Evander's POV
The sound of the bells hit like thunder.
A pulse of iron through stone. A scream through bone.
The first chime rolled over the compound, and the vibration sank into the marrow of the walls. Every wolf in the building went still; every breath, every movement froze for a heartbeat before instinct took control and the room erupted into motion.
And in that instant, I knew.
The first time—earlier, when the air had turned strange, when the scent had brushed against the edge of my senses—I hadn't imagined it. My mind hadn't been playing tricks. It hadn't been paranoia.
It had been real.
That chill in the air, the echo of something too elegant to be human, too cold to be wolf—vampire.
The bastard had been here. In my den.
But the bells hadn't rung then. The wards had remained quiet, obedient, blind. So I'd doubted myself. I'd believed, if only for a moment, that the mind could be deceived by exhaustion and the stench of war.
Now I understood.
