Page 22 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

“This is… magnificent,” she breathed, not even bothering to hide the awe.

She looked to him, a question burning, and he only nodded.

Setting her loose like a child in a chocolate shop, and she raced to pull tomes from the shelves, almost at random, just to see what they held.

It would take her years to even begin to catalogue it all, but oh, how she wanted to try.

“It’s been a long time since I last had someone in here,” the King said, quietly. Shan paused in her search, holding her breath as she waited for what came next. “Centuries, even.”

She wet dry lips. “So, Isaac—”

“Never got more than what was at the Academy,” the King finished for her.

“Like so many others before him, since…” He sighed, crossing the room to collapse into the seat of the bay window.

Slouching into it, looking so exhausted and dejected, Shan was almost able to forget just who she was dealing with.

Until he spoke again.

“It is difficult, being King,” he said, the confession spilling from him, “finding people you can trust. People who are not just using this—” he rolled his wrist, gesturing to encompass all that he was, all that he had “—for their own gain. It was a lesson I learned centuries ago, it’s a lesson I learned again and again.

Your father taught it to me. Isaac taught to it me.

And I thought I was being so clever, locking them out.

Playing them against each other, but never letting them step out of their roles. ”

Tilting his head to the side, he considered her with those green eyes, shining like emeralds.

He could have been cut from gems himself, the sharpness of his features so precise and just as unmovable.

There was a kind of ruthless beauty to him, a perfection that seemed more than human, and Shan hated herself for noticing it.

For wanting it.

“But… in doing so, I also have prevented others from reaching their full potential.” He crooked his fingers in, and Shan followed, a moon caught in his gravitational pull, unable to pull herself free, forever orienting herself around him.

He waited till she stood in front of him, until he could reach up, brush his fingers against her chin.

“I was so harsh, before, but that’s only because I see such potential in you. You could be so powerful.”

Shan swallowed hard, unable to stop the shudder that flowed through her. “I am only trying to live up to your expectations.”

“And you are,” he replied, his voice soft as silk, even as his touch burned.

He was so warm, the fullness of all his power thrumming beneath his skin.

If he wanted to, Shan knew he could destroy her utterly, but as he slid his fingers lower, pressing against the erratic beat of her pulse in her throat, he touched her like she was something valuable, more precious than jewels.

“I know what it must have cost you, turning Isaac in,” he said, his kindness somehow more terrible than any cruelties he could have thrown at her.

“But you proved yourself to me that day, and you have continued to in the months since. So perhaps I can trust you. Do you want it, Shan? Do you want to serve?”

“I am honored to serve,” she replied, hating how raw she sounded, but he only smiled.

Leaning back, he released her, and Shan finally felt free. “Good. Then there is much to do. Perhaps I owe de la Cruz after all.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Without him, I never would have found your true potential. Without his treachery, we would have never had the opportunity to expand the Blood Factory. And without his inspiration, we would never be doing this.”

He gestured to the desk. “Bring me that journal, would you?”

She stepped back, taking it with trembling hands before returning it to him. He flicked through it with the familiarity of one who knew its contents intimately, before turning it back around, showing Shan a series of diagrams sketched in a skilled hand.

Of men—of once men—with vicious fangs, twisted by Blood Working into something monstrous. With dark wings, webbed like a bat’s, stretching past their shoulders, dwarfing their lean forms. With sharply tipped claws on broken fingers and a vicious snarl on their faces.

“Vampires,” she breathed, before looking back to the King, only to find a dark hunger writ across his expression.

“Yes,” the King confirmed, leaning in like he was confiding a great secret. “Vampires. This is what Isaac will become if he continues on that path. And now that he is lost to the wind, we must be prepared. We need to study this, to understand it better than he ever could.”

“And how would we do that?” Shan asked, already fearing the answer.

“Well, you gave me the solution to that, my dear.” He pulled his lips back in a feral grin.

“We’re already changing so much, so why not this?

We will build our own laboratory, we will study all that Blood Working has to offer, push every limit to see where our arcane knowledge can end.

It starts with vampires, but it could be so much more.

“And I couldn’t do without you.”

There was such conviction in his eyes, and Shan felt the trap close around her. He had pulled her strings so perfectly, maneuvered her into a position where she could not say no, no matter how much even her twisted conscious railed against this.

All she could do was incline her head and swear, “As Your Majesty commands.”