Lesson 1 : The Scent of Death and Lilies
The iron gates of the Obsidian Palace groaned open like the jaws of a giant. Elara stepped onto the gravel path, her breath hitching as the sheer scale of the vampire stronghold loomed over her. High above, the moon was a sliver of bone in a bruised purple sky—the only thing that felt familiar.
Inside, the air was thick. To a human, it might have smelled like expensive incense and vintage wine. To Elara, whose senses were sharpened by the wolf lurking beneath her skin, the ballroom smelled of ancient dust, cold marble, and the cloyingly sweet scent of death masked by lilies.
"Don't lose your temper," her Alpha's voice echoed in her mind. "You are a ghost tonight. Watch. Listen. Do not feed their hunger."
She smoothed the silk of her midnight-blue gown. It was a secondary skin, tight and restrictive, designed to make her look like just another aristocratic plaything. But beneath the fabric, her muscles were coiled springs. Her claws ached to sprout from her fingertips every time a passing vampire brushed against her.
They were beautiful, in a way that made her stomach turn. Their skin was translucent, their movements too fluid, too silent. They moved like predators in a dream.
Elara made her way toward the edge of the ballroom, sticking to the shadows cast by the towering velvet drapes. She took a glass of crimson liquid from a passing servant—not to drink, but to blend in. As she scanned the room, her eyes locked onto the dais at the far end.
There he was. Julian.
He didn't look like the monster the pack stories described. He looked like a god carved from winter. He was draped in black brocade, leaning back in a chair made of polished bone. He wasn't talking. He wasn't laughing. He was simply existing, his presence heavy enough to warp the air around him.
Suddenly, Julian's head turned. It was a slow, deliberate movement.
His eyes—a startling, luminescent violet—cut through the crowd and landed directly on her. The distance between them was fifty feet, but Elara felt it like a physical blow to the chest. Her wolf began to howl in the back of her mind, not in a warning of danger, but in a frantic, confused recognition.
He knew what she was. And he was smiling.