Cracks spiderwebbed beneath Alyssa's boots across the frozen lake, veins of light on a midnight mirror. When Layne draped the heated cloak over her shoulders, his fingers lingered on the necklace clasp—where her father's silver wolf pendant hung until he claimed it might "mar your swan-like neck."
"Frostwolf den northeast. Cubs worth seeing?" His breath carried elderflower sweetness, but Alyssa caught rotting flesh underneath. As wolf howls answered, she adjusted her silver needle-lined sleeve: "If they eat you, save a leg as souvenir."
When the pack emerged from blizzard, Layne "accidentally" dropped his silver dagger. As the alpha's fangs grazed her throat, he spread his palms. Silverfrost encased the beast, ice thorns forming a crown under moonlight. "Hurt?" He kissed her bleeding hand, tongue darting too fast to lick blood.
Moonflare erupted in Alyssa's chest as a hawk-shaped blaze, shattering ice. While steam hissed, she glimpsed a vial slipping from Layne's sleeve—her own blood sloshing inside. "Careful!" He tackled her downslope, plunging a needle into her thigh. Ice mirrored his pupils thinning to crimson slits.
In the midnight medic tent, the apothecary frowned at twin puncture wounds: "Your coagulation... not pureblooded." Alyssa spun the silverfrost vial torn from Layne's cloak, its corner stamped with a vampire lord's crest. Outside, cracking ice revealed seventeen frostwolf corpses arranged in a ritual circle, silver bolts through their hearts.
"Engagement gift." Layne lifted the tent flap, fresh neck wound healing visibly. "Like the heart motif?" Alyssa hurled the vial into flames. Blue fire conjured visions of a centuries-old vampire ice tomb. Behind Layne's back, black ooze dripped from his fingers, making the lake groan like a dying leviathan.