Page 62 of Entombed By Blood
Finn’s eyes dart towards the door, and it’s all the answer I need. I take one step towards it, then two. Before I know it, I’ve torn it open and I’m running through an unfamiliar home, ignoring the other doors in the corridor and following the only scent I don’t recognise.
Leather, roses, and death.
When he was a mortal, his scent had still had notes of leather to it, but they had been buried beneath the calming overtones of horses and whatever he’d hunted recently. His new scent is deeper, more dangerous, and powerful. It’s strong enough that I wasn’t able to see it before, but it’s unmistakably him. I fly down the stairs, cursing myself for not realising it sooner.
Of course,Frost would want to use me again. It worked so well for him the first time, getting him closer than anyone else ever had. Why not take advantage of my weakness to try to strike at my sire again?
I emerge into a huge, open plan living area. Vane and Silas are standing shoulder to shoulder, poring over the stove in the kitchenette across the room, while Gideon has turned the dining area on my left into an office. The huge table is overflowing with technology I don’t understand, but I recognise the glass tablet he’s typing on from before. He stops working as he notices me, and his muscles tense, like he’s expecting me to lash out at him for drugging me.
All of them have frozen in place, their conversations abandoned as they wait to see what I’ll do. I barely notice. All of my attention is captured by the man sitting on the sofa in the middle of the room. Frost’s face pales, and he pushes to his feet to meet my stare with his familiar wide grey eyes.
His hair is longer, hanging loosely around his jaw, but it’s unmistakably him.
“You!”I screech, leaping for him.
Something hard and uncompromising snatches me out of the air. A pair of steely arms band around my waist, pulling me back against Draven.
I take a second to marvel over the fact that I never saw him—he moves like a shadow in the darkness—before he tuts and bends down to speak in my ear.
“Doll, I do love violence, but you might want to wait until he’s begged for your forgiveness first,” he murmurs. “After that, if you want me to kill him for you, all you need to do is say the word.”
I barely hear him as I struggle against his hold. “How could you?” I demand. “Was it all just to get to him? Is that all I was to you? A stepping stone to get to my sire?” The scalding tears spilling onto my cheeks only make me madder, and I struggle against Draven. “Where’s my sword? What did you do with it?”
I’ll kill him.
Not because Cain ordered me to, but because looking at him is a painful reminder of what I foolishly once believed we had.
Frost is just frozen in place, still staring at me, but Gideon is not. The alpha cuts off my view, stepping between us with his hands raised in a pacifying gesture.
“Evelyn.” Gideon’s voice is harsh with his alpha power, but I’m no lycan. I don’t have to listen to the head of the pack. “Evie, let him speak.”
He never uses the shortened version of my name, and hearing it now cuts me a little inside.
“Why? So he can lie to me some more?” The energy leaves me in a rush, and I sag against Draven. “He’s the reason I spent almost two hundred years buried alive, burned to a crisp by the silver coffinhemade! Did he tell you that?”
“I never wanted you to get hurt!” Frost finally finds his voice, and he steps around Gideon. “I swear, Eve. I had a plan to get you out. You and Immy wouldn’t have been touched if we weren’t betrayed.” His words break a little at the end. “I’m so fucking sorry. I spent every waking moment since he put you in that place plotting ways to get you out. Just ask any of the pack.”
“You manipulated me into a thrall bond so you could use me to get close to my sire,” I seethe, my anger returning in a rush. “And then you did it again, didn’t you?” I can feel the bond in my chest. I know it’s him. “You’re my final thrall.”
His eyes flash with the same possessiveness which once made me weak at the knees. “I’m yourfirstthrall. I just fixed what should never have been broken.”
I shake my head. “I’ll break it again the first chance I—”
“This is getting nowhere,” Silas growls, appearing beside me with a pleading look on his face. “Frost is a dick. Believe me, beautiful, I know he is. He’s also really shit at apologising.” Silas glares over his shoulder before drawing me into a hug, uncaring that Draven’s arms are still locked around me. “Can you just hear us out before you decide to kill him and cause yourself a whole world of pain?”
Finn appears on my other side, stroking a stray lock of my hair out of my face. “Come and sit down,” he suggests. “You might as well get comfy for this.”
Draven’s arms loosen. Just a fraction at first, as he gauges my reaction. Then, when he’s certain I won’t attack, he lets me go completely.
Finn takes my hand with a familiarity that doesn’t seem wrong—despite our short acquaintance—and pulls me over to the sofa. When we get there, I expect him to let me go, but he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls me against him, with Silas fitting himself against my other side, so I have no choice but to curl up between them.
When the omega rubs a soothing circle against my knee, I can’t help but lean into him further. He has tiny cerulean fires painted across his black nails and they seem to shimmer in the light. It’s hypnotic, colluding with the casual touches to relax me until my breathing evens out and my heartbeat slows.
I’m not used to so much contact and yet it’s… nice. Comforting.
“Start at the beginning,” Gideon orders Frost, and I frown as I try to figure out the balance of power here.
I thought Gideon was working for Frost to kidnap me, but the dynamics seem a lot more fluid than that.
