The midnight frost clung tightly to the carved balustrades of the guest cottage, transforming the stone into slick sheets of crystal. Inside, the room was bathed in an eerie, unnatural blue glow that emanated not from a hearth fire, but from Adam’s own chest.
He stood before the narrow mirror hanging on the rough plaster wall, his breath coming in shallow, rhythmic gasps—a mimicry of mortal breathing that his newly activated core was desperately trying to master. Beneath his flawless skin, where absolute silence had once reigned, a complex network of luminous silver veins pulsed with cold, calculating geometry. The memories had flooded in just an hour ago, crashing over his fabricated consciousness like an ocean of liquid starlight.
He was not a survivor of the southern storms. He was a
