Page 104 of Fated In Ruin
EVANGELINE
Hot, humid morning air skated over my damp skin as we crouched behind the white fence across from the compound. Nash and his soldiers waited behind the tree line, their incursion planned for after we cleared the main building.
My heart thundered in my chest, though whether from anticipation or fear, I couldn't tell. Blake pressed against my left side, while Riordan and Malachi flanked us, all of us watching the guard rotation Virgil had meticulously detailed.
For the first time in days, I was fully armed, in clean clothes and highly caffeinated.
A deadly trifecta if there ever was one.
“Three minutes until the next shift change,” Malachi whispered, “That's our window.”
Blake scoffed. “We know the schedule, asshole. Some of us have actually planned raids before.”
“And some of us have been inside this compound,” Malachi shot back, his voice sharp enough to cut. “Planning is different than executing.” The way he saidexecutingso sharply, I wondered if—despite his earlier revelation—that was a dig about Tyberius.
I turned, keeping my voice low. “Enough. We have a chance to end this today. Save all that raging testosterone for the actual fight.”
They both had the grace to look chastened, though I caught them glaring at each other behind my back. Riordan's smirk told me he'd noticed too.Let them go, Evie, they have to work this out between them.
And if they kill each other before we even get inside?
Then I guess it’s you and me. He reached out and tangled his fingers with mine, brushing his lips over my knuckles.
Three, two, one…The guard rotation changed right on schedule. Cloaked in Malachi’s glamour, we moved quickly, using Virgil's intel to evade the security system. The lack of thralls was immediately apparent, only a handful were posted around the buildings.
“Looks like we eradicated his army,” Riordan murmured as we reached the side entrance. “Which makes this significantly easier.”
“Unless that’s where he is,” I whispered, the knot in my stomach tightening. “Out making more.”
“I’m not sensing Ravok inside.” Malachi’s gaze scanned the buildings. “But I’ll keep searching.”
Every time my foot met hallowed ground, a ripple of almost-pain traveled up my leg and into my chest, my magic jolting. A clear warning—turn back, you bloodsucking monster, you’re on holier than thou ground.
We breached the warehouse entrance unseen, the stale air inside thick with the smell of decay. We'd covered perhaps twenty feet when the temperature dropped dramatically, frost crystallizing on the metal walls as if it were the dead of winter.
The floor was stained, marred in some places by pools of congealed blood, and to my vampire senses, the smell was stomach turning. This wasn’t healthy blood, there was something wrong, something unnatural about it.
Corrupted.
But Ravok’s fecund scent was strong here, too, and there was no doubt this was where he’d created his rotting army, from Tyrell’s loyal soldiers, from strangers and unwilling victims, from members of my own family.
“Do you smell that?” Blake’s hand snagged my wrist, stopping me as he scanned the frostbitten walls. “What kind of magic does that?”
“Nothing I ever want to see,” Riordan muttered and we crept another foot, then another, weaving between the congealed puddles, the stains that looked like someone had been dragged across the floor, kicking and screaming.
My boot stuck to the floor and I looked down. Threaded through the carnage, almost too faint to catch, flickers of crimson witch magic pulsed, as if this room had once been flush with power.
Aria had been here; she’d been part of whatever horrors happened here.
“Still not getting a read on Ravok,” Malachi growled, the sound bubbling up from his chest. “But someone’s coming, moving fast. Dematerializing from building to building, from the rate of speed.”
I didn’t even have to call my power up, my magic went from a calm, still lake to a thrashing tempest, straining to be set free to chew its way through the world.
Romulus stepped out of the shadows, and the power radiating off him hit me like a physical blow to the chest. “I wondered when you'd come,” he said, his voice carrying an otherworldly resonance I'd never heard before. “I am here to greet our guests. I hope I don’t disappoint.”
His first spell caught us all off guard—a blast of pure power that sent us flying in different directions. I slammed into a stack of wooden crates, pain exploding down my spine, stealing my breath as I crashed to the floor. Through a blur of tears, I saw Blake circle around, but Romulus caught him with a sharpened whip of pure black, carving a gash through the Kevlar, across his chest.
Who the fuck was this guy?
