Page 109 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

She’d always been miraculous, brave, cunning. Ever since she escaped her fate at thirteen years old, carrying a young Idris all the way to Etherdale from Isolde.

Imagining Evie at thirteen wasn’t helpful. Because then the vision transformed into what would’ve happened to her if shehadn’tescaped. If she’d become Lord Aster’s locked-away slave instead.

A flicker of magick lightly shocked my hip. I reached into my pants pocket, opening my main journal to find a note from Harmony.

Update? Keep breathing, friend. We love you, and we’re ready for anything.

Harmony, Blade, and a group of skilled fighters were also nearby, in case things went south. We were prepared for anything, even if it meant declaring war earlier than I’d hoped.

Consequences meant nothing to me when it came to Evie. And I didn’t care how great of a liability that was for me nor the clan. If the gods hadn’t wanted our souls tied as one, they should’ve kept us apart.

But they didn’t. And now there was no going back.

Love you too. Even Blade.

I wrote back, imagining my closest friends’ smiles.

No updates yet.

I slipped the journal back into my pocket. Not even the scent of ancient books soothed me, which meant I was truly in peril.

Evie had argued against the duration of her time limit, and she’d only agreed on two hours and thirty minutes after she vocalized that it was enough for aninitialmeet. Just like she’d agreed to wait to kill the witch or anyone else in Conrad’s residence.

She agreed to these things because Evie believed she would have another opportunity in the future.

And I wished I could find that admirable or fierce or sexy but all I felt was all-consuming wrath instead.

If a born so much as laid a hand on Evie, all bets were off. The way I killed Evie’s useless ex would look merciful compared to what I would do to a born man.

My muscles spasmed from how hard I was tensing and for how long. Two hours passed, and it could’ve been two weeks.

Her heart had settled at the ninety-minute mark, and for whatever reason, that pissed me off more than her anxiety.

How had Aster attempted to seduce her? With food and gifts and conversation? Would they tell her that war was unwinnable, and she had a safe place to land if she decided to jump ship?

It was the reasonable assumption. My skin was hot, my mind consumed with volatility. But how did their witch play into all of this?

The witch who wanted to remove Evie’s eyes from her skull.

I believed in Evie. I swore I did. Underneath the visions of my angel being harmed were the memories of her raising her brother from the dead. It hadn’t mattered what anyone said, Evie had defied the laws of reality that night.

She could make the sky weep and the earth rot. She stood beside gods and forged alliances with spirits from all corners of the otherworld.

Evie wasn’t helpless. Far from it.

Yet, four minutes away from her deadline, a shift in Evie’s heart had me forgetting everything—her power, my belief in her, the threat of war.

Her heart sped up and then slowed. She was losing blood.

Three minutes. Three minutes until her time was up.

It would take three minutes for me to get to her.

Unless it was a trap. Unless they were prepared for me. I yanked out my journal, scribbling Harmony’s correspondence code. My pen hovered over the page as my mind raced.

Evie’s heart was erratic, but the blood loss stopped. She wasn’t being drained. If a vampire were feeding, her heart would beat far slower, and the blood loss would be dramatic.

Had she been wounded somehow?