Page 61 of Fated In Forever (Nocturne Vampire Clan #4)

EVANGELINE

T he Silverwood Compound was a hodgepodge of low stone buildings with sloped slate roofs behind a line of trees, surrounded by hand stacked walls that perfectly matched the bucolic atmosphere of this upscale, rural area—if they weren’t topped by almost-invisible lines of razor wire.

After the cool misty damp of Ireland, New York was miserably hot, the kind of heat that fried the grass brown and turned everything to dust. A constant stream of sweat trickled annoyingly down the center of my back, right where I couldn’t scratch.

“Like old times,” Malachi murmured, his eyes studying the perimeter, searching, like me, for any sign of life inside that razor wire border. My nerves were so fraught I couldn’t concentrate, see sawing between absolute fear and obsessing over Eldric’s parting words.

He was right.

I was a shit sister.

For most of these past ten years, it was me and Angel against the entire world, and God, how tight we had been. There hadn’t been space between us for anyone else. Then I’d lost her to Tyrell and every day since had become a maze of…I didn’t even know how to describe my life right now .

There was more room now. More people. Less time for the two of us.

And I’d failed Angel, by letting so many people into the space only she used to occupy.

It will take the others longer to get here , Malachi explained. I’m…stronger than I have ever been before, but they’ll be forced to use the rifts, which will delay them. We’ll be on our own for half an hour, perhaps longer.

The compound looked abandoned, and every report we’d had for the past weeks had confirmed that fact. Maybe it was my enhanced powers, but the consecrated land still hummed with hallowed energy, and my bones echoed in response.

“Can you see anything ?” I whispered, swatting away a biting fly. Because sweating to death wasn’t bad enough, so all the little bitey things had to come out, too. “The place looks abandoned. There’s nothing there, Malachi.”

“Your sister is in there,” he said, with so much confidence I went still. “So is Eldric.”

A wave of fear washed through me, but I didn’t ask Malachi if he was sure.

We wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t, and besides, the very air around the compound felt more wrong than usual—thick with malevolent energy that made my skin crawl and those black veins rise to the surface, like they were responding to a threat.

Do we wait for the others?

That depends , Malachi rose into a half crouch, staring at those buildings with such intensity, more sweat slid down my spine. Let me see if I can pinpoint them. Make sure we can afford to wait. There was a short pause and then , even a few seconds could make a difference.

I hadn’t drawn my next breath when his fingers clamped down on my wrist and I was swept up in a disorienting gust of cold air, a blur of motion, leaving half my stomach behind.

We’d landed inside the wards, which—as I looked around, my mouth hanging open—had undergone a serious magical upgrade.

The compound was packed with thralls, some standing out in the hot sun baking, most gathered in the meager shade of the buildings, packed together like sardines. I pressed myself into Malachi, my stomach roiling from the smell.

They can’t see us, we’re protected by my glamour . He paused, taking in the sheer numbers. Hundreds. Thousands, possibly, given we could only see this small area. Give Blake and Riordan the numbers, they’ll need to be heavily shielded when they dematerialize inside.

I sent Blake the information, staying to the point as much as possible, trying to keep most of my horror to myself.

Where do we even start? I looked wildly from one building to another. I only knew the layout of this compound from our last visit, and had no idea where to begin.

Malachi’s mouth tightened. I know exactly where they are, come on. His fingers banded around my wrist, tugging me toward a low, nondescript building sandwiched between the main warehouse and two outbuildings, and then I remembered.

He’d been held captive here for days.

We dodged around the few lone, empty eyed thralls baking in the sun, avoiding the shade altogether, because we’d never make it through those closely-packed throngs. The smell was mind boggling, the sheer numbers staggering .

How many do you think? I asked as we navigated the yard like a minefield . A thousand?

At least. And in a matter of weeks. You said he brought more to the chateau?

A hundred or so. He used them like a shield, drawing power from them until there was nothing left. These thralls look younger though. Kids. Recognition niggled at the edges of my thoughts, but I couldn’t quite pin the memory down.

There was nothing but crackling silence on the other end of our bond, as if Malachi was too angry to formulate a single word, his grip tightening as we circumnavigated a few old, dusty vehicles, more thralls, rounding the corner of our target building, and then…

The smell hit me like a wall—a sweet, reeking wall of decay.

Bodies were piled higher than my head behind the building, rotting in the sun, so many that for a second, my stupefied thoughts tripped over themselves before Malachi blocked the sight with his body, pressing me to his chest, arms wrapped around me so I couldn’t see a thing.

He must have intensified the shield of glamour, because some of the reek faded, but the smell was deep in my nose now, coating my mouth and my lungs and I gagged, doubling over to heave a mouthful of water into the dusty ground.

These were kids, younger than me, younger than even Angel.

And their shirts boasted a distinctive logo. One I recognized all too well from my days schlepping drinks at a certain dive bar downtown.

Thorndale University.

The backdoors swung open and two familiar—well, vaguely familiar, now—forms emerged, dragging another body.

Alistair and Dante, little more than tattered flesh and fabric hanging off skeletal bone, tossed the desiccated corpse up onto the top of the pile with inhuman strength, then turned around and went back inside.

As if this was just another Tuesday.

Another victim. A girl, a sparkly bracelet hanging off her skeletal wrist.

These kids came from New York. From Thorndale. And I had an idea of who had been helping Ravok this entire time. Vincent Valentine . A snake whose existence I’d completely forgotten about.

I looked up at Malachi, that name on the end of my tongue…

And that’s when Angel screamed.