The air around me shifted, charged with something dark and sinister. The Keeper stood at the edge of the battlefield, watching us with an eerie calm that made my skin crawl. His presence alone seemed to sap the energy from the earth, the warmth from the air. It was as if his very existence bent reality itself.
Kieran growled low in his throat, his massive wolf form tense and ready to strike, but even he hesitated. The Keeper was different. Stronger. Deadlier. He wasn’t like the other vampires we had faced. This was something else entirely.
I could feel it too—the oppressive weight of his power pressing down on me, suffocating and cold. My hands still crackled with energy, but it was faint now, barely under my control. The earth no longer responded to my will the way it had moments before
