Page 12 of Fated In Ruin
Deep in my bones, I sensed the looming presence coming for us.
I met Malachi’s gaze, and he smiled faintly. “My glamour keeps us hidden, so long as he remains weak. Until he recovers, he won’t be able to track me through our bond, and…he doesn’t even know you exist. We’re safe, for now.”
His shoulders straightened, some of his old arrogance flooding back as he smoothed back his rumpled hair. “I’ll keep you safe, Vicious, and in the meantime, we’ll train your magic into a weapon that will destroy him.”
He stopped in front of me, and for one awful moment, I thought he might drop to his knees, but instead, his gaze locked on mine before dropping away. “But he always was a clever bastard, and I can tell you one thing for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ve already underestimated him.”
6
BLAKE
Istared down at that fucking message glowing on my screen like a beacon of hope.
The only tangible proof my mate was alive, she was fighting…that her last words were a lie.
Logically, I understood all of this was nothing but a sick game. Malachi’s twisted way of getting back at me for my supposedcrimes.
The kiss, the manipulation, the taunting.
His hands all over her goddamned body.
Something cold wrapped around my heart, squeezing like an unforgiving fist until I couldn’t breathe. I stared out the window, wanting to rip the sun from the sky. It shouldn’t be bright and clear today. No, today should be dark and stormy and filled with gloom.
I ripped myself out of that black hole, and back to all the ways I was going to—slowly and creatively—kill Malachi Draven, once my mate was safely in my arms.
Logically, I understood Evie was innocent, her heart was pure, her motives virtuous and even locked under Malachi’s control I’d watched her fight to keep those awful words locked away so she didn’t hurt me.
But…the fucking doubts wouldn’t stop scraping away at me.
That’s the thing about mated males.
We don’t think with our heads, we think with all the subtly of a fucking carnivorous dinosaur—the ones with really big teeth and claws and tiny little pea brains. Incapable of parsing the truth out of what was right in front of me because jealousy is one big, fucking...
“Blake, get your head back in the goddamned game,” Rohr barked. “Thank fuck Evie still has her phone. Zachary’s on his way in, he’ll try to locate her through triangulation or some such thing.”
Even with the mating bond, even as her Maker, neither of us could sense her. Clearly, Malachi had her shielded, or taken her somewhere warded, like his home. Neither of us could track her through the blood bond, because she hadn’t fed in…days. I rubbed my head.
How could I have been so careless?
“Zach can do that?” I blew out a shaky breath, not caring how the fuck the kid found her, only that he did. I went to slide my phone away, and found that I couldn’t, not with that message blaring on my screen.
“All these kids under fifty can do that. I mean…” Riordan tossed his own phone onto the desk. “I can make calls and text, but it’s not like I know how the fucking thing actually works.”
“She’ll try to kill him,” I said quietly, meeting Riordan’s eyes. “The text…these aren’t just words. You know she will.”
Rohr sighed in that ever-suffering way of his. “She will,” he conceded. “I can’t see Draven hurting Evangeline, not when he went to all the trouble of taking her like he did. But he’d sacrifice her to save his own skin, I know that much.”
My entire body tightened into one rageful knot. Hadn’t I imagined all the ways Malachi would use my mate, every second of every hour since she’d disappeared? And those mocking words…I couldn’t scrub them out of my brain.
“No fucking shit. How could this have happened?” How did he get onto the grounds, how did he manage to snatch my mate away, taunting us in the process?But she was alive, she was going to kill Malachi—and it was hard to explain the awful twist of pride and fear that knotted my stomach—and once we knew she was safe, I would save her the fucking trouble of killing Malachi Draven.
“Fiona didn’t have anything new to add.” Rohr slid me a look of pure frustration. “One second, she was talking to Evie, the next, it was over and they were gone. She remembers nothing until she sawyou, shrouded in shadow, half naked and trying to kill us all.”
“I wasn’t…” I dragged my hand down my face. “Evangeline’s magic…this witch and her blocking spell…Malachi knew her power had been bound?”
