~CASSELBA'S POV
FIVE DAYS PASS AFTER our quiet Christmas dinner. I spend all of it in the winter study. Purposely.
It's a day until the new year and though I want the novelty and joy inspired by the dawn it brings, I can't help shake the sword of Damocles. It's this apprehensive thought that constantly tugs at my heart, telling me the newness coming would also bring about danger, carrying clouds pregnant of omen in its arrival.
It's like I see them now. . .once the snows pack up. Scores and scores of headhunters and mercenaries and werewolves alike. Those loyal to the Apex all braving the cold weather—before even the ice can wither from the dirt. I see them. All of them, brandishing weapons of silver and fangs of ivory, all to claim my head. And what was my offense; that I'd 'dared' to rise up against established plutocracy.
