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MALACHI

L ike my fate, the darkness was absolute.

Deeper than night, shadow stretched beyond the stone walls of my cell, swallowing everything, even time. I’d long since stopped measuring the hours, one minute bleeding into the next in an endless smear of pain without end.

Just the endless abyss of this cold, reeking prison.

Hunger gnawed at me like a beast with unrelenting jaws. My body, weakened beyond recognition, was little more than skin stretched over brittle bones, my strength nearly spent from trying to keep myself alive, mending broken flesh, keeping my heart pumping for another few beats.

This thirst was not just desire, but a screaming need, a fire in my throat that refused to be extinguished. All I could do was wonder how I ended up here, of all places, at the mercy of humans I’d once thought insignificant and the monster I’d trapped in an iron box.

There was only one answer.

My own arrogance led me to this moment.

I’d once brought kingdoms—empires—to their knees.

I sought power, control, domination—always reaching for something just out of my grasp. And now? Now I was nothing. A husk of past glories that mean nothing. I should have seen the path I was carving would always lead me right here.

But I believed myself invincible. Thought I could control fate itself.

But fate was a cruel mistress.

I tipped my head back against the damp stone wall, ignoring how my damaged body protested even such a small movement. My mind drifted away, past the pain and the hunger, to the only thing that still anchored me to this realm.

Evangeline.

One taste of heaven was all I deserved, before she was snatched away. I’d never touch her—kiss her sweet lips—again, that much I knew. She was as far out of my reach as survival was, and yet, I couldn’t bring myself to regret my choice.

She was alive, protected by two powerful males who would sacrifice themselves to keep her safe. Hopefully, she would remember Brendan’s name and let him hide her and Angel.

And I would die here, at the hands of the monster who created me. Ravok would snuff me out as easily as he’d brought me into this immortal existence and maybe it would be a relief to end this suffering. Maybe I even deserved his vengeance.

A sound hissed through the chamber, the scrape of a heavy door being dragged across stone. I closed my eyes, already knowing what awaited me. Silas. Or Alistair. Or Dante.

Coming to taunt, to torture, to torment. Perhaps today they would end this.

The door groaned open, but the footsteps that followed were not familiar. No, these steps were light—measured, deliberate, nearly undetectable.

And then I smelled him.

Even after all these centuries, that once-familiar scent was unmistakable. I forced my eyes open, peering through blood caked eyelashes and the gloaming to focus on the figure standing before me.

Romulus.

I couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. For a moment, I wondered if he was a vision, some trick my starved mind had conjured up to fuck with me. It had been over fifteen hundred years since I last laid eyes upon my oldest friend and he hadn’t changed a bit.

“Malachi,” he murmured, his voice tipped with a faint lisp and a hint of jealousy. “It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

I exhaled shakily. “Romulus.” His once-familiar name tasted odd after so long, like some memory come back to haunt me.

He stepped closer, the dim light catching his face. He was unchanged—still boasting the hooked nose of his father, his mother’s sharp, feline features, brown hair untouched by silver—as if time hadn’t touched him at all. But his gray eyes gleamed with something colder than calculation.

And then I knew who was behind… everything .

I forced myself to my feet, but the shackles were too heavy, my body betraying me at every turn and I slid down the wall in a heap of ruined flesh.

Romulus tilted his head, watching my struggle, no trace of pity in his eyes. “Save your strength, Malachi. Fighting is futile now.”

“You did this?” My voice was barely more than a whisper, scraping up my raw throat. “Ravok…his escape…this was you?”

“It was,” he confirmed with a hint of pride. “This was always the plan, Malachi, but our Master, seeing his future, bade me wait. When he was ready, I found the human slayers amenable to my control, having subsisted on Tyrell’s blood for all those centuries. Jackals, the lot of them.” His lip curled up in distaste.

“Nonetheless, I was the reason Ravok escaped seven nights ago, now. The reason you are in this cell, rotting away like a traitor.”

I closed my eyes. Of all the betrayals I had suffered, this one I never saw coming.

“Why?” Was all I could manage.

Romulus crouched before me, his face inches away. “Because you failed him, Malachi. You never shared his vision, then you locked him away in the darkness and turned him into an animal.” His cold gaze raked over me. “You deserve to suffer as he did. Trapped in your own mind for a thousand years.”

