Page 65 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

“Thank you for joining us, Mel,” the King said, his rich baritone cutting through the frigid air. “You’ve been brought to the Aberforth country estate, where you will demonstrate the skills you have gained under our tutelage.”

Mel didn’t respond, just licked her lips, her pale tongue flicking out, almost as if she was scenting the air.

And hells, Samuel had seen that motion before, on Isaac.

He reached out, gloved fingers brushing against Shan’s, and she cast him a look so tentative and fearful that he hardly recognized her.

That brief bite of shame was somehow worse than any defiance that she could have thrown his way, because she knew that he would never approve of what she had done, and suddenly, every little deflection, every half-muttered denial, was pulled into sharp focus.

He dropped her hand like it burned him, but Shan just stepped towards the ward, all signs of her vulnerability gone. “It’s simple, Mel. You are to demonstrate your power and abilities to Lord Aberforth, the Councillor of Law.”

“Think of it as a proof of concept,” the King added, not to the girl but to Samuel, that cruel little smirk testing his patience. “If de la Cruz is going to sow chaos, then we will meet him on the battleground he chose.”

Bile rose in his throat—this was far worse than any of them had anticipated.

But this is why he remained, why he hadn’t thrown off the yoke that the Eternal King had set upon his shoulders.

And since they couldn’t trust Shan to risk the slow-seeded plans that she kept close to her chest, this was why Samuel needed to be here.

It would be worth it for the intelligence he gained—and for that alone, he would watch this scene unfold.

“Mel,” the King said, turning those hard eyes back on the girl. “I am sure you are hungry. So, hunt.”

“Wait, what?” Matthew asked, staggering back as Mel turned to face him, swift as a snake striking, her entire pose going still as her body rippled . “What the fuck?”

“Run, my boy,” the King said. “Run if you can.”

A sadistic taunt, if Samuel had ever heard one, because there was nowhere for Matthew to run, trapped within the ward with the girl who was no longer a girl.

Whose humanity broke and shattered, great dark wings springing from her back, spine hunching over her bones re-formed.

Hands and feet twisted, sharp claws sprouting from soft nail beds, talons to rip and tear.

Her jaw lengthened, fangs pressing past her lips, her nose shriveled up small like a bat’s, head tilted to the side as she listened.

As she tracked the shuffling, whimpering cries of Matthew as he scrambled back.

A shriek pierced the air, shrill and sharp, the very sound of it activating some primitive instinct to flee.

Samuel remained rooted where he was, safe behind the wards made by the Eternal King himself, but he had never known a horror as acute or all-encompassing as he did in that moment.

Mel was no longer a girl at all, but a fierce predator out of nightmares, built by Blood Working and hells knew whose blood.

A vampire, come to life.

The details of her transformation were different than Isaac’s—a shared history before they split along a divergent evolutionary path.

There was some reason for it, something fiddly and academic that was far beyond Samuel’s understanding, but he knew what Isaac had become.

And feral as it was, like a creature out of a mythological horror, if Anton had been correct, Isaac still had a spark of humanity left to him.

His hunger was immense, but his intellect still drove him.

But Mel lacked that, little more than a beast as she went after Matthew, wings flapping and launching her up in the air. They spread wide, catching the breeze, lifting her into the sky as she screeched again, and Samuel recognized what it was.

A cry of joy, of freedom, before Mel twisted in the air, swooping down to make a pass at the man the King had decided would be her breakfast.

Her talons brushed against his chest, a hair’s breadth from slicing him open, but the momentum of it enough to send Matthew teetering backwards, tripping over a rose bush and tumbling through the snow, flecks of white sticking to his thin coat as he struggled to regain his footing.

Mel just circled back around, gliding in from behind, slamming her feet into Matthew’s back so that he fell face-forward.

Blood and steel, Mel was playing with him, toying with her food like it was some sort of game, reveling in his fear. Taking shallow sweeps at him, slicing his skin so that blood welled to the surface, spilling bright red upon the blinding snow.

