Page 94 of Fated In Blood

Those thoughts faded when an echoing silence rippled through Crimson House, a shockwave of stillness stifling everything in its path. A minute later came the footsteps. Light like a cat. Deliberate like a hunter.

Instead of sitting in the chair beside me, Blake took up position by the window, shoulder braced against the wall, legs crossed casually, inspecting the overgrown landscape outside, every instinct on high alert.

I leaned back on my desk, squarely facing the door.

That choking stillness arrived a second before Malachi did, as he prowled in like the devil’s right hand, face as pale as moonlight, every unhurried movement promising death, his soul filled with enough fucking evil to taint this entire kingdom black.

His dark-blond hair was braided back for battle in an ancient pattern I’d only seen in Europe amongst the oldest of our kind, and his simple clothing—the only thing plain about him—was as utilitarian as Blake’s jeans and fitted t-shirts, but on him they looked too modern.

Nobody really knew how old Malachi Draven was.

Five hundred? A thousand years old?

Maybe not an Ancient like Tyrell, but the blood flowing in my veins paused at Draven’s approach, assessing the threat and recognizing his dominance.

“Riordan.” Those pale blue eyes flicked keenly over to my friend. “Blake. Still attached at the hip, I see.”

He still retained a faint accent I couldn’t quite place, but the lilting words only accentuated his swaggering arrogance. And just that easily, Blake tipped over the edge.

“Still trying to work your way back into our good graces, I see.” Blake’s lips curled in a surly expression I recognized all too well. “Good luck with that, you sick fuck.”

“It seems I’m already in your good graces, sinceyour king”—Draven tipped his head to me in a move that was nothing short of disrespectful—“invited me here for a meeting. But I can go back to Tyrell’s and see what the old bastard offers me to stay. I’m sure his proposition is far more exciting than yours. Wine, women…mayhem. All the things I love best in the world.”

“Our offer is better, or you wouldn’t have come.” I hadn’t moved, hands braced against the desk, pulse plodding along at a respectable rate. “You want Tyrell gone as much as we do, so let’sstop fucking around. What did you find out when you were at the castle?”

“He’s still a twisted piece of work.” Draven cast around for a place to sit, then dragged Blake’s chair away from the window and over to the desk. He sat down in a sloppy sprawl of legs and arms, completely overflowing the seat.

“Did he suspect why you’d really come back?”

“Are you serious?” Draven lifted an eyebrow. “Once I casually mentioned I’d broken a blood oath before, he was too fucking blinded to consider I could be here for any other reason. Gave me a tour of the castle. Even met his mate. Pretty thing. Sweet, too.”

Over by the window, Blake stiffened.

“Offered me twenty million to break the blood oath he swore to your sire, twenty-five if I completed the task by the end of the week.” Draven inspected his nails. “I told him I’d think about it. Once that oath breaks, you’re a dead male.”

“Once that oath breaks, Tyrell will burn down this kingdom and everyone in it. There will be no more protections, no more safe zones, nothing keeping him in check. You really think his reach won’t extend to you, Draven?”

“I know how to protect myself, unlike you, Riordan. I don’t have an honorable streak that would say…inspire me to take up my sire’s crown and go to war with a despot I could never hope to defeat.”

“That’s not what happened and you know it,” I countered stiffly. “And Tyrell can be beaten, you just need the right tool.”

Draven’s toothy grin was a terrible thing, filled with knowledge I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear. “Ah, I see. The Silverwood heir.”

His gloating expression hardened. “TherealSilverwood heir, not the blond beauty Tyrell’s parading around as his mate. Thatvicious little thing caused quite the stir at the auction, I heard. The grand staircase will never be the same, and Bosch…”

He clicked his tongue, staring straight at Blake. “Poor Bosch is positivelyconsumedwith plans of revenge. Nearly bored me to tears with the depraved things he plans to do to that girl…Horrible imagination on that one. He’s as bad as Valaine.”

Over by the window, Blake hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t so much as blinked, but the temperature in the room had been steadily diminishing, along with his self-control. His breath became a plume of liquid fog, glittering eyes pinned on Malachi. He could deny the truth to his dying breath, but in a matter of days, Evangeline had worked her way under his skin.

I saw the proof and apparently, Malachi did too.

I just prayed Draven didn’t discover just how deep their bond really went.

“Watch your tone, Malachi.” I didn’t move a muscle, but the ends of my fingers heated with white-hot magic, a warning even Draven couldn’t ignore. “My tolerance for your games is fading by the second.” For a tense moment our eyes locked, my knuckles flexing.

I could kill him right now and we both knew it.

But I couldn’t—something else we all knew. “Treason cuts both ways, Malachi, and now you’re in as deep as we are,” I said softly, feeling the burn at the tips of my fingers as sharply as my anger cut me inside.

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