A ripple of cold fear tightened my gut.

Was that the plan? To lock me away like I had Ravok? The idea terrified me to the core, and I yanked at my shackles, only managing to cut my wrists deeper.

“I swore a blood oath to keep you alive,” I hissed. “You begged me to save you, told me you didn’t want to die, so I…”

“And for that, I thank you,” he said breezily, as if my lifelong bondage to Ravok meant nothing. “Noc and I were grateful, and I am still grateful. But this is not about the debt between us, Kai, this is about the years you owe our Maker.”

The sound of my old nickname drove a spike into my heart.

Owe him ? I’d given up my freedom to keep my brother and my friends alive. I’d bonded my soul to a monster, in order to save theirs and now not even that sacrifice mattered, because Romulus was—had always been—allied with the enemy.

“Ravok’s a fucking threat to everything we used to value. How could you possibly help him?”

Seeing him, hearing his voice, everything came flooding back. The battle. The chaos.

The moment Ravok sank his fangs into my throat and I’d known I was doomed. That nothing that happened after that moment would matter, because I was no longer alive .

After all these years, I’d assumed Romulus and Noc were both dead. But now, looking at him, I realized the truth. “Ravok turned you into one of his thralls.”

Romulus smirked, his face completely devoid of amusement. “Something like that. And I have served him faithfully ever since.”

The weight of his words crushed me. It shouldn’t have been possible, to claim someone in such a way, not locked away from the world, not…unless…

“When?” I demanded. “When did you become his thrall?”

That gloating smile turned purely evil. “From the beginning. Long before you stabbed him in the back. He foresaw your betrayal, and put insurances in place, me, being one of them. Noc is another. Tyberius was supposed to keep you in line, but…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Your brother was always the weak one. His mind couldn’t take the strain.”

My mind scrambled over this new information, but nothing made sense. How far back did this go? How long had I plotted and planned, only to have been outplayed this entire time?

“Tyberius was Ravok’s thrall?”

“I’m surprised you couldn’t see the truth. I told the Master it would not work, that you knew your brother too well, but…I suppose in the end…you didn’t know him at all, did you?”

When I’d found Ty—in Laurent’s company, no less—I’d been shocked by my brother’s appearance, his descent into corruption and madness. I thought he’d given up, but instead…had he been slowly going mad?

I sagged against the wall, the shackles cutting into my wrists.

Romulus was right. I hadn’t known my brother at all.

A bitter sound escaped me, more of a croak than a laugh. “And now you serve him?”

Up until this moment, I’d hung onto some shred of hope, some miniscule belief I might escape this cell alive. That all shattered apart on Romulus’s cunning smile.

He looked down at me with something akin to pity. “I serve him because he is my Master. Because he gave me strength. Loyalty is not about the past, it is about the future. And my future is with him.”

“What comes next, then?” Kill me. Just kill me and be done with this.

He chuckled, a low, almost affectionate sound that sent a chill down my spine. “You misunderstand, old friend. I am not here to end your suffering. I have come to tell you it is just beginning. Your sweet little slayer…in a few hours, Ravok is going after her. He will kill the king and anyone else who stands in our way, and he will bring her back here. You will watch him claim her. You will watch her break, and then—and only then—will you know the depths of suffering our Master endured.”

He turned, heading toward the door and panic surged through me, “Please, Romulus, not her. Kill me, make me suffer, do anything you wish to me, but don’t touch her.”

He paused, but didn’t turn back. “How easy this all was.

“I told the Master that girl would become your greatest weakness. Because of the spell, he never saw her in any of his visions, but long ago, I saw she would become the key to your suffering. I have convinced him to keep you alive for a long, long time, Kai. Long enough to watch her become our Master’s favorite toy to play with.”

I yanked at the shackles, fresh blood tracking down my arms as I fought to stand, my knees buckling before I could even lift myself off the floor.

“Goodbye, Malachi. I will see you soon.” Then he was gone, leaving me in the dark, lashed by guilt and rage and utter fury at being chained down while she is in jeopardy.

Somehow, I had to escape this place.

Somehow, I had to get to Crimson House before Ravok.

I had failed once before, a fatal mistake I’d spent a good part of my life punishing myself for, and this time…this time I would protect Evangeline, no matter the cost.