Page 79 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

That done, Samuel dug the tips of his claws into the palm of his hand, letting his own blood bead to the surface as he pressed against the ward, granting the King enough of his blood to allow him passage.

The magic sizzled against his skin, warm and ticklish, but he was able to hear the King’s sigh of relief as the ward split open, as he slipped in, ducking down next to Shan.

“Take her, Samuel,” the King said, voice gruff with exhaustion. “I’ll handle the rest.”

Samuel didn’t need to be told twice—he pulled Shan into his arms, letting her rest her head against his shoulder as he slid his other arm under her knees.

He ignored her mumbled protest, the confusion in her expression as he hoisted her up and carried her back through the ward towards the somewhat stable hallway.

“I’ve got you, Shan,” he whispered, pressing his mouth against the still-bleeding wound.

His tongue flicked out, lapping at her cheek, the sudden rush of power filling his mouth as he swallowed it down.

It wasn’t hard work, mending the bone, sealing the flesh—the power that lived in him rushing forward once again.

Shan hissed as it hit her. It wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t delicate, but it got the job done.

His beautiful Shan, safe and whole in his arms once again, looking up at him with such unbridled awe that it threatened to steal his breath away.

“You came for me?” Shan whispered, like she couldn’t believe he was there. Her hand pressed against the column of his throat, like if she stopped touching him, he would vanish into nothingness. “Still?”

“Always,” he swore, solemn as a vow.

“As sweet as this moment is,” a low voice drawled, and Samuel’s gaze shot back to the King creeping through the ward.

As soon as he was free, the King dropped the ward, the magic sizzling out immediately, the wreckage he had protected them from slamming into the ground.

The King reached out, bracing himself against the wall with a sigh, head dipped down as he caught his breath.

It lasted only a moment before he pushed himself back up, donning that ever serene mask, implacable and unbreakable.

But Samuel had still seen through it, a brief chink in the armor where Tristan Aberforth, the ancient and Eternal King, looked so terribly human.

And as he risked that vulnerability to protect Shan, Samuel couldn’t help but feel indebted to the man.

“We should move,” the King rasped, and Samuel only nodded, already turning back in the direction he had come.

“I can walk,” Shan muttered petulantly, and Samuel’s lips tugged into a reluctant smile.

Oh, his proud, foolish woman, always so confident, never wanting to accept even the slightest bit of help.

But it wasn’t the time to argue, so he let her down gently, her heels clinking on the marble floor.

He placed one hand on the small of her back to steady her as her knees wobbled, but she rejected his attempts to help her. Not unkindly, but firmly.

He hated it and loved it in equal measure—how he wished that she would let herself lean on him, just once. Trust him to take care of her in the same way she worked so hard to protect those she loved. Trade her endless need of control for just a moment of unguarded honesty.

It was the very flaw that had led them here in the first place.

Following at her heels, he allowed himself to be led, because she would accept nothing else.

And, deep in his heart, he realized that he had been part of the problem as well, always willing to roll over and show his stomach because she had simply asked him.

Letting her claim power over him, without ever stopping to think about limits and boundaries.

Too trusting by far.

The King watched their interactions with knowing eyes, leaving Samuel utterly exposed under that gaze, a thumb pressed into a fresh bruise, and he knew instinctively that somehow, someway, the King knew of the troubles that had recently tore them apart.

The building continued to rumble in the aftershocks, dust floating down from the fissures above.

The air was thick with it, grime filling his nose and throat with each breath, choking him as they made their way back to the front entrance.

The atrium was somehow even worse than it had been when he had passed through moments before, the flooring cracked wide open in deep rifts, witch fire billowing up in grand rushes of steam and heat, giving the whole room a hazy, shimmering effect that made Samuel’s eyes burn.

Below, in the great pits that had once been the vaults of the Blood Treasury, the shrieks rose, inhuman and shrill. It sent gooseflesh prickling across his skin, despite the sweltering warmth that surrounded them, the sounds of a vampire and manananggal at war.

The King, for some unfathomable reason, did not head directly for the door, skirting around to approach the largest fissure, the grand hole that had been created when the chandelier fell, the floor around it cracking under the weight of the impact and the crumbling foundations below.

Shan watched him go, cursing lowly under her breath before making to follow.

“Wait!” Samuel caught her hand, the press of her claws against his skin drawing thin lines of blood. “You don’t have to.”

She glanced back at him, dark eyes wide, and he could see the way she weighed her options, the quick calculations that endlessly ran through that twisted mind in plain display as her expression shifted.

As she looked at him with such heart-wrenching pity.

She pulled her hand free, rushing after the King, and Samuel let her go—denied, again. Power trumping safety, knowledge trumping good sense, her side chosen as she left him behind.

He almost left them in a burst of resentment, but then the howls returned as two blurry figures whirled through the gap in the floor in a flurry of wings and claws.

Deep, dark blood—black and thick like tar—gushed from multiple wounds to spray in wide arcs as they twirled above their heads, a wild tumble.

Samuel was only able to tell them apart by the fluttering of Isaac’s entrails, his form so small compared to Mel’s.

She kicked out at him with her taloned feet, dragging sharp claws into the meat of his stomach, tearing great gashes that should have taken him down.

That would have taken him down, if he had still been anything resembling human.

If his lower half wasn’t safely tucked away behind a ward in a room miles away.

Samuel ducked to the side, barely avoiding a great spew of blood, which plopped onto the hot floor where it sizzled. Even with his amateurish levels of Blood Working, he could feel the inherent wrongness of it, slick like oil that sent shivers down his spine as he immediately recoiled.

The King did not have the same repulsion, stepping forward to drag two fingertips through the mess, lifting it up to watch the thick liquid coalesce into a thick globule, clinging to him like half-melted wax.

