Page 47 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

Con’s head snapped toward the noise, his entire body shifting from guarded to ready in a heartbeat. Warrior, not lover. The room argument vanished from his eyes, replaced by the cold focus I knew too well.

“What was that?” I whispered.

“Not one of ours,” he said. “All patrols are on the perimeter. Nobody’s assigned inside the graveyard at this hour.”

“Could be a deer.”

“Could be,” he agreed. “But it isn’t.”

We both reached for our weapons at the same time.

The familiar weight of my compact spear snapped into my palm as I clicked the release. The shaft extended with a whisper of metal and a soft hum of power as the sanctified tip responded to my touch. Serenity felt like an old friend at my side, reliable and lethal.

Con drew twin blades from their sheaths at his back, steel catching the early light. He moved ahead of me by a fraction of a step, not shielding, but flanking.

We advanced between the graves, senses straining.

The noise came again. Closer now. A whisper of motion behind a cluster of older markers, where the stones leaned, and the ground dipped slightly.

Then silence.

The unnatural kind.

My grip tightened around the spear. “They move like ghosts,” I murmured.

Con’s jaw flexed. “They’re trained to.”

He was right.

Enhanced humans didn’t breathe like we did. They didn’t stumble or mutter or drag their feet. They glided. They watched. They waited for the perfect opening.

“Careful,” Con said under his breath. “We don’t know how many.”

The answer came a second later.

Six figures stepped out from behind a row of weathered graves.

Their movements were fluid, precise, unnervingly synchronized. They wore dark tactical gear, blending with the shadows between the stones. No insignias. No colors. Anonymous war.

Their eyes, though⁠—

Their eyes were wrong.

Not glowing like a vampire’s, not golden like a lycan’s. Their irises held a metallic sheen, as if something inside them reflected light in ways that didn’t belong in human biology.

One of them tilted his head, assessing us.

I recognized the stance, the distance, the way their weight balanced over their feet.

Not random.

Not scouting.

Ready to strike.

“Well,” I said softly, “I guess the graveyard isn’t off-limits after all.”

One of them smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Target located.”