Page 104 of Fated In Blood

Of course they came for you, they need the dagger.

The dagger.

Like drawing a heavy bucket up out of a deep well, I trolled through my memories, trying to latch onto the right one.I should tell Blake about the dagger, but everything was so confused.

I’d hidden the dagger in my jacket; we needed the dagger to kill Tyrell.

If my father knew I stole that weapon, he’d have killed me on the spot. But I was alive, which meant he hadn’t found it. Finally, I found the washed-out memory I was searching for.

I’d buried the velvet bag in a shallow trench between the azalea roots, covered up with dead leaves and loam, barely a second before my father’s malicious gaze snared me.

After that, my timeline got muddled. Alistair searched me, found the tiny glass globe, his grin stretching ear to ear. “Don’t even know what this is, do you girl? If you did, we wouldn’t have caught you so easily.”

Silas never gave me a chance to answer. Not when he had years of pent-up rage to take out on me. He beat his own daughter half to death by the side of the house, next to the dead guard, while Alistair, Dante, and Virgil watched silently.

No one stopped him, no one helped. No one ever did.

Which was why I wept when I heard Blake’s voice, when he told me Riordan was here too. I never thought I’d be so happy to hear from two people who despised me.

I vaguely heard an explosion, the roar of flames, and dimly felt a shockwave hit me full in the chest like a hammer.

Smoke charred my lungs and the world went dark. Maybe I was dying.

Maybe I was already dead.

A deep, echoing silence rang in my ears, and even the sweet smell of the crushed grass faded beneath the coppery tang of blood coating my mouth.

Blake was here.Tears pricked my eyes, hot and quick and without end. They came for me.

They’d be too late.

***

“Hang on, Vicious, I’ve got you.”

I couldn’t lift my head, couldn’t open my eyes, but that didn’t sound like Blake.

The cool, amused voice didn’t belong to Riordan, either.

But my savior was powerful, effortlessly bending the iron shackles apart, and the second I was free, I could breathe again. Big mistake. I coughed out a mouthful of thick, acrid smoke, my lungs on fire.

Hunger surged past the pain, past the cold creeping up through my limbs.

Whoever this was…he smelled delicious.

“They coated the iron with silver, that’s why you’re still bleeding. Slows down the healing process and shuts down yourmagic. You’ve lost a lot of blood. It’s a wonder you aren’t already dead.”

Definitely not Blake.

I wanted to crack my eyes open, I wanted to look, but I couldn’t even manage that.

He prodded my aching gums, and I snapped at that probing finger, but even hungry as I was, my jaw wouldn’t work properly. “You’re fucking starving. I can’t believe those assholes didn’t feed you. How long since you fed?”

I moved my lips, but nothing came out except for a hiss of air. I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d drank from Riordan, but that night felt like a lifetime ago. Three days? Four? Time was intangible. I couldn’t pin anything down, my heartbeats slowing to a crawl.

“No matter, we’ll get some sustenance into you, then you and I are going to have a talk.”

He pressed his finger between my lips again and this time…this time it was coated with blood. I swirled my tongue around the tip, sucking it deeper, trying to get as much as I could. His chuckle was equal parts humor and satisfaction, and my skin prickled in warning.

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