Page 117 of Savage Claim

“Barric is responsible for the missing shifters. He has a list, and he wants all the bitten ones gone because of his stupid cult. He brought them here.” I placed my hand on the glass wall separating Charla from us as her eyelids slowly closed, and she passed out.

Wrath tried the keycard on her cell, but it didn’t work. “You’re right about Barric. He did play his part in this. He and Ruin struck a deal. Barric would give him candidates, and Ruin would spare everyone else.”

Ruin was the mystery partner Barric had mentioned at the meeting below Lunar Souls?

“I don’t understand.” My voice cracked as reality tried to bleed through the fantasy I wanted to maintain. “Why would Ruin need all these shifters?”

“He needs their souls to manufacture Soulvation.” Wrath scoffed. “Human souls have no magic, but Ruin realized shifters, the most human of nightworlders, had just the right amount. He could harness a small portion of their soul to create a synthetic formula.”

Blood thundered in my ears, and the stark white hallway tilted. “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of creating a synthetic soul substance if he still needed souls to make it?”

Wrath shook his head. “A bit of shifter soul goes a long way. He can mass produce it with these unwilling donors. Of course, he still needs the Infernal Sol to make a stable, long-lasting formula.”

My stomach heaved as I spun, heading back the way we came. “You’re lying. I’ll go find Ruin and prove it.”

The high demon snatched my arm and dragged me back to the row of cells. “You are not naïve, Tate. Look at the facts. Look at what’s right in front of you.” He shoved me against a cell where a dux demon slammed his fist into the wall, foaming at the mouth and eyes like cloudy rubies. “I told you he was responsible for the madness spreading through the demon community.”

Ice cooled the blood in my veins as the demon had that same rage and hunger I’d seen so many times before. “How is your brother responsible?”

“Ruin needs subjects to test his working formulas.” Wrath tapped on the glass. “Instead of sustaining them, it’s multiplying their hunger and clouding their minds until they can no longer understand reason. Only hunger.”

“What kind of side effects?”

“Nothing major. Just increased hunger.”

Ruin had said it himself only a few minutes ago. A side effect was increased hunger, but he’d downplayed it. A lot.

He’d turned them crazy.

“He’s also called more sub-demons to Savannah to distract the ravens and shifters.” Wrath’s voice became a distant sound in my ears as my mind still attempted to fight the obvious truth. “He wanted to draw as much attention away from the real threat as possible. Him.”

My knees shook, and I wanted to collapse to the cold ground as my world crumbled around me. My lungs strained to pull in air before I passed out. I leaned against the glass wall, my fingers sliding down.

The bear shifter that had attacked me when I first stayed with Ruin hadn’t broken into the high lord’s home. He’d broken out of the lab. And when Joseph Morrice made it back to Mohan Wilds, I had no doubt that someone slipped in and compelled him to forget all about the lab and Ruin’s plans. He probably muttered my name because he would have heard it here since the Infernal Sol was the missing puzzle piece to this fucked-up venture.

Ruin Bacchus had managed to completely pull the wool over my eyes. He’d spun his charm from the beginning, and I’d fallen for it. He flashed his beautiful smile and captured me in his hold with that hypnotic gaze. He’d pretended to be a charitable, kind figure behind that dangerous persona everyone else saw.

He was worse than what people thought. He was a devil in disguise with rotten insides.

Fire swept through my bloodstream, and my muscles screamed for action. That bastard lied and used me to aid in this sick, depraved endeavor. He had Fane fooled too. What about Logan? Was he part of Ruin’s nightmarish operation, or had he been duped like Fane and me?

“He killed Warin.”

My head snapped in Wrath’s direction as his words ricocheted between us. “What are you talking about? I killed Fane’s brother.” But even as I spoke, the realization hit me like a wrecking ball to the chest.

Warin had been crazed and insatiable that night, nothing like the real demon his friends and family knew him as.

Wrath’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “It’s true that Ruin started his research for a synthetic soul because of Warin. My brother knew how much he hated taking souls, but he preferred Earth over the Underworld.” Tears burned in the demon’s eyes as he rested his head against the glass door. “Warin was his first test subject. He tried the synth soul, but it only made him sick. And then Ruin let him leave, and you know the rest.”

He attacked Jayla and my friends.

“I loved Warin,” he whispered. “He wasn’t just my best friend.”

Invisible claws gripped my heart and threatened to rip it from my chest at the agony and pain pulsating from Wrath. He and Warin had been together.

The demon wiped his cheeks as a few tears brimmed over. “Demons don’t have souls like humans or other nightworlders, but Warin was still my fucking soulmate. We were everything to each other. And my own twin took him away.”

I blinked rapidly to keep my tears from falling and gingerly reached out to rest my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Wrath. I’m so sorry for my part in his death.”

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