I spun, bolting for the door, my body shifting back as I ran into the descending twilight.
She was out there, alone, unprotected.
And men like us—monsters like him—were always waiting in the dark.
I had to find her.
Before he did.
ChapterNine
AMIR
The cobblestones glistened under the fading light as dusk settled over London, a city veiled in shadows and secrets.I prowled the streets, a silent predator searching for Elizabeth, my every step guided by an instinct I could not ignore.
The night deepened, thick and impenetrable, as if it conspired to swallow her whole, to shroud her from my vigilant gaze.The rain came in hesitant droplets at first, a tentative caress against the city’s skin.Then it grew bolder, more insistent, falling in sheets that darkened my coat and traced rivulets down my temples.The cold seeped into me, but I welcomed it—let it carve clarity through the haze and fuel the hunger that burned beneath my ribs.
And then—her.
A willowy figure slipped through the labyrinthine alleys ahead, her stride urgent, unwavering.The downpour did not slow her.She did not seek shelter or turn toward the safety of her heart and home.Instead, she pressed forward, deeper into the city’s bones.
Toward the dead.
The iron-wrought gate loomed before her, its rusted hinges groaning a protest as she pushed through.Beyond it stretched an expanse of silence and stone—a graveyard where time seemed to mourn.
I followed, a phantom draped in the vestiges of night, swallowed by the storm.
She moved through the rows of the departed, rain-soaked and fragile yet utterly indomitable.Then, she stopped.
Before a cluster of graves.
I stepped closer, unseen, my gaze drawn to the names etched upon the weathered stones.
A woman.Two young men.
A single name bound them all.
Alexander.
The night held its breath.
And so did I.
The dates on the gravestones were fresh, their deaths recent enough that grief still clung to the air like an unshaken specter.The woman—her mother.The young men—her brothers.Lives claimed by that masked imposter’s indiscriminate hand, taken on foreign soil.
Elizabeth’s voice broke the hush, a fragile whisper carried by the wind.
“I’m so sorry.”
Again and again, the words spilled from her lips, a litany of apologies, as soft as prayers, spoken for the dead who could no longer hear her.
A storm raged inside me.
I yearned to step from the shadows, gather her in my arms, and shield her from this world’s cruelty.To press my lips to her hair and promise that she was not alone.
But I was bound elsewhere.
Another cause.Another master.
