THE silence swept the hall like haze would do in the storms. None spoke as they digested the information into their systems. Then, he spoke.

“You can’t be serious?” Alpha Xanthos leaned forward, his voice sharp with disbelief.

“I am,” the Mantis replied, his eerie calmness slicing through the tense air like a blade. “The dawn of the full moon is nigh… it is at hand. The time when a Blackwood shall rise and complete the sacred copulation with an eligible maiden who has been ...