ADAM

The air in the meeting room was thick enough to choke on. The kind of silence that felt alive—pressing, listening, waiting.

Maps lay spread across the table, dotted with ink marks where the attacks had been reported. Names of colonies, forests, villages—places that had once been peaceful now painted red with blood. The scent of wax from the burning candles mixed with the faint metallic tang of unease.

We'd gone over the facts again and again. The conclusion was the same: the vampires were out for us.

And yet, I couldn't understand why.

My mind circled the question until it bled into another—one I didn't want to entertain. Sage....