Page 134 of Eternal Ruin

Taj’s gaze dropped. “No, sadly, that was a rare bottle. We opted for something more dramatic this time.”

Arin marched toward him with murderous intent, and Taj held up his hands, eyes stretched in fear.

“What, you’re not going to let me finish?”

Mid-cursing at him, Arin stumbled. Kidan’s eyes widened, watching Arin grit her teeth and try to walk straight.

Susenyos cleaned Arin’s blood from the edge of his coat. Kidan noticed it then: The tip of his blade was nearly black, smeared with blood like… ash.

Impala horn ash.

Kidan’s gaze brightened.

“The fourth, you taught me a good fighter felt every blow he did not deliver, died each time he miscalculated, and memorized every defeat, until he could find victory in his failures.”

“You poisoned me?” Arin’s surprise was genuine.

Susenyos’s blazing eyes slid to Kidan, making her breath catch. “I used to think poison was a coward’s weapon. A very human way of killing. But wielded the right way, I’ve seen how destructive it can be.”

Kidan remembered when he’d said those words to her. A breath away from killing her until she made him help her get a life exchange she never needed.

A vicious snarl ripped from Arin’s throat. “Poisoned or not, you will not win against me.”

“You’re not listening,” Susenyos said, squatting down and touching a handful of dirt and leaves. “I’ve learned from my defeats. So I don’t intend to fight you, Arin. I intend to bury you.”

Taj and Iniko had squatted at either points too, their hands buried in the swarm of leaves. Susenyos pulled on something, a rope or a chain, at the same time Iniko and Taj did, and the ground beneath caved in.

Arin dropped into nothingness.

Kidan’s heart plummeted as the tips of Arin’s Afro puffs disappeared from view.

All was silent.

For exactly three minutes. Susenyos’s shoulders remained wide, breathing slowly. Alert.

He was squatted at the very edge of the hole.

A hand shot out at Susenyos and he jumped quickly back. Arin had clung to a thick tree root, using it to escape the yawning black hole beneath her. Susenyos stabbed her again at the shoulders and she grunted in pain, scrambling for something and finding the red rope dangling from Susenyos’s wrist.

Panic slammed into Kidan and she hurried to untie them but it was too late.

Arin yanked on the rope.

Kidan’s arm shot out from under her and her chin slammed to the ground. Blood sprayed in her mouth. A ringing force traveled down the side of her face as she was slowly dragged into the hole. Arin wrapped the rope around her hands, pulling her in with monstrous force, menacing eyes fixed.

Right before Kidan’s leg tipped over the edge, something caught her ankle.

“Hold on!” Susenyos ordered, urgency thick in his tone.

Arin was smiling, her claw digging into Kidan’s wrist until she cried out. It felt like being stabbed by metal.

No way Kidan would survive this.

Even if she did, she would be in pieces.

Blood sprinkled from Kidan’s mouth and wrist, falling like red rain onto Arin. The vampire’s vicious smile contorted when a drop landed on her lips, then in her eyes. A low hiss filled the hole without an end. Arin rubbed her face and mouth in disgust. But Kidan kept bleeding onto her.

Arin’s feline gaze changed—the whites of her eyes turning entirely red. Kidan writhed in an effort to get away. She had never seen such a horrifying sight. A scream built in her throat as Arin’s bloodied eyes locked on to her. Something wicked and ancient stared back at her, ensnaring her in place. But a second later, Susenyos’s grip on her waist tightened and he pulled. Arin’s hand slipped and she let go.