---
"Lord Klaus, should we inform the other sovereigns."
Klaus's eyes shifted toward the subordinate.
The subordinate immediately looked down, regretting the question.
Klaus answered anyway.
"No," Klaus said. "Let them panic alone."
A faint laughter moved through the hall, but it was the kind of laughter that sounded like knives sliding out of sheaths.
Selene's voice was smooth.
"But they may already move," she said.
Klaus's smile sharpened.
"That is why we move first," he replied.
He paused, then added something that made the hall feel colder again.
"And if one of them reaches the origin vampire before us," Klaus said, "then we take it from them."
That was the true nature of the Blood Sovereigns.
They did not share.
They did not compromise.
They consumed.
Selene nodded once, accepting the brutal logic.
Then she asked.
"How will they find the origin vampire," she said. "The shockwave was brief."
Klaus's eyes gleamed.
