THE GATES CLICKED closed behind the black sedans, and the villa fell into a tense, expectant silence.
Mailah felt the shift immediately—the kind of charge that prickled along her skin, the sense that centuries of judgment and power were about to descend upon them.
Grayson's hand found hers instinctively. He didn't speak, didn't need to; his presence alone was a tether, a steadying force amidst the storm of anticipation.
Mailah inhaled, trying to calm her racing heart. Two days. Two days until the wedding. And now, the gauntlet begins.
The Council members advanced along the cobblestone driveway, their steps crisp, precise, like the ticking of a metronome measuring authority. Three figures, but they carried the weight of an entire supernatural hierarchy.
