The three Shadow Guard that entered the Queen’s great meeting hall were greeted with hooting laughter and snickering from the crowd around them. The Queen had invited many of her vampires to the hall, and Astrid found her skin crawling as she stared at their hungry gazes. She shivered. Something about this whole thing felt very, very wrong. She’d grown up on tales of the Shadow Guard; this should be an honorable meeting, not a mockery.
Arcann slipped through the crowd to stand beside her, watching the Shadow Guard with his glittering silver eyes. “They were once great warriors,” he said as if he’d read her mind’s dialogue. “Now they are nothing but corrupt agents of the Fiends.”
“Really?” Astrid whispered.
He nodded. “We’ve had our own dealings with the Fiends of course,” he said. “We
