Page 59 of Fated In Forever (Nocturne Vampire Clan #4)

EVANGELINE

E veryone had been gone all day, doing important, productive, male things, while I was stuck in my bedroom, staring at my ceiling, because my mates were overprotective, stubborn assholes.

Sure, I was still healing.

Sure, standing beneath a rift belching foul magic all over me all day might be hazardous to my health.

Like in a cosmic-asbestos sort of way.

But I doubted that was as dangerous as extreme boredom, which could definitely be terminal if I stayed locked up much longer.

I took a shower, sorted through my ridiculous clothing choices from Aisling’s friend Val, then went on the hunt for Bex and my sister, wishing with all my heart for a plain pair of jeans and a plain black t-shirt. I mean, who even wore five-hundred-dollar jeans?

And to what purpose?

At least I had mom’s old jacket back, the only part of my wardrobe that felt familiar, hid most of my hot-pink shirt, and hadn’t even cost a fortune. Best of all, the faded leather made me feel like a badass, a critical ego-boost since I’d been left behind as a bench warmer.

The silence in Angel's room felt wrong the moment I stepped through the doorway .

Too empty, like the calm of a storm that had just passed.

Her bed was unmade, sheets twisted and thrown aside as if she'd been yanked from sleep. The window was thrown open, gauzy curtain fluttering in the cold evening breeze, and that’s when I saw it…

broken glass glittering on the hardwood floor like fallen stars.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I took in the rest of the scene—a chair slightly out of place, her favorite fuchsia pillow on the floor, and her current read…carelessly discarded, open, facedown, flattened, like someone had stepped on the spine and broken it.

Sacrilege, and nothing Angel would ever stand for.

I couldn’t detect any foreign scents, and my nose wasn’t as developed as say, Blake or Riordan’s, but every piece of me knew someone had been here.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, rushing to the window. Below, the garden showed definite signs of struggle—a bed of trampled flowers, dark, crushed grass, disturbed earth, and…I squinted. Was that blood on the rose bushes?

Then I spotted the note, pinned to Angel's pillow with a silver dagger, because Ravok just had to be extra, the handwriting elegant despite the violence of its message.

Come find us, if you want her to live. – R

Ravok or Romulus.

Probably Romulus, since I couldn’t imagine Ravok having nice handwriting. He could probably barely even write his name. No…I took a closer look around, Ravok hadn’t been here. He would have decimated this room to send a message.

But someone had taken my sister.

Blake, you and Riordan need to come back. In fact, bring everyone. We have a problem. I scanned everything again, looking for more clues, crumpling the note in my fist .

A second later, on our way .

They’d left just before dawn to do reconnaissance.

Somehow, they’d known Angel was practically alone, that most of the staff had been sent home and only a skeleton crew of guards protected the grounds.

That Nikolai, Finn, everyone with a working knowledge of magic were at the ruins today, working to stabilize the site, while Nash and our guards were out searching for these assholes.

Angel was vulnerable, innocent, pregnant, and once more in the hands of a monster who collected beautiful things only to break them.

“ Angel .” Eldric's voice boomed from somewhere in the house, rough with rage and panic, his heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs.

He burst through the doorway like an avenging angel, unbound red hair flying around his shoulders, shirt half-buttoned, eyes blazing with a fury I'd never seen from him before. He took in the destroyed room, one hand drifting to his chest as he fought for air.

A second later, Bex peeked up over his shoulder, gasping, cheeks bright pink.

“Bex said Angelique was gone. Where is she?” Eldric breathed, and I handed him the wadded-up note.

“Romulus is my guess. There are signs of a struggle outside, blood—” Eldric elbowed past me and rushed to the window, leaned out to get a better look at the garden below.

“I came to find her after breakfast, to see if she wanted to walk the grounds.” Bex’s tear stained eyes met mine. “We usually have a stroll, and this is how I found her room. I looked everywhere for you, but found Master Eldric first.”

Eldric stormed back across the room, holding up the paper, eyes flying over the single line, once, twice, a third time before he snarled, revealing canines he usually kept hidden.

“I should have killed him when I had the chance,” he said simply, the words ringing with absolute conviction.

“This time, I'll fucking tear him apart with my bare hands.”

He spun toward the door, heat gathering around him like a charged storm, and I grabbed his arm, feeling the tension coiled in his muscles.

“Eldric, don’t. This is what they want. You can’t go charging off into an obvious trap. We need to think this through. I’ve contacted Blake, they’re already on their way. Once they get here, we’ll make a plan?—”

As totally onboard as I was with charging off into a trap to rescue my sister, I’d learned from my mistakes. We were all stronger when we worked together, and we’d only endanger Angel if we acted recklessly.

“There's no time for plans,” he snapped, shaking me off. “Every second we waste here is another second she's alone with that monster. You know what he does to his victims. You know , Evangeline.”

I swallowed down the bile searing my throat.

I did know, all too well.

All those thralls Ravok was making, feeding on, sucking dry.

Would it even matter that Angel was pregnant? A valuable hostage? My sister?

I couldn’t take a chance that Ravok—or Romulus—or my uncles might have actually grown a conscious these past few weeks. No, Eldric was right, but going in with no backup…usually I was the one making rash decisions, but even I knew this was suicide.

“Evangeline is right, Master Eldric.” Bex threw her support behind me and I gave her an encouraging nod. “ This is just like when Duke Raleigh’s arch enemy, Count Sabre, kidnaps the heroine’s favorite cousin to lure her into a trap. It’s obvious, they’re trying to draw Evie out.”

Okay, that did not go how I thought it was going to go . I cleared my throat, “Bex isn’t wrong, Eldric. I agree, this is a trap, but we’ll only endanger Angel by rushing in unprepared.”