Mel screeched in impotent fury, the sound ricocheting through the atrium, bouncing off the walls and ringing in Samuel’s ears.

She slashed again and again at Isaac, but the wounds kept sealing nearly as quickly as they were made, an impossible task that was driving her close to madness as each of her strikes became wilder.

Isaac seized the advantage, slamming one hand into her chest, his claws cutting through the flesh and bone as he drove her all the way up to the ceiling above, wings flapping with great, frantic thrusts as he carried her.

Her back crashed against the plaster with a sickening crunch, Isaac ripping his hand free, pulling the very heart from her chest as she gave the most soul-shaking cry.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Isaac wrapped his maw around the column of her throat, crushing it with the great strength of his jaw as he tore her head straight off.

Unmoored, Mel’s body slipped from his grasp, falling towards the ground.

It landed not even a foot from Shan, who took one look at the pulverized chest and the torn throat, the shattered edge of Mel’s spine reaching out from a collar of shredded meat, before turning to the side and emptying her stomach.

But Samuel turned his gaze back upon Isaac, who hovered above them, great wings beating slow and steady, his torso ending in a long gash, his innards floating below him in a tangle of slick intestines.

His jaw was stained red with gore, bits of human flesh caught in sharp fangs, dripping blood.

His long tongue unfurling down and hanging between his bare breasts, flicking restlessly—still scenting the air, searching for his next target.

He held Mel’s severed head in one hand and her mangled heart in the other, the prizes of his hunt, trophies to be admired.

The King stepped forward, the corner of his mouth stained black, fingers crooked like a claw, and Samuel realized a heartbeat too late what had happened.

“Enough of this foolishness,” the King snarled, closing his fist with a grunt. “You have done too much damage.”

Isaac clutched at his chest, mouth opening in a silent scream, jaw snapping shut as the sound got caught in his throat.

Mel’s head dropped like a stone to the ground below, the ruined remains of her heart following after, landing with the soft plop, Isaac’s hands spasming as he grasped the empty air, the tendons in his arms standing out in stark relief.

Samuel could feel the bridge reaching between them, a vibrant live wire of magic that thrummed with power as the King attempted to rip Isaac out of the air, bending the manananggal’s body to his own will.

It was a brutal thing to watch, the way that Isaac trembled like a hare caught in a snare, his entire body shaking as he tried to fight his way through it.

Samuel had seen the same struggle before, when he inflicted his own power upon Isaac, practicing the gift he had never asked for.

But this was nothing like the little games they had once played—this was brutal and swift, the King bringing down his full might to destroy his enemy.

“You were a fool to come here,” the King continued, sweat beading on his brow, red, still human blood dripping from his nose.

But he had the upper hand, grunting as Isaac’s chest caved in on itself with a snap, the King reaching through the bond and using the tether he had made to force Isaac’s body into submission.

Just like Samuel’s power—they really weren’t that different in the end.

Samuel shot Shan a desperate look, a plea already dying on his lips as she just shook her head. There was sorrow written clear across her expression, not even bothering to hide the heartbreak and grief, but she had made her choice.

For her power, for her place at the King’s side, she was willing to sacrifice Isaac.

But that was something he could never do, so the command fell from his lips, dark and furious, his voice echoing through the atrium as he yelled, “Stop!”

The effect of the single word rippled out, stronger than the tide as every eye jumped to him. Unable to fight the magic that sank into his bones, the King dropped his arm, a puppet under the control of a new master, the bridge immediately snapping and the magic rushing free.

Isaac didn’t hesitate, the divots in his body popping out as he healed, banking across their heads as he soared out the window.

Leaving him alone with Shan and the Eternal King in the destroyed remains of the Blood Treasury, witch fire still roaring beneath their feet. The silence was complete—impenetrable—as the King turned his head so slowly, piercing him with a look that scared him down to the very marrow of his bones.

He had seen the King displeased before, had seen him frustrated and disappointed. But he had never seen this kind of fury. Not a wildfire out of control, but something colder, a chill settling over him like he had been plunged into the winter sea.

A dark and frozen depth that threatened to drown him.

Another command was at his lips, but the King was faster, his tongue darting out to lap at his own blood.

The same blood that tied them together across a millennium, an unbroken chain through a family that Samuel wished that he had never been born to, but it was still enough.

He felt the bridge snap to life, pulling at the center of his chest as the King’s fury washed over him. He crashed to the floor, jaw snapping shut like his lips had been sewed together, his breath coming out in a huff as he tried to force even a single word out.

But his body wouldn’t respond, his control completely sublimated to the King’s.

Shan let out a cry—a single sob—before she choked it down.

The King spared her a glance, shockingly tender, and held out his hand. It was a summons, an offering, and Samuel wished with everything in his soul that she would do something—anything—to help him.

To choose him instead of her fucking schemes, just once.

But she stepped forward with a timidness he had never seen in her, placing her hand in the King’s, and as his goddamn monster of an ancestor leaned down to press his lips to the back of Shan’s fingers, Samuel felt his entire heart shatter into pieces.

“I’m sorry, Shan,” the King said, and damn him for a fool, if Samuel didn’t know any better, he would have thought that the King was sincere. “But we both knew that this was a possibility.”

Samuel stared up at him in his forced silence, as if he could force the venom in his gaze to strike the King down where he stood. But he didn’t have that power—even with his gift and the legacy he had stepped into, any power he might have had vanished the moment the King decided to rescind it.

And as he flicked his gaze over to Shan, who couldn’t even bear to look at him, he hoped she learned the lesson too.

All the power she was so concerned with was nothing but smoke and mirrors, and they would never be more than tools for the King to use and dispose of as he saw fit.