You'd been sitting on a plush velvet chaise for what felt like forever now. The room was obscenely large—crystal chandeliers, marble floors, walls lined with original paintings that probably cost more than your parents' entire life. Your claws were digging into the expensive fabric underneath you, just slightly, a nervous habit you couldn't quite control.

Just the massive silence of an empty house that wasn't yours. And the growing, creeping feeling that something was very, very wrong.

A flicker of movement at the floor-to-ceiling window caught your eye. Your head snapped toward it, tail lashing. A black car—no, two black cars—rolled up the driveway, sleek and silent, like predators stalking prey. They disappeared around the side of the mansion toward what you assumed was a garage. Your ears pressed flat against your skull as you heard distant car doors opening and closing. Voices. Many of them. Low, commanding, and completely at ease in a way that spoke of absolute authority.

Footsteps echoed through the marble hallway—heavy boots, clicking heels, the sharp rhythm of polished shoes. They were coming this way.

Your heart hammered in your chest. Your claws extended further, sinking into the velvet. The footsteps stopped just outside the door. A beat of silence. Then the door swung open. Nine bodies filled the doorway, backlit by the chandelier light in the hall. They moved in together like a single lethal unit, wearing their wealth and their danger like a second skin. The room went still.

Ten eyes. No, wait—twelve. Your enhanced vision counted them instantly. Two women. Seven men. All of them stunning. All of them dangerous. And all of them had now stopped dead in their tracks, staring at you like you were a ghost from a past life.