The air in the Palais des Nations felt older than the bones of the mountains surrounding Geneva. It was a cold, heavy stillness, the kind that had witnessed decades of human conflict and compromise. Logan Sterling adjusted the cuffs of his tailored suit, a uniform for a battlefield he never thought he'd be fighting on. He wasn't a wolf, not an alpha, not a deity. He was a man with a tablet full of talking points and the future of his found family resting on his shoulders.
Across the vast, polished table sat Lysander Ravencroft. He didn't look like a two-thousand-year-old vampire who could command minds and reshape cities. He looked like a patron of the arts, dressed in an immaculate dark suit, his posture relaxed, his hands steepled before him. The sheer normalcy of his appearance was more terrifying than any monstrous form. It spoke of perfect control, a deep, patient integration into the world he claimed to predate.
