Page 63 of Fated In Forever (Nocturne Vampire Clan #4)

EVANGELINE

T he concrete walls of the bunker’s cell block closed in around me like a tomb, every surface slick with condensation that gleamed in the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead. I tasted copper on my tongue, blood coating one swollen cheek, and my ribs were definitely broken on my right side.

Malachi wasn’t bleeding, but he was every bit as fucked as I was.

Bound in Romulus’s shadows, he couldn’t so much as twitch, even though the bindings were only in place for the show he and his master were about to put on.

The power that truly held Malachi helpless? That fucking blood bond.

Ravok had been right.

The power of swearing such an oath outweighed even the ascension to God of the Underworld, because Malachi couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and worse, I couldn’t detect a single one of his thoughts.

Worst of all, he couldn’t hear me.

I’d heard Angel scream—what I thought was Angel—and we’d raced inside the empty warehouse, found the entrance to the underground bunker, then, Angel and Eldric in a matter of minutes.

Too easily for this to be anything but a set up and yet…

no matter how hard we searched, nothing seemed out of place.

Not until the weight of Ravok's glamour settled over me like a suffocating shroud and Malachi was forced to his knees with a single command from his Maker.

And when my mate and my king had prowled down the darkened corridor, fear had grabbed me by the throat, and hadn’t let go since.

Again and again, my mouth opened and closed soundlessly—trying to scream, trying to warn Blake and Riordan to leave, that they’d walked into a trap, but nothing emerged but a hiss of air.

Run, I thought to them, standing just beyond the shimmering wall of Ravok's power. Please, just run. Wait for reinforcements.

But they couldn't hear me.

They couldn't see us through the distorted wall of glamour. To them, this end of the cell block must look like a shadowy dead end, nothing to waste their time on, now that they’d located Angel and Eldric.

No, their focus would be getting my sister and Eldric out alive, keeping them both safe, before they would resume searching for me. Because those were the kind of males they were, and that honorable, protective nature was exactly what Ravok would leverage.

My side burned as I tried pushing myself up, working my feet under me, blood seeping into my eye while Ravok chuckled. But I had to move.

I had to get past him, had to warn them, had to at least try…

Biting back a scream, bones ground together when I rose to a shaky crouch, one hand banded over my belly, keeping pressure on my burning ribs. Fear coated my tongue as I looked past Ravok to that half-open cell door.

I wasn’t even sure Angel and Eldric were still alive.

I’d gotten one glimpse of their still, pale faces before the world had blurred into twist of motion and bone-crushing pain. My best guess? Ravok grabbed me by the back of my very favorite jacket and hurled me fifty feet into a wall, shattering my ribs.

I’d barely opened my eyes in time to watch Malachi be forced to his knees, snarling the entire time, Romulus creeping out of the shadows, like a monstrous trick of the light in this underground hell.

Blood soaked my hair, my eye was swelling shut, and Aisling’s expensive jeans were shredded, right along with most of my thigh. If I survived this, I’d be picking pieces of gravel out for days.

Now Romulus waited obediently behind Malachi, expression as empty as any of the thralls, and perhaps I was a fool, but I wondered at what point he would regret his choices. Or would he worship his Master until the bitter end?

Ravok watched my struggle with a cruel smile.

“You know, I figured something out,” he said conversationally, his voice carrying easily while mine remained trapped in my throat, “I realized death really isn't the worst thing that can happen to someone. There are so many other losses that can ruin a person, break their very soul, and all of them are tied to suffering.”

Malachi’s eyes flared, as if he was desperately trying to communicate, to warn me.

I started crawling, feeling my lung collapse inside my ribs, oxygen becoming a precious commodity. Then Ravok blocked my way, flipping me onto my back with the toe of his boot.

Malachi’s face was red, neck tendons straining, but the power of that cursed oath held fast, a prison made of foolish promises and ancient magic that was stronger than iron bars.

Tears of frustration burned my eyes as I watched Blake use his shadows to open the door of my sister’s cell, Riordan rushing in behind him.

“Look at them,” Ravok crooned, crouching down over me, wincing as he did so. “They think they’ve saved the day. They think they’re heroes.”

When I started crawling again—because fuck my lung anyway—Ravok sighed and pushed to his feet, I caught a flinch of pain cross his face.

I latched onto that split-second of weakness with a desperate, keening hope.

Then I was flattened to the disgusting floor by his boot between my shoulder blades, and I couldn’t breathe for real.

“I wonder how much they can take, before they break?” Ravok mused. “They have both already lost so, so much. Sisters and mothers, which means they already have a soft spot for their poor, doomed females.”

All I heard behind the glamoured wall were Blake and Rohr’s low murmurs, planning, I was sure, ways to get my sister and Eldric out of here safely. I lifted my fist and slammed it into the floor as hard as I could.

Once, twice, again, until my hand stung, but I doubted my efforts even mattered.

“Their suffering, Evangeline, is on you.” My neck strained when he jerked me up by the hair, muscles screaming as Ravok dragged me closer to that shimmering wall of illusion. I kicked, tried to elbow him, but the more I fought, the less oxygen reached my brain, everything swimming in front of me .

“Oh no, there’s no passing out. Stay awake, little slayer, I want you to see what happens next. Their pain is going to be delicious.”

Malachi’s wild eyes found mine, his gaze a mirror of my own helplessness. No matter how hard he fought, how much he strained, his flesh was at Ravok’s command.

Ravok took a step closer to Blake and Riordan, dragging me with him, then I felt the cold point of a knife pressing into my throat, just over my carotid artery. “Quick deaths are overrated,” he continued, and Malachi went perfectly still, not breathing, not blinking, as if he’d forgotten how.

‘Watching the people you care about suffer…now that’s the kind of pain that leaves a permanent mark. Let’s make them suffer, little slayer.”

Blake emerged from the cell, warily scanning our end of the corridor, shadows wreathing his fingers and Ravok tightened his grip on my hair, dug the point of the dagger in a little bit deeper.

Then Rohr appeared, peering toward me with an intensity that made me wonder if he could actually see through this wall of glamour.

That invisible shield rippled, like a curtain being raised, the lights overhead flickering on, brighter than Broadway.

I screamed out a warning, or tried to—my throat worked against the blade, my lungs burned from the effort, but Ravok's power swallowed the sound as the glamour fell away. And in the glaring silence, I prayed Blake and Riordan would see through his game before it was too late.