REAPING INNOCENCE ◦ STILINSKI [3]

INTERLUDE: ONE

    We had both been at the very edge of death, again, and were now fleeing back to London where we had last seen our father.

    The London I'd last seen was a city of deceit and destruction, where innocent lives were lost, and blood ran through the villages like water. And now, Lucius and I were headed there to stop it. I only hoped the price wouldn't be too high.

    Mere hours earlier, I had been attacked and left for dead by Victoria, my father's minion and a truly cunning and vindictive Alpha werewolf. Lucius had saved me. It had seemed like a miracle when my brother burst into the cottage and dragged me to safety just before the entire structure burst into flames.

    But I stopped believing in miracles a long time ago. What it had been was luck. And now I needed luck on my side more than ever. Relying on instinct wasn't enough. My instincts had failed me countless times, always leading to someone's death. And if they failed me again, I knew that the ensuing death would be my own. All I could do was throw myself into the battle against evil and hope that my luck hadn't run out.

    — Raeven E. Hale

London, England, 1462

    She'd spend the last twenty years on the run, always wishing she could stay in one place. Now, she was bound to London, the dark, dank city where blood ran into the Thames and creatures of the night made their home in its monuments. She was bound to Victoria, to Neolin, and to a complex web of deceit, blood, and threats. They were all entangled until one of them—be it strength or spells or intelligence—broke free.

    And most of all, she was bound to Lucius. But it was about more than sibling bonds. Now, it was truly the age-old battle between good and evil. Except it wasn't that simple. Because all of them had sins that could never be undone.

    This wasn't a battle to be won by force. This was a battle to be won by intelligence, by power, and—she realized more and more, as her mind kept returning to the impossibly blocked door in London—magic.

    No rules. No limits. The only certainty was death.

    There was a moment after Neolin dragged an injured Lucius away when it seemed as though her spirit had left her body. It was how she'd felt when a blade slid across her throat all those years ago in Beacon Hills: a split-second of agony, followed by a blackness that radiated from the very core of her being.

    A low-pitched moan echoed off the stone walls and caused her mind and her soul to snap back to the damp basement of the cottage, where their battle had come to its horrible end only moments before. The smell of Victoria's burning flesh still clung to the room. There was blood pooled on the floor and spatter against the wall, as though the subterranean office had become an impromptu butcher shop. Which, she supposed, it had.

    Standing in the corner was Carla, a young maiden they had meant during the long year hunting Neolin. She moaned again, her hand clasped to her mouth. Carla was an innocent girl caught in a nightmare from which there was no waking. Only a fortnight ago, Victoria had turned her sister, Margaret into a werewolf. They had hoped to get closer to Neolin, to discover his new-found weaknesses, anything that could help them understand his restless vendetta. Because the murders weren't committed for blood.

    In the process of their investigation, they'd lost Lucius. And Carla was losing hope. Carla had desperately wanted to believe her sister could maintain like her human-self and join them. But that wasn't the case. Not only had Margaret fought brutally against Lucius and Raeven moments earlier, but she'd hurt Carla, bitting a decent-sized chunk of flesh out of her bicep. She could only imagine the horrors Carla was reliving as she stood in the corner.