“We don’t even know how long she’s been gone,” Eldric snapped. “We could already be too late.”

“Give Blake and the others time to come back, then we all go in together…five minutes, just…”

“ They're too far away ,” Eldric's voice cracked with desperation. “Angel is my responsibility and you don’t understand . I swore I'd take care of her, and I didn’t. I wasn’t here, and now she’s gone .” I narrowed my eyes. Eldric was acting almost like a…

“ You’re not stopping me .” Power echoed around the room, the temperature rising as an aura of fire flickered around him. “So don’t even try.”

He strode toward the door with such grim determination, I realized with growing horror that he meant to go alone. Eldric was strong—Blake had told me with grudging admiration how he’d stood against Romulus down in the tunnels—but he’d be facing an entire army. He was going to get himself killed.

And most likely, I was the one Ravok wanted.

“Eldric, please,” I caught him by the arm, because I damn well wasn’t letting anything happen to my sister’s boyfriend. “Just give me five minutes.” I looked to Bex for support, but she didn’t know how to stop him, any more than I did.

“No.” His voice was flat, final. “I'm leaving. What if Angel doesn't have five minutes? Did you think of that? ”

“Of course, I did. She’s my sister.” I reminded him, digging my fingers in harder, willing him to look at me. “I should be the one panicking, but I’m not.”

“Maybe,” he said, with an edge of bitterness, “that’s because you’ve pretty much ignored her for the past two months. Maybe that’s because you haven’t been a good sister to her, when she really needed you to be.”

My hold on his arm loosened, his accusation hitting home.

He was right. I’d been a shitty sister, and while I could make excuses all day long, lately, I hadn’t been there for her, and she did need me right now. In truth, she’d needed me before today, and…once again, I’d been too caught up with my own life problems.

“That’s not fair, Eldric,” Bex snapped. “Evangeline has been a good sister, and you have no right to call her loyalty, of all people’s, into question, especially right now.”

“Well, I am,” his face was a mix of anger and frustration and regret as he turned away and I watched him disappear, poof right out of existence.

“He doesn’t even know where he’s going,” I said bitterly, determined not to focus on the fact he was probably right about the whole bad big sister thing. “He’ll never be able to find her.”

Bex’s eyes slid away, her face scarlet. “Oh, he can. I’m sure he will, actually.”

I waited, then put my hands on my hips and waited some more. “Who do you think Angel’s been feeding off of since she got here?” Bex groaned, throwing her hands up. “He’ll be able to track her blood,” her blush deepened to a concerning color of burgundy. “Or at least that’s what they say. ”

“Okay,” I paced across the room. “Okay, that’s good. No, wait, that’s not good. He’s going to get himself killed.”

“What are you going to do?” Bex bounced up and down on her toes, tears shining in her eyes. “She hasn’t been gone long. Less than an hour, we just had breakfast, then she came up here to change.”

My mind raced through options.

I tried contacting Malachi, but all I got was noise on the other end of the bond, which meant they were already rushing back from France. I sucked in a shaky breath, debating whether to leave right now, go it on my own. But I’d learned to rely on my friends, I just had to be patient.

Everyone would be here in minutes, then we’d be right behind Eldric.

Seriously, how much trouble could he get into in ten minutes on enemy territory?

“He is going to get himself killed,” Bex said worriedly. “It’s going to be like when Lady Davenport sailed a boat around Cape Fear with a loner captain who had his heart broken by an old lover and…”

“That doesn’t sound like a smutty werewolf romance.” I muttered, rechecking the room, the still-open window, picking my sister’s book up off the floor and closing it, broken spine and all.

“I’m into historical romance these days. Dukes and ballgowns, you can’t go wrong,” she muttered, touching my arm. “You’ll find Angel, right? Bring her back? How did anyone get in here, anyway? I thought this castle was warded?”

“All very good questions, and yes, I’ll find her, Bex, I promise.” Where was everyone ? I went back to the window, ran my fingers around the frame, looking for anything amiss, but I was no magical expert. But if Romulus was the one who took Angel …

Hurry , I sent another plea to Blake. You have to hurry.

“You know more about how magic works than I do. If I were able to copy someone else’s magic, I mean, mimic their powers perfectly, could I bypass a ward?” I mused. Like bypassing a security system, it would just be a matter of knowing how.

“Uncle Nash would be the one to ask, but…yeah, I think so.” Bex came to stand beside me. “If they had a rudimentary knowledge of spells, and they possessed the same magic used to ward this castle, it wouldn’t be that hard to slip through. Theoretically, anyway.”

Angel had been gone for an hour, and the clock in my head was ticking down the seconds.

Eldric was right about one thing. I did know what Ravok did with his victims, and while he might need my sister as a bargaining chip, he certainly didn’t need the Nocturne clan’s librarian, impressive fire magic or no.

I looked at the window again, chewing on my lip. “I should go after him.”

Bex winced. “You can’t.”

“I could. But I shouldn’t. But I could .”

Her fingers dug into my arm. “No, you can’t leave me here to tell Malachi you charged off into danger by yourself.

What if he turns back into a scary monster?

He might eat me.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or be vaguely concerned by how brightly Bex’s eyes lit up when she talked about him changing.

And eating her.

“Once a monsterfucker, always a monsterfucker.” I murmured.

Hurry , I mentally called out again to Blake, pressing my pretend pencil to my proverbial tongue.

I had a checklist now, a to-do list written in blood .

First, get my sister and Eldric back safely.

Second, kill every last person who had a hand in her kidnapping, starting with Ravok. Stab Romulus in the throat, because fuck him, and four, figure out how to not lose Malachi to the Underworld permanently, right after we saved the world like the absolute badasses we were.