Seraphina's POV
Three days pass in a blur of training that feels more like torture.
Lucien wakes me before dawn each morning. No gentle wake-ups. No breakfast. Just him standing over my bed saying, "Get up. Your enemies won't wait for you to feel ready."
He teaches me to fight. To use the Sanguine power sleeping in my blood. To command vampires with just my voice.
Every lesson is brutal. Every mistake earns a cold lecture about how weakness gets you killed.
But through the bond, I feel what he won't say—his fear that he's not training me fast enough. His terror that I'll die like the queen did three hundred years ago.
On the third night, Misha bursts into the training room. "My lord, they're here."
Lucien goes still. "How many?"
"All of them. Every major house. Viktor brought the entire Council." Misha's face is grim. "They're at the gates with an army of five hundred vampires. They're demanding Seraphina be handed over for execution within the hour."
