She sprinted for the river. He followed—and froze when he saw the faint silver mark glowing at her wrist: a crescent bleeding light through the grime.
His pulse faltered. That mark was supposed to be extinct.
She turned mid-stride, confused by his hesitation. Their eyes locked again—predator and prey, neither certain which was which. Then the ground quaked. Behind him, a horn blared: his soldiers, closing in. If they saw her, she would die.
Valois hissed a curse and moved. He seized her arm and, in one motion, hurled her into the river, praying the water would hide her scent. She surfaced once, gasping, confusion flashing across her face before the current took her under.
By the time his troops arrived, he stood alone on the bank.
“Prince Valois?” his captain called. “Where are the rogues?”
Valois stared at the black water. “Dealt with.”
“The council expected—”
“I’ll handle the council,” Valois cut in, his tone sharp enough to draw obedience. “No survivors.”
He turned away before anyone saw the last ripple of silver light fade beneath the surface.
He returned to the citadel before dawn—a meaningless hour in a world without moon or sun. The towers rose like fangs from the mountainside, their windows bleeding red fire. The hall reeked of iron and fear; the elders waited, throned in shadow.
“You were late,” one hissed.
“The rogues?”
“Destroyed,” Valois replied.
“And the bodies?”
“Burned. Nothing left to turn.”
A lie smooth as glass.
But the Seer’s warning echoed in his mind: If ever the Moonblood lives again, your mercy will end the night itself.
He had never believed in prophecy—until now.
As the council droned on about borders and blood quotas, Valois’s thoughts returned to the river: to golden eyes and that impossible mark. He told himself that sparing her had been strategy, not weakness. Yet his hands still trembled with the memory of her heartbeat against his palm.
When the meeting ended, he stood on the highest balcony, staring into the endless dark. Somewhere out there, she was alive. He could feel it. And for the first time in three centuries, Prince Valois D’Ardent feared the night.