Page 13 of Fated In Ruin
How the fuck did that bastard know something so fundamental about my own mate? How didn’t I know Evangeline’s deepest secret?Doubts grew and grew and grew, long enough I strangled myself on them.
“He must have.” Rohr gazed at the blank wall. “Why else would he have shown up at that exact moment? Always in the right place at the right time.Fucking always.”
“One of these days, his luck will run out,” I seethed, praying I was right and that day came soon.
“I’d better fucking be around to see it.” Riordan shot from his chair and strode to the window. “Zach just arrived out front. The kid claimed he can get a fix on her location in ten minutes. You ready?”
I nodded. “Nash, twenty guards, you and me ought to do the trick.” My grin turned downright evil. “Oh, and Fiona’s on her way, since she has some skin in the game now. Draven’s going to regret getting on that female’s bad side.”
“I’ll bet you a hundred bills she torches the bastard, first chance she gets,” Rohr agreed, and the grin on his face was magnificent. “Maybe, by the time this is over, he’ll be nothing but a smoking corpse.”
“Maybe.” I hesitated, gripping my phone, the silence stretching out. “There’s something I have to tell you, and you have to swear not to go completely batshit crazy, like I did.”
Rohr dipped his head and peered at me beneath his brow, his face showing the strain of these past weeks. “That sounds fucking ominous. I can’t take another surprise right now, Blake, I can’t.”
And while I had no desire to add to the already steaming pile of shit Draven left in his wake, Riordan had to understand what thereal stakes were, because as of right now…he didn’t.
“Before the attack, Malachi caught Evie and Eldric in the bowels of the castle. He threatened to kill Eldric, taking care of a loose end.” My skin began to burn, because all this raw pain and doubt—were about to become Riordan’s, too.
“Of course, Evie, being Evie, begged him not to. Draven told her he wanted something in return for keeping Eldric alive.” My fucking chest was collapsing, my lungs too hollow to draw air, but I got the next words out.
“He wanted a kiss. In return, he left Eldric breathing.”
“A kiss? He asked our…Evangeline for a fucking kiss?” Riordan hissed, every breath coming hard and fast, hands clenching, like he was imagining them around Malachi’s throat. “I mean, she mentioned the kiss…before he took her, but…”
“My reaction, exactly. And Evie was all twisted up about it, because she felt something.” I muttered. “Of course, she felt something. She drank from him. He drank from her. He’s two fucking thousand years old, and….” I plunged my hands into my pockets, so I didn’t put my fist through the wall.
“So anyway, that’s the situation.”
“That’s why your head’s fucked.”
“That’s why I’m hoping she’s already killed him and all we have to do is burn the body.”
“She confided in you and not me.” Riordan sounded almost bitter, and I felt his regret pile onto my own. “What did you tell her?”
“WhatcouldI tell her?” I shook my head. “I was pissed, and hurt, and angry, but not at her.Never at her. How the fuck could I be? I told Evie she made the right choice and I understood. That whatever she felt was only biology, but that’s not really true, is it?” I met his eyes, the same worry gleaming on his face that was slowly cannibalizing my heart.
“He put those words in her mouth…but every word was true,for Malachi. His end goal, no matter how he pretends otherwise, is to take her away from us and keep her for himself.”
“That won’t happen,” Riordan muttered, his gaze darting toward the door, the voices getting louder. “We’re not going to let this fucking happen. Evangeline isours.”
“We won’t let this happen,” I repeated, the words droning in my ears. This was fucking torture. I couldn’t reach her, couldn’t help her, while Malachi had her all to himself.
Twisting her up in his version of the truth, weaving his lies into a web around her.
“Evangeline is ours, and we are hers,” Rohr said firmly. “We have trust and love and loyalty between us. Which is something Draven will never understand. Malachi is a lying bastard, something she knows better than most, my friend.” He clasped my shoulder as Nash came through the door, followed by Zachary.
“We can’t trust Malachi, but we can trust Evangeline.”
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Zach will find her. In a few minutes, we’ll be in the air, then we’ll scratch Malachi Draven off our list for good.”
7
EVANGELINE
“Can we go back to…you said Ravok can see the future?” I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around something that shouldn’t be possible. “That’s just not….it just…can’t happen. I mean, that would defy every physical law known to man.”
Not only that, but if this were true, that would make Ravok impossible to outmaneuver, because no matter how carefully we planned our next move…he would always be ahead of us.
