(Carlos’ POV)
The music had died, but the room still pulsed with it.
I sat in the office of Inferno’s Breath, watching the blood dry on the dance floor below. The Originals lounged like lazy gods after the kill, full, smug, and shining with youth. They’d fed deep, maybe too deep. The deaths would stir talk in the human city soon enough, but that wasn’t my problem tonight.
They looked exactly like what they were.
Ragnar stood near the glass, hands in his pockets, gold eyes bright in the dim light. Power clung to him.
“Better,” he said. “They remember themselves now.”
“They made a mess.”
“Mess,” he repeated softly. “Death is always a bloody mess, Carlos. Your kind always looks best drenched in it.”
“I don’t pretend it’s art.”
Ragnar smiled, lazy, knowing. “And yet here you are, the
