Matteo
The shards of the whiskey glass glinted on the hearth like fallen stars, but I couldn't bring myself to call a servant to sweep them up. I stood in the center of my study, the air still thick with the ghost of Aveline’s scent—vanilla, salt, and the metallic tang of the brand I had just discovered.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. The jagged, silver-white scar carved into her soft skin. A "Traitor’s Mark."
I had spent fifteen years calling her a parasite, but I was the one who had fed on a lie.
I turned my attention back to the desk. The journal—Elias Carrington’s final testimony—lay open among the scattered papers I’d swept aside in my heat. My hands, still trembling with a mix of post-adrenaline tremors and raw fury, reached for the book.
I needed to see the dates.
I pu
