Page 62 of Fated In Ruin

Malachi had made his bed and was getting what he deserved.

Fuck, he’d locked his own Maker in an iron box and starved him for over a thousand years. That kind of depravity was unheard of, even among our kind. The sheer callousness required to keep a vampire hovering between life and death for that long, feeding them a single drop of blood a year, was staggering.

I had seen a lot of evil shit in my life, but I’d never even heard of something so blatantly soulless and cruel. I knew Malachi was a heartless bastard, but this…I tucked the blankets tighter around my mate.

Our lives would be better without him.

Evangeline’s life would be better. He’d spent these past months haunting her steps, and this was our chance to finally be free of him. As a mated male, I needed him gone from our lives or dead, and right now, I hardly cared which.

And just like that…the rage I’d kept tamped down boiled over.

Evie had smelled like Malachi when I’d found her. His scent was all over her…on her lips, her body, and beneath the blood and adrenaline and sour stench of pain…the scent of shared arousal.

And release.

I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees.

We were supposed to have a bright future.

The one we deserved, after surviving hell.

We were supposed to be happy, goddamn it, but our happiness was unraveling by the moment, and jealousy was an ever-present specter on my shoulder, reminding me I wouldalwaysbe sharing my mate with another. With Riordan, acceptance had come gradually, but made perfect sense.

There would be no acceptance with Malachi Draven.

The truth was, Malachi dying solved all our problems, and I didn’t even have to lift a finger. No blood on my hands, or Riordan’s. This was simply letting nature take its course.

Circle of life shit.

And Malachi certainly deserved to die. But since when had anyone ever gotten what they deserved in this fucked up world?

No, if people got what they deserved, Evangeline would be happy and pampered and safe.

I would be beside her in this very bed, my arms around my mate, her name on my tongue as I planted my seed deep inside her womb. We would have a home. A family.A fucking life.

Not another war.

And Malachi…he would suffer for his own bad choices. But I didn’t believe that people got what they deserved. Because at the end of the day, it wasn’t about what people deserve—it was about what was right.

And no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise, leaving Malachi to rot in Ravok’s grasp wasn’t right. My heart told me that, as I was sure Evangeline would tell me another hundred times when she woke up.

I groaned, dropping my head into my hands. If we went after Draven, we were risking everything to rescue the bastard who tried to take it all away.

The fucking irony was too much.

“Blake,” Evie whispered, her hand reaching for me, even in her sleep. The moment her fingers found my hand, I wrapped them up, kissing her bruised, healing knuckles, a surge of protectiveness washing over me, chasing away the exhaustion.

I settled beside her on the bed, awake, alert, on guard.

Running my fingers through her tangled hair, smelling of unfamiliar shampoo—a fact I tried hard to ignore, yet couldn’t—I knew one thing for certain.

If I left Malachi Draven to his own fate—the fate he’d made for himself, a thousand times over—my mate would never forgive me.

And maybe, deep down, I’d never forgive myself either.

28

EVANGELINE

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