Chapter 14: Echoes of the Court
Selene sat on the edge of her motel bed, a towel around her damp hair and an untouched cup of coffee beside her. Her eyes drifted between her weapons case , it was closed and spotless and her cracked phone in her hand.
She stared at the photo Tyler had taken of them outside the restaurant. Both of them laughing, mid-joke, mid-something that felt… real.
Her ribs still ached. Her arm was bruised. But the wounds weren't what lingered.
She thought of her brother.
Of her father's expectations.
And of Tyler, bleeding in that cabin, still trying to speak gently through the pain.
A knock at the door. She didn't flinch.
"Are you good?" her father's voice asked from behind it.
"Yeah. There was no activity in my area last night," she lied. "The beast must've moved on."
A pause. Then: "We're packing up and moving east. Are you coming?"
"I'll think about it."
Footsteps disappearing. Then silence.
Selene opened the old hunter journal on her lap. Her brother's handwriting filled the margins.
They trained us to see monsters. But what if we were never taught to see people?
Her phone buzzed.
Tyler: Hey. Just checking in. Thinking of you. Might be leaving the city for a few days.
Selene stared at the message.
She typed.
Deleted.
Typed again.
Hey Ty. I'm coping. How's your wounds? Why are you leaving? Can we meet before you go?
Far from Hollow Pines, in a manor built of old stone and darker magic, candles flickered behind crimson glass.
The private suite atop the Silvyr Vale Hotel was awash in muted reds.. No windows. Only polished obsidian walls and glass panels tinted to block even a sliver of sunlight. It smelled of rosewater, parchment, and old blood.
A map of Hollow Pines was unfurled on the central table, pins marked along the edge of the town and surrounding forest. A single, violet-eyed woman stood over it, one pale finger tracing the ridgeline near Deadwood Forest.
Her name was Princess Adrienne Nyx Sanguinaris, heir to the Crimson Veil and direct daughter of the King and Queen of the Sanguine Court.
To the outside world, she was a whispered name, a ghost of grace, power, and danger. Few outside the Court had ever seen her and lived to remember it.
Her beauty was ethereal and ageless: dark hair cascading like liquid ink, skin like carved alabaster, lips wine-dark and perfectly still. Her eyes glowed with a red-violet luminescence, a trait passed only to Sanguine royalty.
Sitting quietly in a corner near the door, dressed in modern black and wearing mirrored sunglasses, was her royal escort Sir Lucien of the Pale Order, a silent, centuries-old sentinel. He spoke rarely, never engaged in political matters, and answered only to the King, Queen… and Adrienne.
A scroll sealed in black wax lay beside the map, broken open minutes ago. The parchment still pulsed faintly with royal blood magic, the mark of her father's seal.
"A lone werewolf sighted in human territory," Adrienne said aloud, her voice a delicate thing wrapped in steel. "And yet the Brotherhood denies any movement from their packs."
Lucien inclined his head slightly.
"A rogue then? Or something... new?" she mused.
She turned from the map and walked toward the full-length mirror mounted along the far wall. Her reflection stared back, perfectly still, eyes glowing. But behind the glass shimmered a faint echo of something else: the minds of those within a 10 meter radius, their thoughts bleeding like candle smoke across her awareness.
She has the special gift of Mindshadow Sight. A rare mental gift among vampire royals, allowing her to sense surface-level thoughts and emotional states of those nearby. Not true mind-reading, but powerful enough to detect lies, fear, hunger... or the stirrings of betrayal.
"If it is a true breach of the ceasefire," she continued, "then the treaty may unravel faster than the King believes. The Lords are already restless."
Lucien spoke at last, voice low and neutral. "Should I inform the Count of Nocthollow?"
Adrienne shook her head. "No. If any of the Eight learn of this, they'll see it as provocation. Half would want to strike first and talk later."
She glanced down at the map again.
"No banners. No escorts. No formal presence. We walk as ghosts."
"Subtle?" Lucien asked.
"Surgical," she replied.
She turned toward the grand wardrobe and slipped into a sleek black coat, modern and elegant. Her boots clicked once on the polished marble as she moved toward the door.
"If a beast walks among them, I'll find it. And if this is merely smoke…" she allowed the ghost of a smile, "...then we'll let it drift quietly away."
"And if it's something else entirely?"
She paused, crimson eyes glittering.
"Then I will bury it before anyone else even smells the blood."
They left the suite in silence, the door closing with a whisper behind them.