Page 38 of Fated In Blood (Nocturne Vampire Clan #1)

38

RIORDAN

I rubbed my aching head, hardly able to concentrate on the problem before me—and Malachi Draven was a big fucking problem—with Silver missing.

Gone for two days after she’d slipped out, right under our noses.

We’d searched the house, the grounds, the town…the entire fucking state. Nothing. Other than locking Vincent in his own beer cooler to freeze to death, she hadn’t left so much as a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow, and she’d been smart, getting out of town so fast.

Now she was too far away for either of us to track reliably.

I was equal parts pissed off and impressed.

Mostly pissed off right now, though not as pissed as Blake.

“I thought I’d be able to locate her anywhere since I fed her,” he grumbled for the fiftieth time, rubbing his chest with that methodic, circular motion. “This blood bond is for shit.”

I didn’t bother reminding him that I was the one who’d fucking Made her, and I was having no better luck.

Blake had been the one to locate Vincent, after our fight, and after we’d wasted hours searching Crimson House, convinced Silver was avoiding us. The slippery bar owner had been a worrying shade of blue when Blake dragged him out of the freezer, teeth chattering, going on and on about what he’d do to Evangeline once he found her.

I shut the bastard up fast, fighting the urge to shove him back and finish the job Silver started. We traced Valentine’s Mercedes to a chop shop in Philly. She’d swapped the tricked-out, fully loaded luxury sedan for a shit green 1977 Plymouth.

No electronics, no GPS, no way for us to track her any further by our usual means. As far as finding her, locating Silver through the blood bond wasn’t impossible, but the process would take time and manpower, neither of which we could spare right now.

Evangeline Silverwood was a bloodthirsty thing, and the primal, vampire part of me craved that savageness as much as I craved her obedience. I rubbed my head again, well aware Blake was staring. I went to great lengths to camouflage myself beneath expensive watches and tailored suits, but some urges could only be controlled, never erased.

“I Made her, not you. The bond is brand new, and you haven’t been feeding her, I have, which means your bond with her is fading.” My cock jumped the second I relived how eagerly her soft lips moved against my throat and the taste of her when I’d licked her juices off my fingers.

“I fucked myself, is that what you’re saying?”

“God, you are such a miserable bastard. I’m explaining basic facts, but if you want to make this all personal, be my guest.”

“Just saying…what good is this blood hierarchy shit if it doesn’t work?”

Blood hierarchy did work. Basic vampire biology had always worked, for two thousand fucking years without a hitch, and it was working now. This had to do with me turning her and me feeding her and both of us fucking her, which just…confused the bond.

It sure as fuck was confusing me.

“One hour, Blake. Give me one fucking hour to deal with Malachi, then we go back to searching for her. He can’t sense anything’s wrong, or everything we’ve been working toward falls apart.”

“She’s still south of here.”

“I know, and I’ll remind you, there are twelve states south of here, plus an entire continent. The smart move would be to deal with our own shit and have everything in place when she returns.” I’d relied on Blake’s level head for a hundred years, now was not the time for the bastard to fall apart.

“How can you be so sure she’ll come back for her sister? She’s reckless and selfish. I doubt she’d risk her life to come back here.”

“She infiltrated Tyrell’s castle on one of the most important nights of the year, blew up the entire west wing, and if Tyrell wasn’t so powerful, probably would have succeeded in leaving Darkmore with her sister. She’s not selfish. Silver wouldn’t abandon her family. She’ll be back.” This was a fact, like the sun rising in the east tomorrow morning.

Evangeline Silverwood was many things, but disloyal she was not.

Part of me wondered what it would be like to have someone fight for me with the same fierce devotion she fought for her sister. She would be unstoppable. The perfect weapon.

Those thoughts faded when an echoing silence rippled through Crimson House, a shockwave of stillness stifling everything in its path. A minute later came the footsteps. Light like a cat. Deliberate like a hunter.

Instead of sitting in the chair beside me, Blake took up position by the window, shoulder braced against the wall, legs crossed casually, inspecting the overgrown landscape outside, every instinct on high alert.

I leaned back on my desk, squarely facing the door.

That choking stillness arrived a second before Malachi did, as he prowled in like the devil’s right hand, face as pale as moonlight, every unhurried movement promising death, his soul filled with enough fucking evil to taint this entire kingdom black.

His dark-blond hair was braided back for battle in an ancient pattern I’d only seen in Europe amongst the oldest of our kind, and his simple clothing—the only thing plain about him—was as utilitarian as Blake’s jeans and fitted t-shirts, but on him they looked too modern.

Nobody really knew how old Malachi Draven was.

Five hundred? A thousand years old?

Maybe not an Ancient like Tyrell, but the blood flowing in my veins paused at Draven’s approach, assessing the threat and recognizing his dominance.

“Riordan.” Those pale blue eyes flicked keenly over to my friend. “Blake. Still attached at the hip, I see.”

He still retained a faint accent I couldn’t quite place, but the lilting words only accentuated his swaggering arrogance. And just that easily, Blake tipped over the edge.

“Still trying to work your way back into our good graces, I see.” Blake’s lips curled in a surly expression I recognized all too well. “Good luck with that, you sick fuck.”

“It seems I’m already in your good graces, since your king ”—Draven tipped his head to me in a move that was nothing short of disrespectful—“invited me here for a meeting. But I can go back to Tyrell’s and see what the old bastard offers me to stay. I’m sure his proposition is far more exciting than yours. Wine, women… mayhem . All the things I love best in the world.”

