Page 38 of Gua rdian of Blood and Shadow

I forced myself to swallow, fighting the urge to gag. “Where did that book come from?”

Isador looked completely baffled. She glanced toward the shelves in the back corner of the study. “Why?”

“The binding isn’t animal leather,” I said, my throat tightening. “It’s human skin.”

Isador’s expression didn’t change, which somehow made it worse. “Yes, and?”

The only other time I’d encountered an anthropodermic book—a medical text from the 1800s that the university kept under glass—I’d handled it with gloves and proper distance. Now, with the heightened senses awakened by my consorts’ blood, I could detect subtle differences in the scent, even see the faint patterns of pores and wrinkles across the surface. And was that ascar?

This had been aperson.They had lived. They had been someone’s child. And now they were the muted brown binding on a book.

“And that doesn’t bother you?” I asked Isador, unable to keep the edge from my voice.

She tilted her head, studying me with the curious look of someone observing an unusual creature. “This book is nearly two thousand years old, Sophie. The queen who donated her skin for its binding did so willingly after her last consort died—a final sacrifice to pass on her knowledge and experience before she lost her will to live. Binding the book in her flesh guaranteed that queens possessing the book for generations to come would not only have access to the knowledge she wrote down, but the wisdom and guidance of her spirit anchored to the book.”

At her words, I peered around the study, wondering where the queen in question was at this moment. Not here with us, that much was clear. Wes was currently the only ghost braving the residual wards my mother had left on the High Queen’s chambers, and he did so from the relative safety of the bedroom, which was apparently far less repellent to spirits than the study, where she had centered her final protections.

A sudden surge of power rippled through the wards—the Moon Sanctuary’s ancient wards, not those additional protections placed on these rooms three decades ago—making my teeth ache as foreign magic pressed against our defenses. The windows rattled in their frames, and the acrid scent of burning magic filled my nostrils, like ozone, but fouler, with undertones of rot.

My consorts snapped to attention.

“Someone’s probing the wards,” Isador said, easing the ancient book shut. Her eyes fixed on the windows where the cloudy afternoon sky seemed to warp, like I was viewing it through a mirage of heatwaves.

The door burst open with such force that it slammed against the wall, and Reiji appeared on the threshold, his normally composed features taut with urgency. Before he could fully enter, Javier was there, his preternatural speed carrying him across the room. His hand shot out, pinning the elemental against the doorframe by his throat. The princely veneer stripped away instantly, revealing something fiercer beneath as Reiji met Javier’s hold with unexpected dignity, making no move to struggle against the iron grip.

Through our bond, I felt centuries of hard-earned suspicion flowing from Javier—the same instincts that had kept my mom alive through countless betrayals. His voice carried that particular softness that invariably preceded violence. “Convenient timing, prince. You appear just as our defenses are compromised.”

Despite his precarious position, Reiji’s eyes blazed with urgent purpose, his gaze moving past Javier to find me.

“Someone is launching coordinated strikes against your wards,” he said, his voice strained but steady despite the pressure against his throat. “The old wards. Selene’s wards.”

A second tremor rolled through the sanctuary, this one stronger than the first.

“My guard—Ren—” he managed, his face reddening from Javier’s grip. “She’s missing. I can’t find her anywhere.”

The implication hung in the air like a blade about to fall. I remembered her intense scrutiny of my herb bundle earlier, the predatory assessment in her eyes.

Outside in the corridor, I could hear shouts and running footsteps, vampires moving with urgent purpose. Someone called for weapons. Another voice shouted orders about defending the eastern perimeter.

Bastian pushed away from the bookcase, the golden light beneath his tattoos brightening as the beast within him stirred. “How do we know you’re not part of this?”

“You don’t,” Reiji admitted, his stark honesty unexpected. His gaze shifted back to me, steady even as he struggled for breath. “But I swear on the stars themselves, I came here seeking an alliance against the darkness, not to bring it to your doorstep.”

“Let him go,” I said to Javier, my voice tight with urgency.

Javier released Reiji reluctantly, his body still positioned between us, coiled and ready to strike at the slightest provocation.

The study shuddered around us as another wave of power crashed against the sanctuary’s defenses. Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered, and someone screamed.

Micah’s face flashed in my mind—my son, wherever he was in the Moon Sanctuary right now, unaware of the incredible danger closing in around us. My heart seized with absolute terror.

“We’ll get him,” Ash said as he and Thane slipped out through the doorway, navigating past frantic vampires stacking furniture against windows and distributing crystalline grenades that glowed with otherworldly power.

Wes’s form flickered at the edge of my awareness, his ethereal energy struggling against whatever interference disrupted the ghostly plane. His features contracted with effort, his mouth moving urgently.

“Sophie—” His voice sounded distorted, like a radio station caught between frequencies. “They’re trying to—” Static consumed his warning, his form dispersing like smoke in a strong wind, leaving nothing but cold, empty air where he had stood.

My heart lurched at his disappearance. In the few weeks since discovering his ghost, I’d grown accustomed to his presence, a comforting constant amid the chaos my life had become. Losing him again, even temporarily, carved a hollow space in my chest that felt painfully familiar—that same emptiness I’d carried for years after his death.

---