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BLAKE

I stared down at that fucking message glowing on my screen like a beacon of hope.

The only tangible proof my mate was alive, she was fighting…that her last words were a lie.

Logically, I understood all of this was nothing but a sick game. Malachi’s twisted way of getting back at me for my supposed crimes .

The kiss, the manipulation, the taunting.

His hands all over her goddamned body.

Something cold wrapped around my heart, squeezing like an unforgiving fist until I couldn’t breathe. I stared out the window, wanting to rip the sun from the sky. It shouldn’t be bright and clear today. No, today should be dark and stormy and filled with gloom.

I ripped myself out of that black hole, and back to all the ways I was going to—slowly and creatively—kill Malachi Draven, once my mate was safely in my arms.

Logically, I understood Evie was innocent, her heart was pure, her motives virtuous and even locked under Malachi’s control I’d watched her fight to keep those awful words locked away so she didn’t hurt me.

But…the fucking doubts wouldn’t stop scraping away at me.

That’s the thing about mated males.

We don’t think with our heads, we think with all the subtly of a fucking carnivorous dinosaur—the ones with really big teeth and claws and tiny little pea brains. Incapable of parsing the truth out of what was right in front of me because jealousy is one big, fucking...

“Blake, get your head back in the goddamned game,” Rohr barked. “Thank fuck Evie still has her phone. Zachary’s on his way in, he’ll try to locate her through triangulation or some such thing.”

Even with the mating bond, even as her Maker, neither of us could sense her. Clearly, Malachi had her shielded, or taken her somewhere warded, like his home. Neither of us could track her through the blood bond, because she hadn’t fed in… days . I rubbed my head.

How could I have been so careless?

“Zach can do that?” I blew out a shaky breath, not caring how the fuck the kid found her, only that he did. I went to slide my phone away, and found that I couldn’t, not with that message blaring on my screen.

“All these kids under fifty can do that. I mean…” Riordan tossed his own phone onto the desk. “I can make calls and text, but it’s not like I know how the fucking thing actually works.”

“She’ll try to kill him,” I said quietly, meeting Riordan’s eyes. “The text…these aren’t just words. You know she will.”

Rohr sighed in that ever-suffering way of his. “She will,” he conceded. “I can’t see Draven hurting Evangeline, not when he went to all the trouble of taking her like he did. But he’d sacrifice her to save his own skin, I know that much.”

My entire body tightened into one rageful knot. Hadn’t I imagined all the ways Malachi would use my mate, every second of every hour since she’d disappeared? And those mocking words…I couldn’t scrub them out of my brain.

“No fucking shit. How could this have happened?” How did he get onto the grounds, how did he manage to snatch my mate away, taunting us in the process? But she was alive, she was going to kill Malachi—and it was hard to explain the awful twist of pride and fear that knotted my stomach—and once we knew she was safe, I would save her the fucking trouble of killing Malachi Draven.

“Fiona didn’t have anything new to add.” Rohr slid me a look of pure frustration. “One second, she was talking to Evie, the next, it was over and they were gone. She remembers nothing until she saw you , shrouded in shadow, half naked and trying to kill us all.”

“I wasn’t…” I dragged my hand down my face. “Evangeline’s magic…this witch and her blocking spell…Malachi knew her power had been bound?”

How the fuck did that bastard know something so fundamental about my own mate? How didn’t I know Evangeline’s deepest secret? Doubts grew and grew and grew, long enough I strangled myself on them.

“He must have.” Rohr gazed at the blank wall. “Why else would he have shown up at that exact moment? Always in the right place at the right time. Fucking always .”

“One of these days, his luck will run out,” I seethed, praying I was right and that day came soon.

“I’d better fucking be around to see it.” Riordan shot from his chair and strode to the window. “Zach just arrived out front. The kid claimed he can get a fix on her location in ten minutes. You ready?”

I nodded. “Nash, twenty guards, you and me ought to do the trick.” My grin turned downright evil. “Oh, and Fiona’s on her way, since she has some skin in the game now. Draven’s going to regret getting on that female’s bad side.”

“I’ll bet you a hundred bills she torches the bastard, first chance she gets,” Rohr agreed, and the grin on his face was magnificent. “Maybe, by the time this is over, he’ll be nothing but a smoking corpse.”

“Maybe.” I hesitated, gripping my phone, the silence stretching out. “There’s something I have to tell you, and you have to swear not to go completely batshit crazy, like I did.”

Rohr dipped his head and peered at me beneath his brow, his face showing the strain of these past weeks. “That sounds fucking ominous. I can’t take another surprise right now, Blake, I can’t.”

And while I had no desire to add to the already steaming pile of shit Draven left in his wake, Riordan had to understand what the rea l stakes were, because as of right now…he didn’t.

“Before the attack, Malachi caught Evie and Eldric in the bowels of the castle. He threatened to kill Eldric, taking care of a loose end.” My skin began to burn, because all this raw pain and doubt—were about to become Riordan’s, too.

“Of course, Evie, being Evie, begged him not to. Draven told her he wanted something in return for keeping Eldric alive.” My fucking chest was collapsing, my lungs too hollow to draw air, but I got the next words out.

“He wanted a kiss. In return, he left Eldric breathing.”

“A kiss? He asked our…Evangeline for a fucking kiss?” Riordan hissed, every breath coming hard and fast, hands clenching, like he was imagining them around Malachi’s throat. “I mean, she mentioned the kiss…before he took her, but…”

“My reaction, exactly. And Evie was all twisted up about it, because she felt something.” I muttered. “Of course, she felt something. She drank from him. He drank from her. He’s two fucking thousand years old, and….” I plunged my hands into my pockets, so I didn’t put my fist through the wall.

“So anyway, that’s the situation.”

“That’s why your head’s fucked.”

“That’s why I’m hoping she’s already killed him and all we have to do is burn the body.”

“She confided in you and not me.” Riordan sounded almost bitter, and I felt his regret pile onto my own. “What did you tell her?”

“What could I tell her?” I shook my head. “I was pissed, and hurt, and angry, but not at her. Never at her . How the fuck could I be? I told Evie she made the right choice and I understood. That whatever she felt was only biology, but that’s not really true, is it?” I met his eyes, the same worry gleaming on his face that was slowly cannibalizing my heart.

“He put those words in her mouth…but every word was true, for Malachi . His end goal, no matter how he pretends otherwise, is to take her away from us and keep her for himself.”

“That won’t happen,” Riordan muttered, his gaze darting toward the door, the voices getting louder. “We’re not going to let this fucking happen. Evangeline is ours .”

“We won’t let this happen,” I repeated, the words droning in my ears. This was fucking torture. I couldn’t reach her, couldn’t help her, while Malachi had her all to himself.

Twisting her up in his version of the truth, weaving his lies into a web around her.

“Evangeline is ours, and we are hers,” Rohr said firmly. “We have trust and love and loyalty between us. Which is something Draven will never understand. Malachi is a lying bastard, something she knows better than most, my friend.” He clasped my shoulder as Nash came through the door, followed by Zachary.

“We can’t trust Malachi, but we can trust Evangeline.”

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Zach will find her. In a few minutes, we’ll be in the air, then we’ll scratch Malachi Draven off our list for good.”