Chapter 40: The Sovereign Judgment
The live infrared feed on the primary monitor held steady, casting a pale, violet hue across the high-grade composite console in the command center. Outside, the blizzard shrieked around the eaves of Alderwood Manor with winds topping eighty miles per hour, but inside, the air hovered at seventy-two degrees, dry and smelling faintly of clean birchwood and filtered air. Rowan Mercer sat motionless in the deep leather operator chair, his chin resting against his steepled fingers as his eyes tracked the three thermal shapes tangled together on the king-sized bed across the street.
The digital sensors registered the cold encroaching on the Sterling master bedroom with clinical precision. On the screen, the yellow glow of their core body temperatures was fad
