Page 102 of Fated In Blood

Who murdered my sire and dam.And they were right fucking there.

Some feral part of me demanded I hunt them down and settle that score, but even that vengeful urge became secondary as I focused on the female before me, whose fate seemed intrinsically tied to mine.

My heart softened, my soul splintering into a thousand pieces as I watched her head sink lower, her heartbeats fading by the minute. I couldn’t lose her.

Revenge could wait for another day.

Evangeline was all that mattered.

A horrific crack broke the morning silence as the roof collapsed with a thundering crash, sending up another shower of sparks and flames. Thick black smoke threaded through the trees, rolling across the field and straight toward Evangeline. Sirens blared in the distance, too far away for human hearing to pick up, but they were coming.

If I knew Silas—and I did—there would be at least two snipers holding their positions with orders to drop me but not kill me. No, Silas Silverwood liked to take his time with his victims, drawing out their agony, much like Evangeline had done with Spencer.

The thought sickened me, imagining her as a child, twisted and corrupted by these pathetic monsters who imagined themselves as crusaders.

Choking black smoke tore across the grass, obscuring my vision.

I swallowed, wet my dry mouth, and gathered my resolve. One jump to her side. Break the shackles free of those anchors, scoop her up, and we’d be gone. Three, five seconds at most.

I prayed the smoke was too thick to give the snipers clear line of sight, prayed they needed longer than five seconds to line up their shot. but even if they took me down, she still had Riordan to save her.

Blake.

Her voice was weak, like a whisper in a storm.The dagger.

I don’t give a shit about the dagger. Once you’re safe, we’ll sift through the ashes if we have to, but right now?—

Left it by the house. South side. Buried. Don’t let my father get it back.

I rolled forward onto the balls of my feet, gathering my magic, a sweep of cold wrapping around me as I prepared to dematerialize. Purpose flooded through me in a rush of adrenaline and hope.I’m coming, Evangeline. I’m getting you out of there.

I thought I would be her hero.

But Malachi got there first.

42

EVANGELINE

The world was a fuzzy, confused mess of choking black smoke and blaring pain.

I was smothered beneath a giant blanket, where I couldn’t hear or feel or see. After dragging me out from behind that azalea, after realizing what I’d become, Silas beat me within an inch of my life. I was too weak to even put up a fight.

Uncle Alistair had summarily executed the guard, of course, because failure was frowned upon in the Silverwood compound.

Now I was staked out in the back pasture.

My only worth? Bait to draw out the bigger quarry.

I thought I’d been tortured before, but this…this was like nothing I had ever endured.

My wrists were nearly cut to the bone, a rush of warm blood leaking off the ends of my fingers, staining the circle of crushed grass dark red. That spot between my shoulder blades kept burning, the ribs on my right side were broken. My father had ruptured my spleen and most certainly a kidney.

But all of that paled in the face of my hunger.

Somehow, beyond the pain, beyond the humiliation of being captured so easily after my grand scheme to steal the dagger,my own hunger became my greatest enemy, devouring me from within.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t think around the constant demand to hunt, to bite, to drink. I was glad I was restrained, left to wither in the blazing sun and ensnare two vampires who would never come.

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