Page 70 of Fated In Ruin

I sought power, control, domination—always reaching for something just out of my grasp. And now? Now I was nothing. A husk of past glories that mean nothing. I should have seen the path I was carving would always lead me right here.

But I believed myself invincible. Thought I could control fate itself.

But fate was a cruel mistress.

I tipped my head back against the damp stone wall, ignoring how my damaged body protested even such a small movement. My mind drifted away, past the pain and the hunger, to the only thing that still anchored me to this realm.

Evangeline.

One taste of heaven was all I deserved, before she was snatched away. I’d never touch her—kiss her sweet lips—again, that much I knew. She was as far out of my reach as survival was, and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to regret my choice.

She was alive, protected by two powerful males who would sacrifice themselves to keep her safe. Hopefully, she would remember Brendan’s name and let him hide her and Angel.

And I would die here, at the hands of the monster who created me. Ravok would snuff me out as easily as he’d brought me into this immortal existence and maybe it would be a relief to end this suffering. Maybe I even deserved his vengeance.

A sound hissed through the chamber, the scrape of a heavy door being dragged across stone. I closed my eyes, already knowing what awaited me. Silas. Or Alistair. Or Dante.

Coming to taunt, to torture, to torment. Perhaps today they would end this.

The door groaned open, but the footsteps that followed were not familiar. No, these steps were light—measured, deliberate, nearly undetectable.

And then I smelled him.

Even after all these centuries, that once-familiar scent was unmistakable. I forced my eyes open, peering through blood caked eyelashes and the gloaming to focus on the figure standing before me.

Romulus.

I couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. For a moment, I wondered if he was a vision, some trick my starved mind had conjured up to fuck with me. It had been over fifteen hundred years since I last laid eyes upon my oldest friend and he hadn’t changed a bit.

“Malachi,” he murmured, his voice tipped with a faint lisp and a hint of jealousy. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

I exhaled shakily. “Romulus.” His once-familiar name tasted odd after so long, like some memory come back to haunt me.

He stepped closer, the dim light catching his face. He was unchanged—still boasting the hooked nose of his father, his mother’s sharp, feline features, brown hair untouched by silver—as if time hadn’t touched him at all. But his gray eyes gleamed with something colder than calculation.

And then I knew who was behind…everything.

I forced myself to my feet, but the shackles were too heavy, my body betraying me at every turn and I slid down the wall in a heap of ruined flesh.

Romulus tilted his head, watching my struggle, no trace of pity in his eyes. “Save your strength, Malachi. Fighting is futile now.”

“You did this?” My voice was barely more than a whisper, scraping up my raw throat. “Ravok…his escape…this was you?”

“It was,” he confirmed with a hint of pride. “This was always the plan, Malachi, but our Master, seeing his future, bade me wait. When he was ready, I found the human slayers amenable to my control, having subsisted on Tyrell’s blood for all those centuries. Jackals, the lot of them.” His lip curled up in distaste.

“Nonetheless, I was the reason Ravok escaped seven nights ago, now. The reason you are in this cell, rotting away like a traitor.”

I closed my eyes. Of all the betrayals I had suffered, this one I never saw coming.

“Why?” Was all I could manage.

Romulus crouched before me, his face inches away. “Because you failed him, Malachi. You never shared his vision, then you locked him away in the darkness and turned him into an animal.” His cold gaze raked over me. “You deserve to suffer as he did. Trapped in your own mind for a thousand years.”

A ripple of cold fear tightened my gut.

Was that the plan? To lock me away like I had Ravok? The idea terrified me to the core, and I yanked at my shackles, only managing to cut my wrists deeper.

“I swore a blood oath to keep you alive,” I hissed. “You begged me to save you, told me you didn’t want to die, so I…”

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