Page 107 of Fated In Ruin

After today’s debacle, I would have left him alone, but we needed answers, and he was no longer in a position to keep secrets.

I followed the fragile tether of our blood bond—fading now, since it had been days since I’d fed from him—back to that empty wing, to the darkened hall lit only by the occasional flash of lightning strikes, the paneled walls vibrating to the thunder rolling overhead.

I was getting close when the electricity flickered, then went out, plunging the hallway, the entire wing, into darkness.

Outlined by rolling storm clouds, Malachi sat hunched in front of the window, and a chill slipped through my veins, because he looked so alone and so vulnerable and seeing him like this, it struck me…there was nothing keeping him here. He could walk away, go to the other side of the world, and yet here he was, fighting with us.

Aria was right about his choice.

Given how things were going, we probably were the losing side.

“Do you know what happened to my father?”

The image of Silas in the dirt hit me like a physical blow, but I forced myself to keep breathing, to not let my throat close up. Hideous in life, hideous in death, but still…did anyone deserve an end as horrible as that?

“Corruption,” Malachi said quietly, stretching his bare feet out on the window seat, his voice carrying none of its usual arrogance, “when a human has been feeding off vampire blood for centuries before being turned into a thrall, the magic tethering them to their master becomes... unstable. Their flesh remembers their original state. Time catches up.”

I pulled a chair over to the window, positioned so I could watch the storm, the trees whipping back and forth from the high winds. With a raw, low growl, Malachi dragged me closer, until our knees touched.

“My father and uncles were feeding from Tyrell for years.Centuries,” I whispered, almost to myself, my thoughts going back to that night, watching my father swirl a glass of Laurent’s blood like it was the finest wine. “But what about the others?” I asked suddenly. “Bosch’s soldiers, my cousins, the mercenaries? None of them drank Tyrell’s blood. They all rotted away.”

The storm raged behind him as he studied my face, then rested his hand on my knee, like he was trying to anchor himself. Or me.

“I have a theory. I can’t prove it’s true, but…I believe I’m right. Ravok has been siphoning off the life forces of his thralls, making himself stronger, boosting his power, speeding up his recovery. It’s the only explanation for both their decay, and his fast recuperation.”

His mouth worked, like there was more to say, but his chest heaved once, then he looked away, his gaze fixed on some distant point.

“Somehow, Romulus is doing the same,” Malachi continued, “both of them sustained by creating thralls, then using them in an unnatural way. I am sorry, Evangeline, that you had to see your father like that. I know…” He swallowed, his thumb tracing my kneecap, “How it feels to despise someone, yet regret their death. It is…” He left the sentence unfinished, but the implication was clear.

My throat felt tight. I had wanted revenge, yes.

They had tortured me, tried to break me. Hurt me in the cruelest ways possible. But this... watching them literally decompose while still conscious... “I felt sorry for him.” I murmured. “Even after his cruelty, I pitied him. Both for his choices, and where they led.”

All these conflicting emotions churning inside me—I couldn’t make them make sense.

“He was all you knew, once,” Malachi said softly, correctly reading my expression. “As evil as he was, as much pain as he inflicted, he was your entire world. No one can fully erase their past and emotions are never as simple as right and wrong. How I wish they were.”

He smoothed my hair back, tucking a lock behind my ear, his fingers trailing down my neck, across my collarbone. “You have a generous heart, Evangeline, big enough for the whole world to fit into, but you can’t let the world destroy you.”

“What are you talking about?” I couldn’t move, too entranced by the feel of his fingers on my skin, pale brown eyes filled with a cataclysmic glow. As if he saw nothing but me.

And he waseverywhere. The overwhelming icy smell of him saturated every inhale, the way he filled the room, wild energy rolling off him in great waves of power, his fingers tracing my body as delicately as a rose petal.

“There are people like me, who keep the world out. Then there are people like you, Evangeline, who invite the whole world into their heart with open arms. But they take on all that misery and, in the end, are slowly and completely consumed.”

He held my gaze as he flattened his palm over my racing heart. “If this world hurts you, Evangeline, I will burn it all down until there is nothing left. Anyone who harms you, anyone who raises a hand against you…they will cease to exist.”

Lightening flashed, casting his bruised face into stark relief, making him look like a statue carved out of marble, perfect and enduring and unbreakable.

“I’ve told myself this will pass.” He huffed out a laugh. “That everything I feel for you is only because…because no one can outrun their past. But every day I just…” His fingers paused on my cheek, and that point where his skin met mine sparked with an infinity of possibilities before he drew his hand back.

“Just don’t let the world destroy you, Vicious. I couldn’t take it.”

His gaze softened, and the moment our eyes met, I realized…

I wasn’tfallingin love with Malachi. I wasinlove with him.

Head over heels, completely in love with this beautiful, ruined male.

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