The screaming above finally faded into a rhythmic, wet dripping. The "Purge" had moved deeper into the woods, leaving the cathedral a hollowed-out ribcage of stone and cooling blood. Inside the cramped darkness of the crypt, the silence was even more deafening than the battle had been.
Gideon didn't move. His body remained a shield over Morwenna, his heavy heat slowly seeping into her porcelain skin. The suspense of the hunt had been replaced by a crushing, emotional gravity. He could smell the ozone of her magic and the faint, floral scent of the oils the vampires used to preserve their vanity. It was intoxicating and wrong.
"They're gone," Morwenna whispered, her voice cracking. She pushed against his chest, not with force, but with a trembling uncertainty.
Gideon exhaled, a ragged sound that clouded in the small space. He rolled back, allowing her to sit up in the dirt. The moonlight filtered through the floorboards above, casting bars of silver light across her face. She looked like a ghost, fragile and lethal all at once.
"You lied to me," Gideon said, his voice low and dangerous. "You said the Coven was pulling back. They were waiting in the rafters, Morwenna. My brothers are dead because I believed a shadow."
Morwenna flinched as if he'd struck her. She reached out, her fingers hovering near the jagged scar on his shoulder. "And my sisters are ash because I believed a wolf. Valerius didn't tell me about the ambush. He used me as bait, Gideon. He sent me here knowing the Pack would follow my scent."
The realization hit them both like a physical blow. They weren't just spies; they were expendable pawns. The Sanguine Coven and the Iron-Moon Pack hadn't just been fighting each other—they had been orchestrating a collision, using Morwenna and Gideon as the spark.
"We are ghosts to them," Morwenna murmured, her violet eyes shimmering with a sudden, rare moisture. "Soldiers until we're carcasses."
Gideon looked at his hands, stained with the dust of the sanctuary and the phantom blood of his kin. He looked back at her—at the way she held herself, shoulders tight, waiting for him to turn on her. The suspicion was there, thick and suffocating, but beneath it was a desperate, raw need for something other than hate.
"If I go back now," Gideon said, his amber eyes locking onto hers, "I have to bring a heart. If I don't, Bane will hunt me as a traitor."
Morwenna drew her dagger, the steel singing as it left the sheath. She didn't point it at him. Instead, she held the hilt toward him. "Then take it, Gideon. End the lie before it burns us both."
The air between them vibrated with a tragic, lethal tension. Gideon reached out, but he didn't take the blade. He took her hand, his fingers interlacing with hers—ice meeting fire.
"Not tonight," he rasped. "Tonight, we find out who started this war. Because it wasn't us."