The heavy mahogany door of the library suite felt less like a barrier and more like a tombstone separating Chloe, Melanie, and Dominic from the rest of the silent, suffocating manor. Outside, the grand corridors of the North had fallen into an eerie, unnatural quiet that made the hairs on the back of their necks stand up.
They weren't wolves; they possessed no predatory instincts, no heightened senses to hear the low, venomous whispers vibrating through the grand court below.
Melanie sat hunched over a massive, iron-bound table littered with ancient manuscripts and crumbling yellow parchments, her fingers tracing the faded Latin and archaic runes of the old blood-syllable treaties. Dominic was leaning back on a plush velvet settee, idly spinning a heavy silver dagger between his fingers, while Chloe paced near the arched window, her arms crossed over her chest as she stared out into the dark, encroaching fog of the pine woods.
