The main hall was a slaughterhouse.
Bodies littered the floor—guards, pack members, some still in their nightclothes. Blood painted the walls in arterial sprays. The scent of death was so thick Celeste could taste it, copper and iron and the acrid burn of magic gone wrong.
And in the center of it all stood Seraphine.
Power
crackled around her in visible waves. Her hands dripped red. Her eyes burned with something beyond madness—beyond grief—into a hatred so absolute it had become its own kind of faith.
"You think I couldn't get in here anytime I wanted?" she called out, her voice echoing through the c*****e.
A soldier lunged at her from the left. She didn't even look—just flicked her wrist. The man's body crumpled mid-leap, bones shattering audibly.
"Stupid little wolves."
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