Page 110 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

Raif dragged a hand through his short hair, the action far too casual for the hit he’d just taken, a chilling reminder of what he was, what he’d been made into. “No touching. Got it.” But then his cocky grin was back, tendrils of ash snapping from him and moving for Holt.

Zylah had been waiting for it. Her threads reached for Raif’s magic, her stomach rebelling at the thought of having to be in contact with any part of him. But the ash fell away at her will, Holt’s fist slamming into Raif’s face with a sickening crack.

Raif sneered, blood pouring from his nose and his fangs on full display as Holt lunged for him. They were a blur of punches, Rose screaming for them both to stop as Saphi and Daizin held her back. Holt shoved the vampire against the wall, a forearm shoved tight against Raif’s throat and an arrenium blade pressing against the bottom of his good eye.

Holt showed no signs of injury, but that didn’t stop Zylah from securing Raif’s limbs with tendrils of shadows from where she stood watch, waiting for whatever retribution Holt settled on. He’d summoned the weapon to him quicker than she could blink, the glassy material reflecting the single orblight above, and every angle of his body, every taut muscle said he intended to use it.

Zylah didn’t have it in her to care whether Raif lived or died, didn’t want to waste another scrap of feeling on the vampire ever again. Holt echoed the sentiment.

He pressed the blade a little deeper, a trickle of black blood running down Raif’s face like a tear. “I should take your other eye, but it still wouldn’t be enough for keeping her in that fucking hole in the dark. For what you knew,” he choked out. No mention of what Raif had done to him, as if it were the last of his concerns.

It is, he told her gently.But that you had to watch…His anger flared with his words, flames sparking to life at his fingertips where they gripped the hilt of his dagger.

“Please, Holt,” Rose sobbed, breaking free of Daizin’s grip and tugging at Holt’s arm. “Don’t take him from me. I already lost him once. Please.”

Zylah knew it was Adina he thought of when he turned to look at Rose. When he took in the tears streaming down her face. They had all been like siblings once, the three of them. Raif and Holt like brothers. And a large part of that was because Holt had lost his own sister all those years ago. Betrayal and hurt entwined with his anger, but she felt his hesitation, his reluctance to let Raif escape them again. Whatever decision he settled on, she would respect it, because this was far bigger than just the two of them.

Holt slammed the dagger into the stone beside Raif’s head, and the vampire had the good sense to flinch. “Only so that Rose doesn’t have to know what’s it like to lose a sibling.”

Rose let out a ragged sob as Holt took a step back, throwing her arms around her brother. Zylah released her shadows, her threads still unwound and remaining close enough to snap Raif’s neck.

“You have a spy amongst you,” the vampire ground out, wiping the blood from beneath his eye with the back of a hand. “Ranon is waiting for you. If you hold off until the night of the blood moon, he’ll be preoccupied with his task.”

“And you expect us to believe you?” Kej asked. Zylah hadn’t noticed when he’d shifted back into his Fae form, but he stood in nothing but a pair of trousers he’d pulled from somewhere, Daizin on one side, Saphi on his other.

“He doesn’t want to remain this way,” Rose said, looking at her brother. “He needs Ranon’s blood to undo it.”

It’s true. Ranon confirmed it in the maze,Zylah told Holt. But whether he truly wanted to change remained to be seen.

“So ask your grandfather to hand it over,” Kej scoffed.

Raif’s laugh was hollow. “Clearly you’ve never met my grandfather.”

Ranon didn’t strike Zylah as the type of male to just hand over his blood, even for his family. Not when he most likely needed to preserve every drop of it for whatever ritual he had planned at the blood moon, not when he was still regaining his strength.

“You came here for our help?” Zylah asked him, making no effort to hide the disbelief in her tone. The audacity of his decision wasn’t even worth dissecting.

But it was Rose who occupied Raif’s attention. “I came here because I love my sister, and I want to keep her safe. Alive.” He turned to Holt. “Because I knew you would understand that.”

Zylah had doubted many things about Raif, but never his love for his sister. Knew he would do anything for her, no matter the cost, just as their mother had described back in Ranon’s maze.

“If you’re using her, I won’t hesitate.” Holt stood at Zylah’s side, the pair of them a barrier between Raif and their friends. That Saphi was hesitant to stand with Rose told Zylah everything she needed to know about how a vampire’s presence would go down within the wards, with the rest of the soldiers. She could practically feel Kej buzzing to snap another retort, but he held his tongue.

Rose looped her arm through Raif’s, sliding her hand into his. “I had a vision.”

“How convenient,” Zylah said, willing her tone to remain emotionless. “You didn’t have a vision about Ranon’s plans, about the spy, about any of it. But only now. Only for him.”

Rose flinched. “I’ve had—” A pinch of her brow, a brief shake of her head. “Several. None of which have an outcome worth sharing.”

The implication of that wasn’t worth considering, not in what might well have been their final hours.

“The spy?” Holt demanded.

“A scout,” Raif said. “They can evanesce. That’s all I know.”

Holt didn’t take his eyes off the vampire before him. “Daizin. Ask Nye who’s missing.” Through their connection. Faster than having him search for Nye in the tunnels; far more convenient, too.

“I never asked for this,” Raif began after a moment of quiet descended over all of them.

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