“Our offer is better, or you wouldn’t have come.” I hadn’t moved, hands braced against the desk, pulse plodding along at a respectable rate. “You want Tyrell gone as much as we do, so let’s stop fucking around. What did you find out when you were at the castle?”

“He’s still a twisted piece of work.” Draven cast around for a place to sit, then dragged Blake’s chair away from the window and over to the desk. He sat down in a sloppy sprawl of legs and arms, completely overflowing the seat.

“Did he suspect why you’d really come back?”

“Are you serious?” Draven lifted an eyebrow. “Once I casually mentioned I’d broken a blood oath before, he was too fucking blinded to consider I could be here for any other reason. Gave me a tour of the castle. Even met his mate. Pretty thing. Sweet, too.”

Over by the window, Blake stiffened.

“Offered me twenty million to break the blood oath he swore to your sire, twenty-five if I completed the task by the end of the week.” Draven inspected his nails. “I told him I’d think about it. Once that oath breaks, you’re a dead male.”

“Once that oath breaks, Tyrell will burn down this kingdom and everyone in it. There will be no more protections, no more safe zones, nothing keeping him in check. You really think his reach won’t extend to you, Draven?”

“I know how to protect myself, unlike you, Riordan. I don’t have an honorable streak that would say…inspire me to take up my sire’s crown and go to war with a despot I could never hope to defeat.”

“That’s not what happened and you know it,” I countered stiffly. “And Tyrell can be beaten, you just need the right tool.”

Draven’s toothy grin was a terrible thing, filled with knowledge I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. “Ah, I see. The Silverwood heir.”

His gloating expression hardened. “The real Silverwood heir, not the blond beauty Tyrell’s parading around as his mate. That vicious little thing caused quite the stir at the auction, I heard. The grand staircase will never be the same, and Bosch…”

He clicked his tongue, staring straight at Blake. “Poor Bosch is positively consumed with plans of revenge. Nearly bored me to tears with the depraved things he plans to do to that girl…Horrible imagination on that one. He’s as bad as Valaine.”

Over by the window, Blake hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t so much as blinked, but the temperature in the room had been steadily diminishing, along with his self-control. His breath became a plume of liquid fog, glittering eyes pinned on Malachi. He could deny the truth to his dying breath, but in a matter of days, Evangeline had worked her way under his skin.

I saw the proof and apparently, Malachi did too.

I just prayed Draven didn’t discover just how deep their bond really went.

“Watch your tone, Malachi.” I didn’t move a muscle, but the ends of my fingers heated with white-hot magic, a warning even Draven couldn’t ignore. “My tolerance for your games is fading by the second.” For a tense moment our eyes locked, my knuckles flexing.

I could kill him right now and we both knew it.

But I couldn’t—something else we all knew. “Treason cuts both ways, Malachi, and now you’re in as deep as we are,” I said softly, feeling the burn at the tips of my fingers as sharply as my anger cut me inside.

“You help rid this world of Tyrell and you’ll be rewarded. But know this—Blake Marten has earned my loyalty a hundred times over, and pissing him off…” I paused. “Will only get your ass handed to you. Besides, we don’t have time for this.”

The cocky bastard just grinned. “Is our vicious little friend part of the plan?”

Keep your shit together , I warned. If we fuck this up, we’re both dead.

Blake’s expression remained carefully blank, but his voice was sharp as nails. “That vicious little thing was trained by Silas himself. She nearly put Collum in the grave before she even fully transitioned. The Silverwoods have been hunting her for twelve years.”

Fuck, that was too much, Blake. What are you thinking?

Draven straightened in his chair, shifting from indolent fool to hyperaware predator in a second. “And she’s managed to stay ahead of them that entire time?”

“Most of that time, yes. And kept her sister safe, until Tyrell took her.” While I suspected Tyrell’s involvement with the Silverwoods wasn’t a coincidence, I wanted to see Draven’s reaction. As usual, he was a dick about it.

“They make quite the pair.” Draven’s teeth flashed in a cruel smile. “Did you see the portrait?” He made a show of stroking his chin, a mockery of Tyrell’s nervous habit.

“I expect now that the bastard has found his queen, all he needs is a kingdom. Your kingdom, Riordan. So what will it be? I break the oath and Tyrell breaks you, or do we honor our original agreement? Ten million, I believe, in exchange for my services?”

“Lives are on the line, an entire kingdom at risk, and all you care about is the money?” Blake snarled. “Slither back to your hole and rot for all we care, we don’t need you.”

“Five million now, the rest when Tyrell is dead,” I agreed, pushing off the desk, ready to extend my hand to this asshole. This was a shit deal, but the only arrangement that offered us a chance of success. And survival .

And I doubted Tyrell would give us an easy death.

“Shake and we’ll have an agreement,” I prodded, waiting like a fucking wanker with my hand in the air.

But Draven didn’t budge, his eyes flicking between me and Blake. “Or…we can make a new bargain. One that will cost you far less, Graves. Give me the Silverwood heir and I’ll kill Tyrell for free.” As if he knew exactly the effect his words would have, Draven looked over at Blake.

“From what I’ve heard so far, Evangeline Silverwood is nothing but trouble.” He licked his lips. “I expect by now you’re anxious to have someone take her off your hands.”