Page 14 of Fated In Ruin

“It’s true.” Malachi gave the tiniest wince, “And because Ravok is my Maker, I, on occasion, glimpse the future too. Never on command, but often enough to stay ahead of my enemies. I might hate the fucker who created me, but occasionally I have to thank him, too.”

I thought of Silas, my training.Well, wasn’t that the truth.

He studied my face, then shrugged. “Can’t fucking choose family, am I right?”

“No, you can’t.” I sank deeper into my chair, trying to make sense of this. “Okay, I’ll bite. Let’s say Ravokcansee the future. What good did that do him when he was locked in an iron box beneath the castle?”

“Not a lot, since I kept him in stasis for centuries. Feeding him one drop of blood a year, barely enough to keep his heart pumping. But…somethingwoke him from his slumber. The question is what would be important enough to roust my Maker?”

“Hmm. What doyouthink it was?” My poor, abused bottom lip hurt, so I switched to my thumb. In times of stress, I had a hard time keeping all my nervous habits under control, and, admittedly, my coping mechanisms could…use some work.

Malachi frowned at me, chewing my thumb, settled on the couch beside me and gently pulled my hand into his, rubbing over my brutalized skin. And I let him, because I was seriously losing my shit right now.

Because I had a bad, bad feeling I knew why Ravok was awake.

I just hoped I was wrong.

“If Ravok foresaw something important happening at this particular moment in time, he might havechosento awaken. Or he sensed something momentous,” he gave me a pointed look, “like the sudden proximity of Silverwood blood, which could have summoned him from his sleep.”

I tried to look all curious-but-innocent.

There it was and you have got to be fucking kidding me.

Ravok had done more than sense my blood, he’d practicallytastedit, via Riordan, which sounded super-weird now that I was thinking about it. But if he was practically a vegetable, how was he aware of anything?

In fact, I wanted to ask so many questions right now, first and foremost—why the fuck didn’t you just kill him, when you had the chance?But I was too busy wrestling with the knowledge that I was, most likely, the one who’d woken Ravok up from his deep sleep.

Which meant this entire debacle was…drum roll please…my fault.

“So he was half-starved, in a coma, locked inside an iron coffin five inches thick and cut off from the world,” I asked, tryingnotto focus on how close Malachi was sitting, or how firmly his thigh pressed against mine. “How could he sense time passing?”

“If he’d foreseen the invasion, the looming collapse of the castle…” Malachi’s gaze met my own, filled with equal amounts of horror and dread, “He would have known escape was his only means of survival. But I think I know how Silas found Ravok down in those catacombs.”

I had a pretty good idea how, too.

The same way a supposedly catatonic Ravok had wormed his way into Riordan’s head, took him over and used him like a sock puppet. And Riordan was a formidable vampire. Silas was…only human. And my father had visited that castle.A lot.

“What do you mean…bysee the future? Like…he makes vague predictions thatmighthappen, like Nostradamus? Or more like one of those fortune tellers people call in the middle of the night to get their futures read?”

“Are you always this fucking difficult?” Malachi asked softly, a faint smile on his face that almost looked…adoringas his fingers traced over my now-healed thumb. And somehow, that smile freaked me out even more than everything I was hearing.

“Yes, pretty much always. Honestly, you should be used to this by now. So which is it?” Malachi looked to the ceiling like he was praying to the gods for patience.

“Caine didn’t choose his Elders on brute strength alone. They each possessed raw magic of some sort. That magic was amplified by a hundred times after Caine turned them, and together…” A shudder went through him, “they burned entire cities to the ground, killed droves of innocents with a sweep of their hand.”

I didn’t know how to handle the way my entire body went sweaty and loose at the picture he was painting. I’d been outmatched before, but this…this was like nothing I’d ever faced.

Or imagined.

He was describing Armageddon, and I’d…made a bargain with this asshole.

Let him drink from me.

“Okay, now I want to vomit, but that doesn’t explain if Ravok couldactuallysee the future.”

“Ravok was Caine’s favorite, because he could pinpoint an occurrence to the minute, over a hundred years in advance. He could tell you when a king would be betrayed, the exact second a kingdom would collapse, the moment a decisive battle would turn, and who the victor would be.”

“Shit.”

---