✦ ADRAIN'S POV ✦
The office was silent.
Only the sound of pages turning disturbed the darkness.
Moonlight spilled through the tall windows, illuminating the wall behind Adrain's desk.
An entire wall covered in photographs.
Attack sites.
Massacres.
Crime scenes.
Every murder connected to the same unseen predator.
For hours, Adrain had been studying them.
Searching.
Calculating.
Looking for the one detail everyone else had missed.
His silver eyes moved from one photograph to another.
Then stopped.
A photograph from one of the earliest attacks.
At first glance, it looked no different from the rest.
Blood.
Bodies.
Destruction.
But something felt wrong.
Adrain stepped closer.
His gaze narrowed.
There.
Written across the wall behind one of the victims.
Almost invisible beneath the blood.
At first glance, it looked like random streaks.
Nothing more.
But Adrain knew better.
The markings weren't random.
They were words.
Ancient words.
Written in blood.
The crimson letters stretched across the stone wall like a warning left behind for anyone capable of reading it.
"Iw tr rdit ntt inyt."
The room fell silent.
Adrain stared at the message.
Longer than necessary.
His expression remained unreadable.
Slowly, he removed the photograph from the board.
Then crossed the room.
Opened a hidden drawer beneath his desk.
And removed an ancient book.
Its leather cover was cracked with age.
Its pages yellowed.
Fragile.
Ancient.
The kind of book that should have been lost to history.
Adrain opened it.
Page after page turned beneath his fingers.
Minutes passed.
The room remained silent.
Then—
His hand froze.
His silver eyes moved across the ancient text.
Reading.
Translating.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
"The time has come to return that which was taken."
Silence.
The words echoed through the room.
Ancient.
Ominous.
Wrong.
Not of the message itself.
But of the intent behind it.
As though whoever had written those words wasn't making a threat.
They were announcing something.
Claiming something.
Promising something.
He closed the book.
Slowly.
Silently.
The room felt colder.
Then suddenly—BANG!
The door opened.
Drek stepped inside.
For once, there wasn't a trace of amusement on his face.
Without a word, he tossed a folder onto the table.
Adrain closed the ancient book.
His expression unreadable.
Then opened the folder.
Photographs spilled out.
The room fell silent.
An entire vampire family.
Dead.
Not killed.
Slaughtered.
Bodies torn apart.
Blood covered the walls.
Furniture shattered.
The entire house looked as though a monster had walked through it and left nothing alive behind.
Drek watched him carefully.
Adrain examined every photograph.
Every wound.
Every mark.
Every detail.
His expression never changed.
That frightened Drek more than anger ever could.
His eyes continued moving across the photographs.
Then suddenly—
He stopped.
One image.
A single image.
Different from the others.
His fingers tightened slightly around the photograph.
Drek noticed.
Adrain lifted it.
Studying it closer.
And closer.
And then he noticed it.
Most people would have overlooked it completely.
Adrain didn't.
His silver eyes sharpened.
The room became deathly still.
Seconds passed.
Then a faint smile appeared on his lips.
Not amusement.
Recognition.
Like an old nightmare had finally stepped out of the shadows.
Drek frowned.
"You know who did this? "
"You know him?"
Silence.
The smile vanished.
"He has been moving for weeks."
Adrain's voice was calm.
Too calm.
"Killing."
"Searching."
"Waiting."
His silver eyes darkened.
"And now he's here."
The air inside the room grew heavy.
Drek folded his arms.
"What do we do?"
Adrain walked toward the window.
His hands slid into his pockets.
Every movement carried effortless authority.
The authority of someone who had never learned what fear felt like.
"Host a party."
Drek blinked.
"A party?"
"Invite everyone."
His voice was cold.
"Every noble house."
"Every ally."
"Every enemy pretending to be an ally."
Understanding slowly dawned on Drek's face.
A trap.
No.
Something worse.
A challenge.
Drek studied him carefully.
"You think he'll come?"
A dangerous smile curved Adrain's lips.
"Oh, he'll come."
Absolute certainty echoed in his voice.
As if he already knew the answer.
As if he understood the monster far better than anyone else ever could.
The room fell silent.
Then Drek asked the question that had been bothering him from the beginning.
"Who is he?"
For the first time, Adrain looked away from the window.
His silver eyes met Drek's.
Cold.
Ancient.
Unreadable.
A long silence followed.
Then—
"Someone I should have killed a long time ago."
A chill swept through the room.
Drek felt it instantly.
The hatred hidden beneath those calm words.
Not ordinary hatred.
The kind forged through blood.
The kind that survives centuries.
Adrain picked up one of the photographs again.
His fingers tightened around it.
The paper crumpled instantly.
"He's hunting something."
His voice dropped lower.
"And that's what concerns me."
Drek frowned.
"You don't know what he wants?"
For the first time that night, Adrain's eyes narrowed.
"No."
The answer came immediately.
"But I intend to find out."
The lights flickered.
A dangerous shadow crossed his face.
"He didn't come here without a reason."
"He never does."
Silence.
Adrain stared at the ruined photograph.
Thinking.
Calculating.
Watching invisible pieces move across a board only he could see.
"What worries me isn't that he's here."
His voice became quieter.
More dangerous.
"It's why."
Drek remained silent.
Adrain's gaze drifted toward the darkness outside.
Toward the forest.
Toward something only he could sense.
"What is he looking for?"
"What made him leave his territory?"
"What was important enough to start a war for?"
His jaw tightened.
"And why now?"
The room seemed to grow colder with every question.
Because Drek realized something.
Adrain wasn't afraid.
He was suspicious.
And that was far worse.
Because suspicion meant Adrain had noticed a pattern.
A missing piece.
Something that didn't fit.
Then suddenly—
His silver eyes sharpened.
Predatory.
Lethal.