Page 6 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

The door to his cell opened under Shan’s touch—of course, the King couldn’t be bothered to do it himself—only for the King to step forward with purpose, closing the distance between them with a scant few steps, as he reached out to grab Isaac around the throat.

Shan made a soft huff of surprise, and something inside of Isaac was soothed by the knowledge that she wasn’t fully behind the King’s actions.

But that brief bit of light was smothered by fear as the King pressed harder, nearly lifting Isaac off his feet as he leaned in, the tip of his claw pressing into the rapid beat of his pulse.

It wouldn’t take much pressure at all to pierce the skin, to bleed before the King and Royal Blood Worker.

For them to taste all that he had gained.

“You took Dunn’s blood, didn’t you,” the King said, as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. “To empower yourself.”

He wasn’t entirely sure if it was a question, but Isaac croaked out an affirmation anyway. “I did.”

“And the process, it is the same as what I do at the annual sacrifice?”

Isaac swallowed hard, hardly able to think. “Please, put me down.”

“Fine. If you can be civilized, then I suppose I can be as well.” The King dropped him, but the threat was still clear. Behave, or it would be back to treating him like he wasn’t even a person at all.

He rubbed the skin where the King’s hand had just been, tender and sore. “It was similar, but not exactly the same.” The words came slowly at first, like he had to fight himself to even get them out, but as both the King and Shan waited expectantly, it came easier.

As if it was something that he had been waiting to do.

“Pulling power from blood is complex,” he said, starting at the beginning even though it wasn’t fully necessary.

The Eternal King’s understanding of Blood Working was so far beyond what Isaac could ever hope to attain, but part of him was still proud of what he had discovered and wanted them both to know it.

“What you do annually is focused on the life force—”

“Whereas you don’t care to extend your life.” The King tilted his head to the side with a frown. “You were only interested in power.”

“I had a goal to achieve,” Isaac replied, “and that goal did not include living forever.”

“No,” Shan said, interjecting at last, voicing the thing that they had spent so long dancing around, never brave enough to confront head-on. “You wanted power for a specific purpose. To kill our King.”

“I did,” Isaac confirmed, just to see how Shan would react. “I do. I used the blood to strengthen my own power, I stripped them of every bit of life they had so that I could—” He cut himself off, clenching his fist at his side.

They all knew what came next.

Shan didn’t so much as blink, her expression impassive. Once, he had thought she would agree with the goals of this scheme, if not the particulars to see it done, but now? Now he didn’t know at all.

She could have been a stranger.

“And Dunn?” The King circled back in front of him, rustling with a restless energy—he was excited, intrigued, the same as he was when he was picking apart a particularly thorny bit of theory, but now the theory was him.

“What of Dunn?” Isaac asked, resisting the urge to rub his temple.

“Dunn,” the King enunciated slowly, “was a Blood Worker. Unlike the others. Unlike the doomed souls that I drain in the Annual Sacrifice.”

Isaac blinked slowly. He hadn’t stopped to think about that, the difference that Dunn being a Blood Worker would make, not when the statement mattered most of all. Could that have been—

“Yes,” he said, idly, as his mind raced forward.

The changes in him, subtle and insidious as they were.

The way he could almost sense blood, waiting for him just beneath the thin veneer of skin.

How he could hear the beat of every heart.

The hunger for something he dare not name, aching in the pit of his stomach.

The King caught Isaac’s jaw, gently this time, his thumb brushing against the lower lip. The claw was gone—when did he remove it?—and the touch burned. It was too intimate, this touch that the King took as his due, and it took all of Isaac’s self-control to not spit in the King’s face.

“All this time,” the King whispered, “I assumed that you killed Dunn merely for the message, for the shock. But what a glorious fool you are, Isaac.” He forced Isaac’s mouth open, running his bare finger across the upper teeth, feeling for something.

“You’re making yourself into the most exquisite monster.

It’s almost a shame that I have to kill you. ”

Something in Isaac shattered, and he attempted to snap his teeth down on that invading touch. But the King was too fast, pulling back with a laugh.

“I was right, Shan,” he said, turning away from Isaac as if he didn’t matter at all. “You have my permission to study him until the time comes for him to die.”

Shan didn’t answer for a moment, chewing her lip as she considered. “Are you still going to drain him, then? Wouldn’t what is happening to him…”

“No,” the King said, dismissively. “I am no amateur. I know how to drain the power of the blood without draining the Blood Working itself.” He held out his arm. “Now come, Shan, we have much to discuss.”

She didn’t even look back at him as they showed themselves out, as they locked the cell and disappeared around the corner.

The guards would return momentarily, Isaac knew that, but he did not care. The King was still going kill him after all, but in the meantime…

He pressed his finger against his own teeth, looking for whatever the King had been searching for. There was nothing wrong, nothing out of place, until he pressed against something sharp, flinching back with a hiss at the sudden bite of pain.

Pulling his hand free, he stared at the pinprick blemish, a single drop of blood welling against his skin.