Page 190 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

Blade placed his hand on one shoulder, and Harmony placed hers on the other. I placed my hands on each of theirs. We stood there, linked, flushed with intoxicating, fiery energy.

We’d stood like this before Princeton turned us, jumping up and down and chanting, converting our fear into excitement in some holy alchemy.

From born blood we rise.

From born blood we rise.

“From born blood we rise.”

Born rushed in. Shadows swarmed.

“Tomorrow is here.”

Our masks finally fell.

60

KYLO

The worst of the first battle for Etherdale was the time between when our masks had dropped and reinforcements arrived. The fighting was gruesome and bloody. I watched men and women I’d known for decades die by my side.

As soon as we had ample numbers, everything improved. Even still, the savagery of war was not something any of us could’ve prepared for. War was not romantic; it was cold, brutal, and apathetic.

We’d fought all night. The city had instantly divided into born and loyalists and turned and mortal rebels. Etherdale became a grid of opposing forces, the sentiment shifting street by street, sometimes block by block. We overwhelmingly held mortal support, but there was only so much mortals could do to help us—especially humans. Their bravery was humbling.

In the underground, the first round of fighters fed and recouped their strength after a bloody battle on campus. It had resulted in a much larger turned territory that extended past our neighborhood.

In other words, we’d fucking won.

And the born had never appeared more shocked than they had looked in that moment.

We’d taken a large section of the campus, allowing hundreds of young mortals to take refuge under our protection. Many of the born continued to gather on the side of campus closest to the Nighswander Estate.

I chugged blood unceremoniously as I helped chart out the current map of born versus rebel forces.

Harmony and Blade had to all but drag me underground, and I only agreed after they reasoned it was best for Evie. We needed to meet with the inner circle, refuel, and build a strategy to extract Evie that wouldn’t fail.

I was a man torn in two, caught between my primal urge to go to her at any cost, and my role as a leader to do what was best for the city under tenuous wartimes.

The born army had surrounded Nighswander Estate immediately. By the time reinforcements arrived, we’d been pushed out and away from the other half of my soul.

Out of all possibilities, this was the worst.

“I fucking knew this was going to happen,” I roared, slamming my empty chalice on the deliberation table. “I shouldn’t have let her go. She has now spent the entire night withhim,and she’s hurting. I can feel it.”

“There was nothing you could do, Kylo. We couldn’t have known they were going to force our hand last night,” Blade said. “We’re going to get to her. She’s strong. She’s going to be okay until then.”

Vesper nodded. “None of this is ideal. We have to hold this city together for another twelve daysminimum.And even that is pushing it.”

As the blood strengthened my power, all I wanted to do was sayfuck itto all of this and go pull Evie out myself.

But that might’ve been exactly what Conrad hoped I would do. He knew who I was. And he knew who I was toher.

Two things happened at once. First, Idris burst through the door, trailed by two wary guards.

“Where is she?” he asked, eyes finding mine immediately.

Second, a shockwave of warning slammed into me from my connection to Evie. I gasped, clutching the table as cold dread sank low in my guts. All eyes moved to me.