Page 54 of Fated In Ruin

Alistair’s head snapped toward him, his black eyes narrowing. “Silas.Obey.” His voice was a sharp warning and my father gasped, his body convulsing as though an invisible hand had just clenched around his throat. And then—just like that—the moment was gone. His body stilled, his face smoothing into cold detachment. When he looked at me again, there was nothing mortal left.

“That was disappointing.” Ravok’s voice slithered out of the darkness, the shadows too dense for even my eyes to penetrate. “Now obey or die.”

The next thing I knew, Silas’s hands were wrapped around my throat, his madness-filled eyes inches away from mine.

24

EVANGELINE

With a snarl, Malachi ripped my father off me, and I hissed in pain as Silas’s nails tore gouges through my neck, his cracked lips drawn back in a grimace. Malachi was right. There was nothing human left of him.

But having his hands on me, those familiar, hated hands that had hurt me in such cruel ways, opened up a pit of darkness that swallowed me whole, the past sucking me down and down, like I was back in the Pit, staring up through the iron grate at the sky, wondering if I would survive another night.

I stood frozen when Malachi effortlessly tossed Silas straight into Alistair, sent my uncle stumbling back a step, my father crashing at his feet. Then I shoved my ugly past back into that dark corner of my mind where all the bad memories lived.

We didn’t have time right now for existential crisis.

“You shouldn’t have come, traitor,” Alistair hissed. “He’ll kill you first and make her watch. Don’t think he won’t.”

“Oh, he can try.” Malachi countered, his voice smooth as velvet. “Fuck knows he’s tried before.”

My hands trembled, fingers curled into fists as my magic pulsed beneath my skin, straining to hurt, to rend, to destroy. I had half a mind to let my flames devour these two, but they weren’t my targets. Ravok was, hidden somewhere deep in those shadows, but I couldn’t get a fix on his location.

Malachi ran his finger through the blood racing down my neck, his breathing ragged. “Evie,” he said, voice tight with urgency. “You’re hurt.”

I shook my head, “It’s nothing. A scratch.”Can you get a read on him? I’ll release my magic, but I can’t see him, and the blast will level this entire building. We have to be sure he’s in there.

No. His voice is coming from inside, but…I’m not sensing him.

As if we’d summoned him, a slow, mocking clap echoed from deep in the chamber, chilling me to my core. I squinted, trying to penetrate the dark, searching for the slightest hint of movement.

Ravok didn’t walk out of the building—hematerialized behind us, stepping out of a plume of red-tinted smoke, like Hell itself had birthed him. That dark shadow rose up around us, until the bright morning sun was nothing but a memory. This close, his height was imposing, his presence suffocating, his power curling through the air.

He wasn’t emaciated at all—he was enormous, muscled, well fed, brimming with power.

This was no husk of a vampire, this was a monster in his prime, meant to rend the world apart, devour everything in his path, to destroy without mercy.

We were so, so fucked.

My heart thundered in my throat when that greedy, narrowed gaze gleamed, as a slow, knowing smile spread across his lips. A smile that faded the moment his nose flared, realization dawning on his face.

“Well, isn’t this touching.” Ravok’s cruel gaze landed on Malachi before a coil of black whipped out, faster than a snake and wrapped around Malachi, thick, black tendrils of energy crackling with red power. “You never knew your place, son,” the Elder hissed, hatred gleaming on his brutish face. “But you will learn.”

Alistair pulled Silas to his feet, then Dante emerged from the building, a gun in hand. I knew that weapon. Forty-gauge silver bullets, powerful enough to rupture a vampire’s chest cavity. The bullets were made to splinter on impact, sending shrapnel ripping through flesh and bone, reducing the chances of healing to zero.

Don’t let Dante shoot you.

Yeah, I see that.

But worse than the gun were the fifty plus thralls that filtered out of those doors to gather at their backs like an army of ghastly, rotting soldiers. Some were my cousins, some Silas’s hired mercenaries, but some were Bosch’s surviving guards, and the others…I shuddered. I didn’t even want to think about where they’d come from.

We were severely outnumbered.

“You think you can put your hands onmy property?” Ravok sneered, his shadows turning denser, until the entire compound was darker than midnight. “The witch belongs to me.”

“Uh, excuse me. This witch belongs to no one except herself.” My power rose, flowing down through my limbs like a living thing, shadowy flames whispering, begging to be unleashed. This was like having bones of steel, and I had never felt stronger.

Never felt more alive.

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