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MALACHI

I could not believe I’d been outplayed.

By a newborn .

A newborn with the face of a fucking angel, the body of a goddess and the eyes of an innocent.

But still . I’d spent these past weeks so sure I had the advantage, it never occurred to me anything was happening in that castle except a panicked scramble for survival. And Vicious was right. I’d been so focused on moving everyone into position for my final coup d’etat, I hadn’t noticed Riordan—the fucking king of the entire clan—was possessed by Ravok .

For an entire fucking week.

I turned, ready to…I don’t know what, when the world exploded. I threw myself over Evangeline, crushing her beneath me as a wave of devastating magic swept through the room.

The scent of death filtered in through the tear in my glamour, thick and suffocating. The once-vibrant gardens surrounding my castle were ashy, brittle husks, their skeletal remains casting eerie shadows in the dim light. My unbreakable wards, carefully woven with centuries of magic, had cracked under an ancient force—one far older, far crueler than anything Evie had ever known.

Ravok stood in the gaping tear of my ruined wards, his emaciated form framed by fraying magic barely clinging to life. His eyes, black as the abyss, flickered with amusement as he surveyed the castle’s lush interior.

The two of us, crouched on the floor.

Darkness coiled around him like a living thing, thick and inescapable, his dark power blocking out the morning sun as shadows rose around him. His magic was as I remembered, darkness flecked with red, like shadows that had been dipped in blood.

But he was still outside the walls, which was something.

Evie trembled, fingers twisted into my sleeve, though I doubted she realized she was touching me. The air pulsed with tension, thick with the iron tang of impending violence as I pushed my aching body upright, feeling the threat like a knife in my heart as I pulled Evie to her feet in case we had to run.

“Release my magic, Malachi. Do it,” Vicious hissed softly, gripping my wrist, not in fear, but to urge me on. Fear for her rose and I shoved it back down, focused on the monster who haunted every minute of my existence.

“You’ve grown sentimental, Malachi,” Ravok mused, stepping forward—but still…not through. So my glamour was still holding, or he was weaker than he appeared.

Twelve hundred years rotting in a box had ruined him.

His cheeks sunken into his skull, eyes staring out of hollow holes, hair long and stringy. Beneath the layers of clothing, I’d wager he was equally gaunt, and yet here he was, taunting me in my own fucking home.

I stepped in front of Evie, taking her by the wrist and shoving her behind me. “I much prefer you locked in an iron box. The smell was…less pungent.” How the fuck had he found me so quickly? And how had he gotten here when he was so weak? I probed the gloaming darkness behind him, but sensed nothing.

His voice was silk wrapped around a steel blade. “Still a fool, I see. Hiding in your sanctuary, buried in your plotting, craving power.” His lip curled, a parody of disappointment. “But you forgot one thing. You are only an extension of me. Of my will, of my power. Alone, you are nothing.”

All my old fears and doubts rose like a tide of choking guilt that would never be stopped. How did he cut me down so easily, with only a few words and that mocking smile? How could I accomplish so much and yet…feel so small in his presence?

His dark gaze fell on Evangeline, hidden behind me, and that grin turned brittle. “Don’t delude yourself, Malachi. Nothing belongs to you. Especially not her.”

My body went tight at the possessiveness in that creeping tone, the lust rampant on his face. I bared my fangs, every muscle taut with fury. “You will not take her. Not now, not ever.”

Ravok chuckled, dark and amused. “Ah, that is not your decision to make, but hers, and I have already seen how she will choose. Your disappointment is…” His tongue wet his bottom lip. “Delicious in its agony.”

“Malachi. Look at him ,” she urged softly, nails biting into my skin where I held her. “This is our chance to finish this. Why are you hesitating?”

Because he would hurt her, in order to control her.

Because I’d never felt so close to losing everything before in my life.

Because I was fucking afraid .

“You always did talk too much.” The moment the words left my lips, glamour exploded, a wall of swords and daggers—sharp enough to shred—speeding toward my Maker with enough force to crush a house.

