The blood-map screamed every time someone died.

The sound echoed softly through the throne room beneath the vampire citadel, thin and sharp beneath the crackling firelight, like metal dragged slowly across glass.

Eva barely looked up anymore.

She sat sideways on the obsidian throne with one leg crossed over the other, dark red velvet spilling across the carved black steps beneath her while crimson lines crawled and pulsed over the giant map suspended in the center of the room.

Every glowing vein marked movement.

Every flare marked death.

Blackwood wolves.

Rogues.

Scouts.

Hunters.

The entire border war unfolding in real time through blood magic.

Another pulse flashed near the eastern ridge.

Three rogues dead.

A second later, the screaming stopped.

Eva rested her temple lightly against one knuckle, watching the map reorganize itself beneath the crimson glow.

“Efficient,” she murmured.

Malakai glanced up from the wine glass in his hand.

“That almost sounded complimentary.”

“It wasn’t.”

He smiled faintly anyway.

The ancient vampire stood near the balcony overlooking the underground throne chamber, silver rings glinting faintly each time lightning flashed behind the gothic windows carved into the stone walls. Everything about him looked expensive. Controlled. Ancient.

Eva found it irritating tonight.

Another bloodline ignited across the map.

Killian’s forces moving north.

Fast.

Precise.

Not emotional.

That part caught her attention more than she wanted it to.

Two years ago, Killian would’ve charged headfirst into rogue territory the moment someone touched his borders. Violence first. Thinking later.

Now he was repositioning entire units without wasting movement.

The western routes narrowed.

The eastern patrols doubled back.

And slowly, almost invisibly, the weakest supply corridor beneath the southern cliffs became protected from three separate directions at once.

Eva’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Interesting.

Malakai noticed the shift immediately.

“What?”

“He adapted.”

“That sounds dangerously close to respect.”

Eva ignored him.

Her gaze remained fixed on the moving lines of blood.

Killian wasn’t reinforcing the obvious routes.

He was protecting the hidden ones.

Which meant he finally understood Tanya.

Or at least understood betrayal.

A rogue pack symbol suddenly disappeared near the southern tunnels.

Then another.

Then another.

The blood-map pulsed harder each time.

Killian was cornering them underground.

Not publicly.

Quietly.

Cutting off movement before the rogues even realized they were trapped.

Eva leaned forward slightly without noticing.

Malakai definitely noticed.

“You’re studying him.”

“I’m studying strategy.”

“Mm.”

She hated when he made that sound.

Another line flickered red near the eastern ridge.

A Blackwood patrol wiped out.

Eva’s expression didn’t change.

But she noticed something else immediately afterward.

Killian redirected troops there within seconds.

Not to retaliate.

To contain panic.

Her fingers tapped once against the armrest.

Cold.

Calculated.

He was thinking like a ruler now instead of a wounded Alpha.

That should’ve pleased her.

Instead, something uncomfortable settled beneath her ribs.

Not warmth exactly.

More like pressure.

Memory.

The ghost of a feeling she’d spent two years carving out of herself with blood and rage and revenge.

Malakai walked toward the map slowly.

“Execute him.”

Eva didn’t answer.

The vampire stopped beside the throne.

“He’s recovering too quickly.”

Still silence.

“He’s stabilizing Blackwood again. If the rogues fail to weaken the borders now, eventually the smaller packs will crawl back under his authority.”

Eva’s gaze remained fixed on the bloodlines.

“I know.”

“Then kill him.”

Simple answer.

Logical answer.

Strategic answer.

Malakai watched her carefully when she still didn’t respond.

“You hesitate every time his name enters the room.”

Eva finally looked at him.

Cold enough to freeze bone.

“Careful.”

Malakai smiled faintly.

“There she is.”

Another pulse lit the map.

A rogue commander dead near the western river.

Eva recognized the signature instantly.

One of Richard’s scouts.

Killian was getting close to discovering the smuggling routes.

Faster than expected.

She stood from the throne in one smooth motion.

The room shifted immediately.

Every vampire present lowered their eyes as she crossed the chamber, dark skirts whispering against black marble while bloodlight reflected softly across her pale skin.

At the far end of the throne room stood the scrying mirror.

