Page 65 of Fated In Forever (Nocturne Vampire Clan #4)

MALACHI

T he blood oath writhed through my veins like chains of molten iron, binding me to stillness as I watched Ravok's masterpiece unfold. His glamour was flawless—weeks and weeks of endlessly feeding on thralls had made him stronger than I'd ever seen him.

Than I’d ever seen any vampire, even the Elders.

To Blake and Riordan, his illusion was perfect: they saw me dead, saw Evangeline with a knife to her throat, watched their worst nightmare play out in horrifying, brutal detail.

But I was very much alive, bound and gagged in the shadows, forced to watch as my Maker orchestrated psychological torture with the precision of a virtuoso.

The real Evangeline was trapped beside me, her silent screams lost behind Ravok's power, her tears carving tracks down her face as she watched Blake and Riordan's anguish.

Submit, the blood oath whispered a constant loop in my mind, Ravok's will binding my consciousness as tightly as iron manacles. Obey. You swore away your soul to me.

I had obeyed for so many years.

Centuries of helpless submission.

The blood oath was absolute—dominion over flesh and bone, muscle and voice. But watching Blake collapse to his knees, listening to his broken confession of love, seeing Riordan beg for Evangeline's life... those unbreakable chains began to crack.

I shuddered, all the way down to my soul when Ravok's illusion showed him slitting Evangeline's throat.

Shuddered again when Blake and Riordan's screams of grief echoed off the concrete walls, when Evangeline’s muffled sobs tore through my heart as she watched the people she loved suffer, believing this tragedy was her doing.

But this twisted, grotesque display of cruelty had been two millennia in the making, and none of this was her fault.

No, the word sparked in the darkness of my mind. This ends now.

“Now you understand,” Ravok told the two broken males, his voice thick with satisfaction.

“What real power looks like. What it means to be truly helpless. I will take your lives, and your kingdom and your clan. Your magic will serve me, and perhaps, if you serve me well enough, you will get to keep your souls.”

I saw the greed in his eyes. The glamour had been the appetizer—now came the main course. He would either kill them while they were defenseless, or force them to submit and he would savor every moment.

Or…he might make them swear the same demonic blood oath that made me a prisoner.

I would not allow either of those scenarios to happen.

My shoulders strained, muscles popping as I raised my head, Romulus making a little sound of distress behind me. But I kept going, until I saw everything. And knew this was the last time Ravok would ever control me again.

The blood oath tightened around me like a vise, trying to force me back into submission. But something had changed. The sight of Evangeline's tears, the sound of my friends' anguish, the knowledge that Ravok's cruelty knew no bounds—all of it crystallized into one burning truth.

I was fucking Orcus. God of the Underworld.

I wasn’t his slave, or his creation.

I choose. The words echoed through me. I choose who I am. I choose who I serve. I choose who I protect and I choose who I love.

The blood oath convulsed, the shackles splintering, not because Ravok was weak—he was stronger than ever. But because I had found something stronger than he could ever be.

You are my world, Evie.

And all of us are going to survive this, I swear it. Nobody is going to die today.

Her head lifted, eyes hazy with pain meeting mine, then clearing. focusing, her hand moving to her boot, to the knife hidden there. I gave her a subtle head shake. This was not her fight.

And I’d seen something else. Ravok was hurt. Beneath his brimming strength and magic, he’d been injured. He was favoring his stomach, unconsciously protecting himself with an arm banded over his abdomen, revealing a small wince of pain here and there, every time he moved.

Romulus’s shadowy bindings slid away as power flooded through me—a dark, shadow magic, shot through with red lightning, a power that shouldn’t exist here in this realm, just like me.

I burst to my feet in one fluid motion, my body already expanding, horns bursting from my head, fangs extending as a snarl rumbled in my chest. I rose above Ravok and Romulus, rose until my horns crushed one of the flickering lights, coating me in a shower of sparks.

Romulus gathered a handful of shadows—pale as mist without a hint of lightning—and cast them, but they slid off me like water, a poor imitation of the real thing.

You can never copy my magic, you pathetic traitor.

You should have listened to me, you should have never chosen power over your friends.

His eyes—one still soft brown, one stained solid black—widened in shock, but I was already moving.

I slammed into him with the force of a freight train, crushing him into the concrete wall.

His already smashed-in skull exploded against the stone, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious or worse.

Ravok whirled around, his perfect composure finally cracking. “Impossible,” he snarled. “The blood oath?—”

“ Is broken ,” I said, my voice carrying a strength I hadn't used in this realm, and the underground bunker shook, cracks spreading across the floor and up the walls. One whisper of my own glamour and Ravok’s collapsed, shattering like a pane of thin glass.

Blake and Riordan's heads snapped up, they rose to their feet as the illusion faded, leaving them staring at a very much alive Evie…and me.

“What the fuck…” Blake started, confusion and hope warring in his voice.

Glamour , I thought tersely, never taking my eyes off Ravok. His true magic is glamour, like mine. All of this was only an illusion .

Ravok's face contorted with rage. “You forget yourself. You forget what you are. What I made you.”

I know exactly what I am , I replied, rolling my thick neck with a satisfying pop, strength and resolve settling into my bones so deep, my feet feel grounded in the realm for the first time. Someone who has found the family he claims as his own, and will defend them until the day I die.

My Maker came at me, moving with inhuman speed, fangs bared. But I was ready. I’d been waiting for this moment ever since I’d knelt before him on that muddy battlefield and sworn my future away.

We collided in the center of the cell block, the impact sending shockwaves through the concrete floor. His claws raked across my chest, but I caught his wrists, our supernatural strength locked in deadly balance.

“You are mine,” he hissed, his face inches from mine. “You will always be mine.”

No , I said, driving my knee up into his ribs and the crunch of breaking bone echoed through the space. None of us will ever belong to you. You are finished, Ravok.

My blow broke something else, too, a foul, rotten scent staining the air, and a black stain seeped through his shirt, as if I’d opened up an old wound on his stomach. Ravok pressed his hand to the wet spot, eyes flaring in panic.

We broke apart, circling each other like predators. Behind us, Blake and Riordan helped Evangeline to her feet, their voices urgent as they dragged her to a safe distance. This was between Ravok and me now—Maker and progeny, master and slave no longer.

“I have fed from thousands. Thousands ,” Ravok hissed, his smile returning as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, some of the foul scent ebbing. “Let me show you what true power looks like.”

Let me show you , I replied, feeling the darkness of the Underworld crest inside me, what keeping an oath looks like, because I have a family to protect, and a task to complete, and I mean to do both.

Then we launched ourselves at each other.