Previously published as CODE: AWAKENING by Sandra Vuckovic.
Now published in its second edition as CODE: AWAKENING: BOOK I - PART I - THE MORTAL MIRROR.
Nine hundred years before Dawn could name the darkness inside her, Cain wrote extinction into the blood of the Edwards Clan.
When its final heirs were born, noon went black-and The Book of Sacred Secrets began to open.
In Toronto, Dawn knows none of this. She knows the mould-heavy silence of a flat box, Nickolas's violence, and the manuscript she protects as one protects the final match in winter.
Then November opens, and Colin-a man without breath-speaks her name as though he has been waiting inside it.
He offers no rescue.
Only recognition.
Three hours north, Pine Castle waits where the forest closes over the road: a hidden structure of cold timber, stone, shuttered rooms, a mechanical cage descending through its depths, and a mirror blinded at its centre.
Here, protection takes the shape of custody. Desire speaks through ice and teeth. Every locked threshold strips another layer from the mortal name Dawn believed was hers.
Her mother sealed the bloodline behind silence. Her twin disappeared with her into it. The Malkavian madness has begun to scent the final heirs. Beneath Dawn's collarbones, an inherited fire is rising through marrow and bone-rewriting her before she can refuse.
Every road leads back to Pine Castle.
Not because it is safe.
Because her bones remember the roof.
The mortal mirror is not made of glass.
It is the final human boundary.
And Dawn's body has stopped asking permission.
Use CODE With Caution.