Page 16 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

I wasn’t sure if Evie’s warning was a plea for me not to choose her over her brother, or if it was the cold hard truth. I resigned to believing it was a mixture of both.

These were powerful forces she was dealing with.

“I understand. Thank you for letting me be here.”

Her mouth opened and then closed. I easily read her mind. She didn’t want me to think she’d forgotten or forgiven me. Even if her body knew who it still belonged to. Even if her bright soul still reached in search of mine.

“Thank you for helping,” she managed.

Evie began her workings, and my smile evaporated. I needed her to live. That was why I’d allowed this, why I’d shut out Bladeand Harmony. I needed Evie to see that I believed in her. So she would choose life. So she would allow me to stay close.

I knew I shouldn’t make someone else my reason for living, but I’d never claimed to be a perfect, holy man or an ascetic monk.

I was Etherdale’s rightful lord, a vampire born from magick and blood.

And Evie was mine.

Evie invoked the four elements and cardinal directions. She called upon the celestial realm, the heavens. She hesitated only a moment before calling on the chthonic realm and the hells. She invoked Hekate and the rest of her allies.

I noticed the small tremble in her hand when she spilled her own blood. And I saw the way her eyes lit up with surprise—maybe even delight—when the room surged with power the moment those drops of crimson touched the ground.

She set down the ritual knife, the knife I’d watched Princeton use countless times before. I was envious of Evie’s connection to the other side. My once-human heart yearned to hear my mentor’s voice again, rather than rely on my hopeful imagination.

Evie had been ignoring her brother’s lifeless body since I’d retrieved him from the morgue. I could tell how much it disturbed her seeing him like this.

The circle’s perimeter lit with leaping purple flames. They reflected in her eyes as she chanted, words flooding from her lips that were no longer recognizable, as if spoken in the tongue of the gods.

I couldn’t help the unconscious, reverent smile that slipped when one of Evie’s shadows slithered across the floor, acting as extra limbs to bring her a bowl of water and herbal oils.

Evie could no longer ignore Idris now. She frowned deeply as she consecrated the black bowl with lunar markings, blessing itin the name of Hekate. I homed in on the faint dew of sweat that had gathered on her forehead, the way her breathing was already labored.

As I sat in respectful stillness, she brushed the holy water across the crown of Idris’s head. Between his eyebrows. His throat. His heart.

She blessed each of his major energy centers.

I had to swallow a gasp when she began to recite Princeton’s usual turning ritual speech, only altering the language slightly in reverence to Hekate.

“Hekate, anoint this body and soul with the spirit of the revolution,” she said. She touched a drop of her blood to Idris’s third eye. “Though shadows may belong to Idris, so too shall he belong to the shadows. In exchange for eternal life, he pledges his service, his devotion, and his loyalty to a power greater than himself. He will become one part of a whole. He will be a…” Evie faltered, only for a beat. “A brother, in a family that will always stand with him, whom he will protect and uplift just as they will guide him through this transition. He will be a protector of the realm, of Helia and Selena’s mortal children. He may be masked today, but tomorrow, he will wear his clan tattoos proudly in a liberated world.”

Shadow whispers grew louder, gusts of wind sweeping through the circle. Evie braced herself as the wind slammed against her. She closed her eyes as her body shivered.

She was being tested by the powers she’d called. I held my breath every second until the winds calmed and Evie opened her eyes again.

Princeton’s version of this ritual was far more theatrical, but he enjoyed putting on a show.

Evie set the bowl of blood next to Idris’s head. She paused for a moment before looking at me.

“We’re usually, um, stillawakefor this part,” I whispered.

She nodded. “Can you please lift his head?”

I followed Evie’s sweet, polite command wrapped in a question without hesitation. I gently parted Idris’s lips.

The blood trickled from the bowl down Idris’s throat, some of it spilling out and down the side of his face and neck. Evie was gentle, her face contorted with effort and exhaustion.

She pulled back, placing the remaining blood back on the altar at the northern edge of the circle.

“I offer you the blood of a born vampire,” she said to her spirit allies. “Please nourish yourselves as you aid me in this rite.”