Page 61 of Fated In Ruin
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Watching Evie sleep should bring me peace, but guilt pressed against my ribs like a cold iron cage.
All because of a fucking bastard named Malachi Draven.
Somehow, in only two days, he’d won Evie over and yetIwas the asshole becauseIrefused to go save him. I snorted.Had to love how that fucking worked out.
I was making the right choice, leaving him right where he was.
The logical one.
Malachi had done terrible things. Things no one should be forgiven for. He made his choices, carved his path in blood and betrayal, and now he was reaping what he sowed. If anything, his fate was inevitable. If I had any regrets…I wasn’t the one to kill him.
But logic didn’t quiet the gnawing voice planting seed after seed of doubt in my heart. The one that reminded me I owed himeverything.
That without Malachi, Evangeline would be Ravok’s prisoner or worse, dead. That as much as I despised him for his multitude of sins, as much as I want to believe the world was better off without him, I couldn’t deny the simple truth.
He saved my mate.
And that was a debt I could never repay.
I paced the length of her bedroom, hands clenched at my sides.
Sylvester put her under before he even started, and she’d sleep until morning, her broken body so severely damaged, the healer had nearly drained himself fixing her. A wave of volatile fury rose again, cresting until the edges of my vision darkened.
How I wished we could move on.
Let both Malachi and Ravok rot away beneath the weight of their combined evil.
But that look on Evangeline’s face when I told her no—a mix of betrayal and disappointment—cut deeper than any blade. I’d explained, in detail, we didn’t have the manpower for a rescue mission, that we couldn’t afford to risk everything for a traitor, and all of that was true.
Rohr was right. That bastard didn’t have a noble bone in his body…
Except Malachi did sacrifice himself.For Evie. And no matter how much I tried to ignore that fact, that choice meant everything.
I dropped onto the edge of the bed, stroking her face, adjusting the blankets, checking her temperature.
Since she’d plummeted from the sky, I hadn’t been able to stop touching her. Tracing the marks of her suffering as if I—not Sylvester’s expert healing—could take away her pain.
All I wanted to do, all I’deverwanted, was to keep Evie safe. I never wanted her to feel a moment of suffering or hurt or torment. I wanted to encase her in a cocoon, protected from the world, untouched by anything that might hurt her.
But now, seeing her…I had failed miserably.
And I would always fail.
She was meant to fight her own battles, hard wired to face threats head on, and keeping her locked away would only make her hate me. Resentment was a powerful poison, something I knew quite a lot about.
Riordan was right.
I had to get my fucking head on straight, because even now—especially now—I fought the urge to lock her door and hide her from a world that seemed vested in her suffering. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes and repeated the same mantra I’d been chanting for hours now.
She is home. She is safe. She is mine.
She was cool, no sign of fever, a blessing after all the internal damage. According to Sylvester, most of her injuries predated her dematerializing, so Malachi had been right to get her out of there, even if the trip had almost killed her.
I dragged my hands down my face, exhaustion seeping into my muscles.
I needed to let go of these doubts.
