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EVANGELINE

I collapsed onto Angel’s plush velvet chaise, throwing my arm over my eyes.

Was I acting a little dramatic? Yes .

Did I want to stomp back downstairs and slap some sense into the three males who had lost their fucking minds? Also yes.

The sounds of arguing filtered up from below, their voices growing louder with each passing minute. Angel perched on the edge of her massive four-poster bed, while Bex poked at the fire like she had a score to settle with the poor logs, sparks spilling out onto the imported Persian rug, which was both ancient and priceless.

“Careful. Riordan will kill us if you set that on fire.”

Even though they’d razed the entire dining room.

I stuffed a puffy, magenta pillow under my head. I’d spent days picking out the décor for this room, and my sister had insisted everything be either purple or pink and while it looked like a bubblegum machine had thrown up all over everything, the dark jewel tones of the rug really pulled everything together.

Without it, my entire color scheme fell apart.

“Seriously? We are all going to die, and they can’t put their pride aside long enough to work together for five minutes?” I groaned. “You should see the dining room. Trashed beyond repair.”

“Males,” Bex muttered, running her hands through her dark curls. “Give them a crisis and instead of working together, they just try to out-alpha each other.”

Angel shifted on the bed, the silk sheets rustling beneath her as she tried to get comfortable. “We’re all going to die? That’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?” She shook her head. “Unless there’s something you want to fill us in on?”

I sat up, meeting both their gazes. “We lost Ravok. He’s just…vanished.” I chewed on my bottom lip, going over the awful scenario Malachi had laid out. “There were hardly any thralls at the Silverwood compound, and the few that were left, we killed.”

“Well…” Angel’s mouth worked over the words. “I guess that’s good, right? If he doesn’t have an army, then those are less enemies we have to fight?” I nodded slowly, studying her baby bump, a white lie already forming on my tongue to soothe her nerves.

But…I should tell her the truth about Silas. I couldn’t lie about this, even though I’d tried to shield her from as much ugliness as I could these past weeks.

“Yes, his army is gone, but…” I met her gaze, “Silas was one of the thralls, Angel. He’s dead.” I sighed, my emotions still playing tug of war over how I felt about his demise. “He’s…better off dead. And it’s what he wanted.”

“Oh. Oh .” Angel’s voice came out strangled. “I thought I’d be happy, but I’m just…”

“I know.” I shook my head. “I despised him, but…I won’t lie. It was awful. And Malachi explained why they’re all…like they are.” I gave them a shortened, watered down, non-graphic version of why Ravok’s thralls were rotting, leaving them both faintly horrified.

But wait, there’s more.

“But Malachi has a theory of why Ravok decided now was the time for him to awaken, and it’s not because we’ve invented chicken nuggets and the internet.” Even my nightmares couldn’t have come up with a worse scenario than the one I explained, how Ravok could become almost a god, or maybe an actual god, depending on how deep into this nightmare one wanted to delve.

The voices below us rose and fell.

Those three males were pissing me off .

“We don't have time for this.” I punched the pillow so hard one of the buttons popped off. “War is coming and we are wasting valuable time. Either they work together, or we all…” I took a long look at my pregnant sister. “Well, it’s not going to be good.”

A particularly loud shout from below made us all wince. I recognized Blake’s voice, followed by the unmistakable sound of something shattering.

“Impressive,” I sighed. “I honestly didn’t think there was anything left to break.”

Bex leaned against one of the bed's ornate posts. “I’ve actually heard of The Darkening. My Moonma said she saw it happen once, back in the Old Country.”

“Moonma? Old Country?”

I raised my brows and she explained, “We called my gram Moonma, it’s like a…sweet vampire nickname. In Europe, the older generations call it the Old Country. It’s kind of a sentimental things, I guess. But her story stuck with me, because it was just so…un-Moonma-like. She was always so bright and lively, when she talked about dark things, you paid attention.”

“This vampire who it happened to, could they kill it?”

Bex shrugged. “I don’t think so. There was one in Bavaria, where my family line originated. He’d been the matriarch of a great and powerful bloodline, who transformed into a monster, living in his castle in the mountains, and would come out only at night to hunt. If you asked Nash, he’d remember more.”

“So these creatures can’t go out in the sun?” That would be something we could use.

In fact, had I ever seen Ravok or Romulus in the sun?

