Page 39 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Isaac

I saac glanced behind him at the massacre he had made, giving a quick sweep of the study to ensure he hadn’t left behind any identifying markers.

It was foolish to even try to hide it—there was no one else who could have committed a crime like this.

For all that the average Guard wouldn’t understand the scene before them, the King would still recognize it immediately.

As would the Royal Blood Worker, but Isaac couldn’t think about Shan. She wouldn’t understand why it had to be done, what he was doing for Samuel. She would chastise him for the message he was sending, for the fear and terror he unleashed, and for the cruel way that this woman had died.

But some people didn’t deserve a kinder end, and Lady Holland deserved far worse than what she got.

Even without the risk she posed to Samuel, even without whatever little cruelties she had tossed at his feet, Isaac still relished this kill.

None of the Royal Council had been innocent, and though Holland had been politer than most, it had only made her more insidious.

With her carefully tracked numbers and her command of the very minutiae of the law, she had managed to position herself as a moderate while doing the worst damage of them all.

And now, she lay dead before him, right where Isaac had slain her, slumped over the desk where he had discarded the corpse.

Dark eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling; long hair torn out from its usually severe bun, spread out behind her in a wild tangle.

Her once soft skin was shriveled tight against her bones, the column of her throat torn apart by his fangs, leaving it a shredded disarray of meat.

All the blood in her body had been sucked dry—desiccated muscle drawn down to the bone, dry and papery where it should have been dripping and succulent.

Lady Holland was an unholy ruin that he had created, the woman he had known gone and replaced by this mockery of human flesh.

But her power, her magic—it flowed into him, feeding the already boundless Blood Working that dwelt inside of him.

He could feel it shift something inside of him, burning through the bits of him that were still human, still limited by the mortality he had been born to.

But not for long—not if he kept this up.

A few more Blood Workers, a few more drainings, and who knew what could stop him?

He stepped towards the window, ready to slip out into the night when a searing pain shot up his spine, turning his legs to jelly as he crashed against the windowsill.

He caught himself at the last second, biting back a scream as he felt his bones snap and re-form, his nails growing hard and sharp in their beds, extending past the tip of his fingers.

The pain did not let up, his shoulders shaking as they seized and shuddered, lines of fire splitting flesh as bone and skin surged outward, catching in the snug pull of his binder and the shirt that covered him, then pulling painfully tight against his chest before snapping free with loud rip.

He tangled his claws in the shirt, ripping the tatters free as he gasped, his breasts hanging free as the large protrusions—the fucking wings —that had surged from his back reached out behind him, thin structures of bone woven together with the paper-thin membrane of the patagium tender on the air.

Digging his grip into the windowsill, Isaac doubled over, his balance completely undone.

The wood splintered under his touch as he sucked in harsh breaths of the frigid night breeze, the sharpness stinging his lungs with each shallow inhale.

Something in his mouth swelled, choking him as it pressed against the back of his teeth, catching against his fangs.

Blood and steel— fangs that now reached down past his lower lips, as if the rest of it hadn’t been enough.

Even his mouth was rebelling, his jaw distending to fit the new additions, no longer the dainty little nubs that he could hide behind his carefully practiced smile but monstrous things designed to tear and rend.

An ache started deep in his stomach, drool slipping past his lips as he imagined sinking into tender flesh, blood squirting into his mouth as he feasted, an intimacy that was terrible and violent.

The ache deepened, a rumble starting in the back of his throat as he wished for another body to rip into.

He was so empty, his entire body racked with hunger pangs as he wanted .

His breath came in pants as his tongue lolled out of his mouth, longer and thicker than it should have been, dripping halfway down his chest and landing with slick plop.

He flicked it up, scenting the air with it, his nose wrinkling at the stale taste of the body behind him, already drained and ruined, not the kind of meal that he needed.

No, he needed something living, rich with blood and life, warm under his claws and teeth.

His tongue trembled as he imagined sliding through the warm and raw flesh, digging through the viscera and entrails as flavors he never could have imagined burst in his mouth.

But no, that was not what he was here for. He had already fed this night, and despite the feral call of his body, this monstrous new him that he was not yet able to master, he could not give in.

Blood Working may have been changing him, but he was still more than what instinct made him.

He flung himself out the window, wings spreading and catching on the night air as he flew into the night.

The winter’s chill was bracing on his skin, sharp as ice on his bare chest, the shock of it cutting to the bone.

But it was enough to shake him from the haze that hunger had laid over him, the grip of the primordial instinct loosening.

Oh, it was still there, an ache in his stomach so great that it felt like it would split in two, but there was enough of him left to seize control of this strange new form.

The wings spread, an instinctive motion that he did not even have to will into action, as they caught the breeze and jerked him up into the sky.

There wasn’t enough space to gain proper lift-off, and he glided across the narrow street before crashing against the rooftop opposite Holland’s townhome with a thud he felt in all of his bones.

Gravity gripped him, pulling him down, but his claws provided a surprising amount of leverage in the shingles as he caught himself.

Twisting to lie on his stomach, his tongue dragged across the roof, the bitter tang of dirt and soot and hells knew what else assaulting him.

But it was enough for him to brace himself, his feet against the lip of the roof and his claws digging gouges into the roof, as he beat his wings.

It was so easy, so natural, to control them—as instinctive as breathing, and with a roar completely devoid of any humanity, Isaac launched himself into the sky with an ache that felt like freedom.

Dameral shrank beneath him, his dark and terrible city looking so small and strange from this angle.

It didn’t feel so threatening anymore, the horrors washed away under the shadows from a moonless sky.

He could look at it for hours, the urge to drift aimlessly calling to him, but he knew that he needed to return to the safe house before he was spotted and everything he had worked so hard for vanished.

So, he closed his eyes and canted himself south, letting the wind take him home.

Isaac didn’t quite manage a smooth landing, though it was remarkably less painful than his earlier crash.

He hit the roof of the safe house with a thump that echoed through the building below, but he was able to shimmy his way down till he hung from the edge with the tips of his claws.

He swung himself in through the window he had thankfully left open earlier that evening, tangling in the thick curtains before thudding to the floor in an awkward mess of limbs and drapes.

Only to look up to find Anton standing over him, holding a sword in his hand. The man looked at him with abject terror on his face, his handsome features twisted into a rictus of horror that hurt more than any wound the Unblooded man could have inflicted.

He was a monster, then, not just in spirit but in actuality.

Still, he threw up his hands, claws spread and palms out, and though his jaw was barely fit to form human words, Isaac slurred around his new tongue, “Wait!”

Anton didn’t seem to react, though the blade fell from loose fingers and clattered to the floor.

He just stared at Isaac, unblinking and unflinching, before uttering a single word.

A word that Isaac had never heard before, but it carried the same rough syllables and intonation of his parents’ native language.

A language he only knew bits and pieces of, since it would never serve him well in Aeravin.

“Mana—” he attempted to repeat, only to trip over his hells-damned tongue, still heaving past his lips.

It darted out towards Anton, and Isaac could taste the sweat on his skin and alluring depths of the blood beneath.

It would be so easy to launch himself forward, to shove the man on his back and treat Anton like a banquet laid out just for him.

Isaac dug his claws into his own body, cutting through the fabric of his trousers to the skin beneath. They sank in with such ease, sharp pinpricks that cleared his mind.

Anton was a friend, an ally, not another body to feed upon. Despite the long history of animosity between them, Anton had saved his life, had given him a safe place to hide, had welcomed him—with only a little bit of doubt—into the rebellion that he formed.

Isaac would not repay Anton’s kindness with atrocity.