Page 159 of Eternal Ruin

“Where’s Taj?” he asked.

“He’s in a mood,” Iniko said, catching his eye. Susenyos suspected this was because June had disappeared from Uxlay without a word. Taj played a long game and always won over the people Susenyos assigned him to target. He’d never failed. Except maybe with June.

He turned his attention to Kidan. “What do you want to tell us?”

“Samson is still working with Lusidio,” she said, her expression wary.

Silence filled the space.

Iniko tightened her fist. “It makes sense now why none of the Lusidios have attacked the Nefrasi since.”

“You must have misunderstood,” Susenyos said. “Samson hates Lusidio just as much, if not more than I do. Lusidio killed so many of our…” He shook his head, fog filling his mind.

Susenyos would never forget the devastation wreaked on his people when they’d been captured. His lovers losing hope, slowly and painfully as the sun shutting itseye, his warriors on their knees, powerless against the horde of Lusidios, his strategists defeated entirely in their planning, blaming themselves—he couldn’t bear to see them like that again.

And if what Kidan was telling him was true, then it was all an illusion.

“They think they’re free.” Susenyos paced, staring at the bloodstain on the carpet. “They think he saved them.”

“He must have struck the deal alone,” Iniko said, and he didn’t miss how her tone cleaved. “Arin would never work with Lusidio. Not after what he did to her girls.”

Susenyos winced at the memory. Arin’s girls. Six gifted girls she personally selected to train under her, fashioned into incredible warriors. Lusidio had horrifically murdered five of them. Iniko, the sixth, was the only one who survived.

Iniko touched her large flowered collar where the three marks scarred her throat. Her eyes were brimstone and fire.

“This is it,” Susenyos said slowly. “This is what we use to turn the Nefrasi to our side. We will expose that Samson is working with Lusidio.”

Iniko nodded, her burning determination matching his.

“There’s one more thing. The blade artifact…” Kidan cleared her throat. “He said he buried the blades with her.”

Susenyos’s eyes widened. “He really told you that?”

She nodded.

He could kiss her right now.

“Iniko,” he said instead.

They all knew where Talaa was buried.

“On it.”

Iniko moved to the door. Susenyos was still trying wrap his mind around the two valuable pieces of information. She was delivering on her promise. Getting him everything he wanted. Truly, he was lucky to have Kidan on his side. When she turned that dangerous mind toward an enemy, he wanted to stand beside her, not against her.

Never again.

Spots of blood lingered on her wrist and he held his breath out of habit, like he used to when her presence overwhelmed him.

Kidan blinked at him now, noticing his stillness, unmoving chest.

“Are you all right?”

Susenyos released his breath delicately, half waiting for his fangs to emerge, but they didn’t. His brows drew together. For the first time, he was almost relieved to have lost something of vampirism.

He studied her punctured wrist, the bubble of red blood glistening, with fascination.

“It’s strange,” he confessed, eyes creasing, “to see you bleed this close to me without feeling hunger.”