Samuel chanced a glance at those next to him, but Shan remained as serene as ever, the shadows of her hood hiding the details of her expression. But the King was positively brimming with energy, with pride, as he watched Mel corral Matthew back and forth, a hound chasing a fox.

“She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” The King tilted his head back, looking upon her with awe. “Shan can tell you more about the theory behind the Blood Working, but the actual process took less than you would think. We can build up a full squad of these Guards in a matter of months.”

“Guards?” Samuel echoed, the fear taking shape into something he didn’t dare look at head-on.

“Elite Guards,” the King confirmed, decisively.

It wasn’t an offer, but a demand—a new policy that the King was happy to put in place without a vote.

Because what Samuel thought, what the Royal Council thought, what anyone with any sense of decency thought did not matter.

The King saw a very real threat on the horizon, and so he had built the perfect countermeasure, fighting fire with fire.

Hells, what were they going to do about this?

Mel finally grew tired of her games, driving him closer to where they were standing before landing hard on Matthew’s chest. There was the sickening crunch of bone snapping.

Matthew sobbed as he tried to pull out from under her, but the creature grabbed him by the hair, slamming his head into the ground hard.

Blood pooled underneath it, and Mel leaned forward, lapping it up, looking up at the King like a well-trained dog.

Samuel had been wrong—she wasn’t a full beast. She knew exactly what she was doing, turning this hunt into a show for the King’s benefit.

For his benefit.

Mel tore into Matthew with a viciousness that stunned Samuel, blood splattering up onto the ward, where it hit with a loud sizzle before burning away. Samuel wished it hadn’t, wished the spray of blood had acted like a curtain, but he had an uninterrupted view of Mel feeding.

No, feeding wasn’t the right word. She feasted on Matthew, her teeth slicing through the column of his throat, shredding it to thin layers of meat as she drank him dry.

The light left his eyes as the trauma of what was done to him overwhelmed his body, but something as simple as death didn’t stop the meal.

She moved from his neck to his wrist, from the wrist to the large artery in his thigh, biting straight through his pants and burying her face between his legs.

Swapping from side to side, nuzzling against the cooling flesh, until she drank every last drop.

Leaving him a dry and ruined husk, but far more whole than the bodies that Isaac had left.

Not unlike what the King did, yearly, in front of a crowd of cheering citizens.

It was the natural evolution of everything Aeravin stood for, and as Mel settled back on her haunches, face turned up to them, covered in blood and gore, slick fluids dripping down her chin, Samuel saw the violent future that awaited them in the endless hunger of the beast.

It was too much for Samuel—he turned away, staggered to the edge of the patio, and vomited over the edge.

The bile was bitter, the smell of his own sick filling his nose as he fell to his knees. But a soft hand landed on the small of his back, rubbing soft circles. “I’m sorry,” Shan whispered in his ear, and Samuel didn’t know what for.

For her hand in this, for the way he found out, for the fear that hung between them—the uncertainty of whether or not he could ever forgive her. She looked at him, just a second away from pleading, but Samuel turned away.

He couldn’t handle this, not right now.

“Why don’t you take our Councillor inside, Lady LeClaire,” the King said, flatly. “Get him something to settle that weak stomach of his. I’ll handle Mel.”

Samuel winced, knowing that he had failed the King’s test, dashed the King’s hopes yet again with his weakness.

No matter how hard he tried, no matter how perfect his Lord Aberforth mask became, he would still falter at the worst of it.

He would never be able to harden his heart enough to be the Blood Worker his ancestor wanted him to be, and as Shan led him back into the Aberforth’s grand country house, he prayed that this wouldn’t be the last time he failed the King.

He just needed to make it through the rest of this trip, needed to make it back to the capital to warn Isaac and Anton what was coming.

If he could do that much, then this all would have been worth it.

But as Shan pressed the tips of her claws against his back, steering him towards warmth and comfort, he realized that he was in far more trouble than he first thought.

Because if Shan had been willing to do this, just how far would she go to keep the King’s favor?