The battle had ended, but Eva had not.
Standing at the heart of the courtyard, her armor stained with blood, her face unreadable, Eva looked more like a weapon than a woman. She didn’t blink as the healer ran up to her, breathless.
Behind her, Tiana watched with folded arms and worried eyes. “You haven’t sat down once,” she said carefully. “Not since the attack. Not since… her.”
Eva didn’t respond. She was already turning to the guards near the gates. “Shut them. Lock every entrance. Double the patrols. If anyone was bitten, even scratched, isolate them immediately.”
A few of the guards exchanged nervous glances. Dany stepped forward. “Eva—”
“No exceptions,” she cut in. Her voice was sharp as a blade. “We cannot afford sentiment. Not now. Not with vampires inside our walls.”
Dany hesitated, but he nodded. “As you wish.”
Max stormed toward her, dirt and blood still streaking across his face. His chest rose and fell heavily as he grabbed her arm. “Enough,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “You haven’t slept. You haven’t eaten. You haven’t stopped for even a second—”
“Because I haven’t finished,” Eva replied flatly, shaking off his hand. “This isn’t over.”
Max stared at her. “Eva… listen to yourself.”
But she didn’t want to listen. She didn’t want to feel. If she let herself feel, she’d fall apart—and they couldn’t afford that. Not when Sylvester had her mother. Not when she had looked her in the eyes and called her daughter with vampire blood dripping from her mouth.
“I need every omega on rotation,” she said to a nearby warrior. “Tell them we’re preparing for a siege.”
“You’re scaring people,” Tiana whispered behind her. “They’re calling you the Cold Queen. Do you even care?”
Eva turned around slowly, her gaze like winter. “Would they rather I cry? Would they rather I fall to my knees and beg the moon goddess to save us while Sylvester sharpens his blade?”
Tiana blinked, taken aback. “That’s not what I meant—”
“I know exactly what you meant,” Eva snapped. “But tears don’t win wars.”
Max stepped in again, his voice softening. “You’re allowed to grieve. You’re allowed to break. That doesn’t make you weak.”
Eva looked at him for a long time. “If I break now, I won’t get back up.”
There was nothing Max could say to that.
Instead, he stepped back, letting her walk past him and into the war room, where maps were pinned and bloodstained. The scent of fear lingered in every corner of the palace.
Later that night, the torches flickered in the main hall as Eva stood alone. The silver crest of the Silverstone Pack glinted on her chestplate, but it didn’t feel like it belonged to her anymore. The woman in the reflection wasn’t the same Eva from weeks ago. That Eva had cried over love. That Eva had dreamed of peace.
This Eva—this one had sharpened her grief into armor and buried her heart beneath strategy and survival.
Dany walked in quietly. “We’ve finished the bite inspections. No one’s infected. At least… not yet.”
“Good,” Eva murmured. “Double the inspections. Morning and night.”
“You don’t trust anyone anymore, do you?” Dany asked gently.
Eva’s eyes stayed on the map. “Trust is a luxury we can’t afford.”
There was a silence, heavy and sad. Dany looked at her with the same pity everyone else had started to carry in their eyes. But she didn’t flinch under it. She welcomed it. Pity meant they hadn’t yet realized who she was becoming.
Outside, the wind howled. The pack mourned quietly—burying their dead, tending to the wounded. But their queen did not mourn. She ordered. She planned. She prepared.
In the shadows beyond the forest, a different conversation was unfolding.
Sylvester stood at the edge of the clearing, watching the lights of Silverstone flicker in the distance. His black cloak was soaked from the rain, and Georgina stood beside him like a ghost.
“She’s closing the gates,” Georginamurmured, her voice hollow.
“She should,” Sylvester replied, a glimmer of amusement in his tone. “The wolves have finally learned that the night doesn’t belong to them anymore.”
Georgina looked back at him. “You’ve taken everything from her.”
Sylvester’s lips curled into a slow, knowing smirk. “No,” he said. “I’ve given her exactly what she needed.”
Behind them, footsteps approached. Vladymyr emerged from the trees, silent and tall, his red eyes glowing.
“She’s changing,” he said.
Sylvester’s smile deepened. “She’s becoming exactly what we need.”
120