Ancient obsidian.

Tall as a cathedral door.

Its surface moved like liquid shadow beneath the candlelight.

Eva sliced her thumb open with one sharp nail and pressed blood against the glass.

The mirror woke instantly.

Dark mist spread across the surface.

Then Killian appeared.

Rain poured over him beneath the ruined Blackwood battlements. Wolves moved around him carrying weapons and silver traps through the storm while distant fires burned across the southern ridge behind him.

He looked exhausted.

And somehow larger because of it.

The black coat hanging from his shoulders was soaked through completely, clinging to the broad shape of him while blood streaked one side of his jaw near an old split in his skin.

Killian was speaking to Marcus.

Eva couldn’t hear the words through the scrying glass, but she watched the way he moved.

Short answers.

Controlled gestures.

Minimal emotion.

The old Killian would’ve broken furniture by now.

This version held himself together too tightly instead.

Like something inside him had learned the cost of losing control.

Her eyes dropped before she could stop them.

To his throat.

The bite mark remained faintly visible beneath the rainwater.

Her mark.

The realization slid through her chest strangely.

Not soft.

Never soft.

Something darker than that.

Possession.

Malakai noticed her expression shift almost immediately.

“He still touches it when he thinks.”

Eva’s gaze snapped sideways.

“You’ve been watching him too?”

“I watch everything.”

The vampire moved closer to the mirror.

Killian had turned slightly now, staring toward the distant forest beyond Blackwood territory while rain ran slowly from the ends of his hair.

He looked thinner than before.

Harder too.

Like grief had stripped away anything unnecessary and left only instinct behind.

Then, without warning, Killian reached up and touched the scar on his throat.

The exact spot where her teeth pierced him.

Eva’s fingers tightened subtly at her side.

The phantom pressure beneath her ribs deepened.

Malakai saw it happen.

“Dangerous.”

She ignored him.

On the other side of the mirror, Killian said something to Marcus before the Beta walked away, leaving him alone beneath the rain.

For a moment he just stood there.

Motionless.

Like the storm couldn’t touch him anymore.

Then slowly, almost unconsciously, he looked directly toward the mirror.

Toward her.

Eva froze.

The air between them tightened sharply.

Impossible.

The scrying spell didn’t work both ways.

And yet his gold eyes narrowed anyway, searching the darkness with the exact same focus wolves used when tracking prey through forests at night.

A strange feeling crawled up Eva’s spine.

Recognition.

The Mate Bond pulsed once.

Hard.

Killian stepped closer to the rain-soaked edge of the battlement.

His mouth moved.

Eva couldn’t hear the first words.

Then the magic shifted briefly.

Just enough.

“I know you’re watching.”

Her breath caught before she could stop it.

Malakai straightened immediately beside her.

“He shouldn’t be able to sense that.”

Killian’s fingers brushed the scar on his throat again.

Not absentmindedly this time.

Deliberately.

His gaze never leaving the mirror.

Never leaving her.

God.

That look.

Not hatred.

Worse.

Need.

The kind that survived humiliation and grief and violence and still kept crawling back alive.

Eva hated it instantly because part of her body remembered exactly how it felt to be looked at like that.

Malakai’s voice sharpened slightly.

“This ends now.”

Killian said something else softly through the storm, too quiet for the mirror to fully carry.

But Eva caught the last part.

“…should’ve killed me.”

The words settled somewhere low in her chest before she could stop them.

Not pity.

Not forgiveness.

Something much more dangerous.

The smallest flicker of warmth moved through her cold hybrid heart like a dying match refusing to go out.

Eva shattered the mirror with one violent wave of her hand.

The obsidian surface exploded across the throne room.

Black shards crashed against marble.

Several younger vampires physically recoiled.

Silence followed.

Heavy.

Malakai looked from the broken glass to Eva slowly.

“You hesitated.”

“No.”

“You watched him too long.”

Eva turned away before he could study her face any further.

The blood-map behind her screamed again as another rogue died near the southern routes, but tonight the sound barely registered over the echo of Killian’s voice still lingering in her head.

I know you’re watching.

She hated how certain he sounded.

More than that—

She hated that he was right.