During the attack, Ravok had surrounded himself with a cloud of shadow and when the sun hit him… he’d blistered . And in the compound… he’d never stepped outside the building . I filed that information away for later.

Bex shrugged. “According to my grandmother, he only came out at night, but she also danced in her garden under a full moon to make her flowers grow, so there’s that.”

“This creature…did he ever die?”

“Last I heard, he’s still up there, devouring the souls of his victims.” Bex did air quotes, but her face was pale. “According to Moonma, they would surround their home with iron filings and salt. They already had iron bolts on all their doors and windows, iron nails in the timbers. She claimed all that metal kept him out, but…well, you know how these old superstitions are.”

“That’s awful.” Angel murmured, “I mean, you have to feel a little sorry for him, all alone and monstrous.”

“You’ve been reading too many books.”

“Hush your mouth.” She ran a loving finger down the spines of her books, all neatly arranged within arm’s reach. “That’s blasphemy, Evangeline, because there’s no such thing as too many books.”

“Speaking of books, this is nice.” I crossed over to inspect the little bookshelf on her end table. The wood was beautifully carved with vines and leaves and little birds, the perfect size for about twenty books, and was almost full. “Where did you get this? I didn’t order that for you.”

Angel’s cheeks turned pink. “It was a gift,” she said stiffly as Bex rolled her eyes. “But it’s nothing, don’t make too much of it.”

“A gift from whom?”

“None of your business,” Angel muttered, her face the exact same color as the magenta drapes on her windows.

“Eldric,” I guessed—guessed correctly from my sister’s muffled shit . “Eldric made this for you.” I inspected the carving. “This is really beautiful. He must have worked on it for weeks.”

“It doesn’t mean anything.” She sniffed. “I’m not in the least bit interested in that male, and I told him so.”

Bex grinned behind her back, and I had to stifle my own smile. “You know, Eldric is pretty handy around the house, from the looks of things. And he’s got fire magic.” I waggled my brows at her. “Just imagine what he could do with that.”

From the crimson shade of my sister’s face, she’d imagined it quite a lot.

“Stop it, Evie.” The shamed, slightly horrified tone of my sister’s quiet voice shut me up. “I’m…” Her hand found her belly. “I’m damaged goods. He shouldn’t want me, and I’m in no position to want someone like him. Not ever.”

Everything inside me went really, really quiet. There was so much self-hatred in her voice my temper exploded.

“Don’t you ever fucking say that again. You are not damaged goods. You are fierce and strong and good, and you are a fucking survivor, and you are going to be the best fucking mother there ever was.”

“You say fuck a lot for someone who’s about to be an aunt,” Bex noted with a smirk.

“Yeah, well, that’s because I’m going to be the cool aunt, who does all the cool stuff,” I sniped back. “Once we manage to find Ravok, that is.” And time was running out. I could feel it in my bones, in the smug, satisfied way Romulus told us we were too late .

But how were we supposed to find someone who couldn’t be found?

I crossed to Angel’s floor-to-ceiling windows. “We have to find him,” I said softly, pressing my palm against the cool glass. “But Malachi is the only one who can track him, and he can’t. It’s like he’s disappeared. Vanished .”

“After living so long, it seems Malachi should be able to find his Maker anywhere on earth, their bond should be that strong,” Bex noted, her eyes narrowed. “Unless something more powerful severed the connection.” Her face brightened. “Did you know, Uncle Nash is an expert tracker. We should ask his opinion.”

“Maybe we should,” I agreed.

“Do you want to come?” I asked Angel, staring somberly at Eldric’s gift, her face filled with doubt. “It would do you good to get out of here for a little while.”

“Sure.” She lifted her eyes to mine. “What would possibly be better than chasing down monsters that want us all dead?” I strained, listening for any sounds from downstairs, but all was quiet.

“Helping me convince three idiots we have to work together. That maybe Ravok, or at least Romulus has a weakness…the sun. Bex, can you find Nash? If he has any ideas on how to track Ravok, he needs to tell us.”

At least I’d be doing something, instead of waiting around for the other shoe to drop. And I couldn’t explain why, but this felt like we were on the right track. War was planning and execution, but sometimes it also meant trusting your gut.

“We’ll make them see reason,” Angel said, studying my face. “It’s going to be okay, Evie, you’ll see.”

I nodded, but I couldn't help but wonder if some rifts were too deep to heal, even with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.