Page 46 of Fated In Forever (Nocturne Vampire Clan #4)

BLAKE

I had never known silence could be so goddamned loud.

Beneath us, all around us, Laith Castle hummed with activity.

Hundreds of guards, and visitors, and members of the Shadowsend royal house heads coming and going.

Rowan Forge held daily audiences, Finn had a security briefing every morning, Nash had moved most of our personnel here, along with Sylvester.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the healers here, it was just…we were in unfamiliar territory, my mate was failing, and I couldn’t get my feet underneath me.

And while this beehive of activity around us buzzed, this room was quiet as a tomb. Not dead, exactly. Just… waiting.

Waiting for Evangeline to die.

I leaned closer, counting her breaths. Not because I doubted her strength—but because I needed to know they were still happening.

Each one was too ragged. Too shallow.

Her lungs fought for every last drop of oxygen, and the effort was taking its toll. Her skin was as pale as moonlight, translucent and shot through with so many of those black veins, I’d lost count. Her magic—gods, her magic —the shadows that had felled an Elder and stabilized a rift, was gone .

She was candleflame, clinging to the end of a dwindling wick.

Riordan came and went like a ghost, whispering curses under his breath. He never looked at me anymore. Like if we made eye contact, this might all become real, not some nightmare we could pretend wasn’t happening.

“She used too much magic,” he’d muttered, the night we dragged her back, barely breathing, her fingers still stained black from magic, an unnatural darkness that had taken days to fade. “And that goddamned rift. She was too close, for too long.”

But something else was broken, and much like fixing her body, I couldn’t fucking fix the root problem.

Not unless I wanted to go into the Underworld and drag back a certain bad-tempered, taloned monster from the dark depths. My gaze drifted, as it always did, to the small book lying on the bedside table, the golden key resting on top.

That was the first thing I’d tried. After Sylvester had done all he could, and Fiona had done all she could, I’d decided fuck it, I’d take a chance on a childhood fairytale.

I’d unlocked that ancient book, spread out the pages and wished.

Wished with every ounce of my being for her to wake up, to be whole and healed. To look at me with those blue eyes and tell me I was a possessive, overprotective idiot. Anything, other than… this .

But like Evie, the Wishrender remained asleep, not so much as a hint of life.

I reached for her hand. Cold. Too cold. I wrapped both of mine around her fingers anyway, holding them tight, like I could keep her tethered to me. Like I could command her to remain among the living, through sheer force of will .

“Evie,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers. “I need you to stay with me. Just until I figure out how to save you. Just…promise me you’ll stay.”

She didn’t answer.

Sometimes her lips moved, like she was caught between dreams, and I’d give anything to know what she was dreaming, anything to be part of her life, not staring at this shell, waiting for the moment she took her final breath.

But her thoughts were soft, twisting blackness, there was nothing for me to grasp, to understand.

“You know what is happening.” Nikolai leaned in the doorway, watching the both of us and I fought the urge to curl my body over her tiny, prone form.

“You’re back,” I said, instead, an edge to my words.

“Unless you can heal her, or the world is about to end, go be somewhere else.” The Elder had taken to popping in every few hours, both to check on Evie and to give us an update, even though I could care less about the rift or the ley line or even Ravok.

“Everything is remarkably stable at the site. Your mate bought us a reprieve this past week, otherwise, the rift would have swallowed up the mountain and most of the surrounding area by now. Fiona figured out how to siphon the ley line magic into a deep vein of obsidian, which, for now, seems to have stabilized the ruins.”

He paused, and I hoped he might just go away, and then, “Brendan and I managed to get down to the room with the portal. The water appears to have been…corrupted by something. It’s black now, not a hint of silver.”

I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“If that’s all, you can leave.” My eyes stayed glued to my mate, and Nikolai might as well have been a fly, buzzing in my ear .

“I bring other news. My sister…” Nikolai cleared his throat. “My sister has finally arrived. She is a talented…witch, I suppose you would call her.” He scratched his neck. “She is…here, downstairs, actually.”

“Here?” I stood, my chair scraping against the wood floor, too loud in the hush of the room.

“The sister who you called for weeks ago? That one?” I clenched my fists tight enough my knuckles popped. “The sister who could have prevented all this from happening? That one ?”

“Sabine is…difficult. Not purposefully.” Then he shook his head. “Well, oftentimes, it is purposeful, but this time, I believe she was off in another realm, and did return as quickly as she was able.”

Ah. Right. The sister who could cross into other realms . I squeezed my eyes shut. The universe either had really shitty timing, or really good timing, and I couldn’t decide which.

“You know what Evangeline needs, Blake. As her mate, you sense the problem, and you know how to fix this. The question is, will you?”

Oh, I knew. I felt that wrongness, deep inside her, through our bond, which was also fraying apart.

And while it went against every protective, possessive instinct I had as her life-bonded mate to put another male’s claim before mine, I wouldn’t let her suffer a second longer, not if I could fix this.

“Of fucking course I will,” I snapped. “The question is, will he come back?”

Could he come back ? Evie had been tight lipped about how her bond with Malachi worked, mostly to spare our egos, but also, because I’d been so murderously angry over the entire arrangement, she was trying to spare me .

“Sabine can take you into the Underworld. You can ask him yourself.”

“Oh, trust me, I will.” I’d do more than ask, I’d drag him back by his fucking horns, because I knew he had those now. Maybe by his fucking tail . Evie’s pale lips moved, her fingers twitched, as if now, in sleep, she reached for someone who wasn’t me.

I wasn’t even jealous anymore. Not really.

Jealousy was the purview of someone who wasn’t facing down the prospect of losing his mate.

Because Malachi was bonded to her, the same way I was. Maybe on a deeper level, maybe not. Maybe we all loved Evangeline in our own ways, and that was enough. I knew it was for me.

To hold her again, to fucking hear her laugh again…I blew out a shaky breath, rubbed my temples. “Fine. I’ll talk to this sister of yours.”

“Sabine will make some requests… demands . They might seem…outrageous,” Nikolai was saying, but I was barely listening.

None of us had any control over fate, it simply… was .

I was her mate, and Malachi was…whatever the fuck he was. Her monster, I supposed. But he gave Evie up, sent her back to me—to Riordan and me—to save her, knowing we would protect her, love her, care for her. Knowing he would never see her again.

That had to be an impossible decision.

And now I had to bring him back to save her.

And somehow, that wasn’t a hard decision at all.

“Tell your sister, if she can get us into the Underworld, I’ll give her anything she wants.” I looked back at Evangeline, lying so still beneath her blankets. Her chest still rose and fell, slow enough my heart caught in my throat. “Tell her I’m ready to leave, as soon as possible.”