Lucian stepped fully inside a slaughterhouse that wasn't designed by himself.
The air inside was a mixture of scents that hit his senses with full force.
First came the smell of vampire blood—heavy, copper-rich, and cooling too fast. Then, cutting through it was the thinner, scent of human blood, faint but there.
And finally, beneath it all, was the scent of flowers and rain-slicked asphalt.
Adrian's scent.
Lucian didn't rush in. His gaze sweeping the floor. He saw the two bodies twisted in the dirt, their limbs at angles in a way that suggested internal conflict.
In the center of the light, Adrian was on the floor.
He was zip-tied, his wrists pulled behind his back, the plastic had bitten through the skin. His face was bruised all over—a swollen eye, a split lip that still leaked blood, and a bruise blooming across his jaw.