Ravok moved in a blur, sending out an equally deadly wall of blackness tinged with red that turned into a torrent of snapping teeth and rending claws. I shoved Evie to the floor as my magic met Ravok’s attack head-on. Power clashed against power, energy crackling as centuries of rage and hatred collided. The force sent cracks spiraling through the marble floor, dust and debris raining down from the vaulted ceiling.

“Stay down,” I ordered Evie, erecting a dome of glimmering power over her for protection.

I fought like a beast unchained. Like our lives depended on us winning—which they did. Phantom blades raked across Ravok’s chest, but my Maker barely flinched, as if pain was nothing more than an old friend.

Ravok pressed his palm against what was left of my ward—the shimmer of magic keeping him at bay and grinned at me across the destruction. “Now that I’ve found her, you’ll never keep me away. No matter how hard you fight, you won’t keep her safe.”

Evie threw her arms over her head as an enormous crack split outwards from the gaping hole, chunks of plaster and wood crashing down as the roof collapsed over our heads with a creaking groan.

I raised my hands and sent up a spiral of magic, shoving tons of slate and timbers back into place, but the decision cost me, presenting the perfect opening for Ravok. Lightning-fast, brutally unforgiving, his shadows tore into me, shredding flesh from bone, ripping a gaping hole in my side.

Evie raised her blood splattered face, fangs bared. “Release my magic so I can help you. Just fucking do it, Malachi, or we’re both dead.” She was probably right, but the cost was too high.

This was a battle between predator and predator.

And even in his weakened state, Ravok was toying with me.

I could see it in the way he moved, his strikes precise but unhurried. I was injured, bleeding badly, and even fighting with everything I had, every muscle straining, it took every ounce of power to keep Ravok from crossing the border of the castle and taking her.

A flicker of motion.

I turned, hand pressed to the wound to keep blood loss to a minimum.

Too late. He was already there.

Ravok’s clawed hand plunged into my side, deep, cruel, and deliberate. I gasped, body jerking beneath the onslaught, blood blooming like a dark rose on my other side as my kidney was crushed to a pulp. Fucking inconvenient, especially at the rate I was losing blood.

“ No ,” Evie screamed, climbing to her feet. “You fucker, I’m going to kill you .”

“Stay… behind me,” I ground out, voice raw.

But Ravok had already shifted his dark gaze to Evie.

She went still the second she felt it—the weight of his attention, cold and merciless and oh, so greedy. I tried to shout, to tell her to run, but pressure crushed my throat, invisible fingers tightening.

“Come, child,” Ravok murmured. “This was never your fight.”

Evie’s heart pounded loudly against her ribs. Her body trembled, but she moved closer to me, glancing over my injures before her gaze went back to Ravok. And tendrils of darkness began to leach out from her body, like faint strands of ink, suspended in water.

She straightened. “You are such a fucking asshole. Like I’d ever choose you .”

Something like disappointment flashed across Ravok’s face before he sighed. “Such foolish loyalty.”

I staggered sideways but didn’t fall, the room spinning as more and more darkness leaked out of Vicious, crawling over my skin like shards of sharpened ice. Her eyes burned with defiance, my blood dripping to the floor in slow, damning droplets.

I could still stop him, I could…

With an effortless flick of Ravok’s fingers, I flew through the air, crashing into the stone pillars, the impact shaking the very foundations of the ancient castle, breaking bones and rending flesh. I slumped against the cold stone, motionless, a crimson pool spreading beneath me.

Evie’s frantic eyes found mine, but Ravok was between us in an instant, a hand clamped around her wrist, twisting her delicate arm in a brutal hold. “Release the block, Malachi,” she screamed. “ Do it .” Her pale face was splattered with blood— my blood —her blue eyes pleading with me, begging me to free her. To fucking do something.

If you can hear me, you have to remove the block. Please, you have to trust me, Malachi.

God, I wanted to, but this was too dangerous, without me to help her. Anything could go wrong. I could lose Evangeline as easily to her own power as I could to the monster who’d ruined me.

There was nothing I could do as she fought him. I could only watch as she clawed and kicked, her fury impressive, but Ravok’s strength was absolute.

“ Finally . You’re mine,” he growled, his eyes finding mine, filled with triumph and malice.

Evie barely had time to scream before they disappeared, darkness swallowing them whole.

And there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do to stop them, except die.