Page 62 of Claimed By Fangs and Darkness

We were outnumbered. I hated that the most strategic choice was also the least satisfying.

“Still so feisty,” groaned the man I wanted to rot from the inside out. He failed to hide the anger that had eclipsed his once easy charisma. “Rest assured we have ways to tame even the most murderous little creatures.”

I’d never been more tense in my long fucking existence. Vision after violent vision played out before me. I wanted to claim Evie, to fuck and feed from her, while this man choked on his own blood, limbless and forced to watch.

He knew. Whoever this man was, he knew where Evie came from. He knew what she’d done.

“Disperse,” I finally spoke, low and distorted through my mask. The word scraped from my throat like a knife. “Now.”

I didn’t give anyone time to think, least of all myself. A thick wall of shadow rippled from me, defensive rather than lethal as I truly desired.

I scooped Evie into my arms.

And we fled. The ground shook, and my shadow glamour obscured us from sight as the cloud of shadow at our backs deflected the borns’ offensive strikes.

They hadn’t expected that. Ididenjoy the thought of their confused frustration.

The atmosphere crackled with energy, a war of shadow and cruelty. Shouts came from all directions, orders to hunt us like rats.

Evie gripped me as we moved. A tremor rolled through her. She balled my shirt in her fist again and buried her head into my chest.

“When?” she growled.

She didn’t need to finish the question. I knew what she was asking.When could we finally fight back?My jaw feathered with tension, my glamour dropping as we reached the nearest underground entrance.

I pushed her up against the stone wall inside as the darkness embraced us.

“Soon, angel.” The bottom half of my mask fell. Our lips melded. My tongue dominated hers, tasting her violence that mirrored my own. My fingers dug into her waist as she moaned and ground against me. “Fucking soon.”

21

EVIE

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kylo asked, pinning me against the wall with his tall, immovable form. The rest of his mask dropped and was reabsorbed by his shadows.

Too many raw emotions racked me to discern. This strange, hot shame that didn’t make sense—like my body was under a microscope, being examined for impurities.

Dirty, contaminated. That was how it felt to see that man again. My mother’s voice had become far quieter and more infrequent these past two weeks, but it had never been louder than when the born lord had essentially called me worthless.

No longer pure.

I looked away, but Kylo gripped my face and stared into my eyes until my gaze returned to his.

It was contradictory to feel this ravenous for him—aching, yearning—in the face of all my anger and disgust.

“Because it didn’t matter,” I whispered. “I’d only met him once. Before I’d been promised to him. Then at the coven ritual before I exploded,Lillianhad declared—through my mother, ofcourse—that I was to be wed to Lord Aster, the highest ranking born in the region. Because of course I was.”

The words burned through me, my shadows finally escaping in this dark, secluded stairwell. They encircled Kylo, intertwining with his.

“Of course my power-hungry mother would want her daughter to serve Isolde’s lord,” I spat. “I wished he’d been there that night. But he wasn’t. I guess he assumed that Idris and I perished with the rest of our coven.”

“Then you exploded again, in the same fashion here in Etherdale… ” Kylo finished. “So he put two and two together, followed a hunch, and discovered you were alive.”

Kylo’s strong grip on my waist was a comfort, but not nearly as comforting as when one of his hands slid up to close around my throat.

“And that it was me who killed my coven and the group of born celebrating with them,” I finished.

He gritted his teeth. Anger and horror eclipsed his eyes which mirrored my own.