Page 7 of A Legacy of Wrath and Reckoning

“I’m sorry,” Arioch said softly. “Can I do anything to help?”

“Zylah!” Raif’s voice echoed around the cave, and Zylah froze. Not good. This was not good at all. She staggered to her feet, one hand pressed to her head as she blinked away the spots in her vision. “You need to go,” she told Arioch quietly, shoving the canister back into his hands.

“I will not leave you.”

“Go,” Zylah hissed. “He won’t hesitate to torture you. And I will never forgive myself for that.”

“Zylah!” Raif taunted. “The farther you run, the more I’m going to enjoy myself.”

“Please go,” she mouthed to Arioch. He hesitated, indecision warring in his eyes, and for a moment, Zylah wondered if he might try to stay. To fight Raif. “His punishment will be worse than Ranon’s,” she breathed.

“And you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He studied her face until he was satisfied, and with a reluctant nod, the Seraphim departed. Zylah loosed a breath as she returned the way she’d come, anything to keep Raif from finding Arioch. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, her breaths short and sharp, agonising tremors still wracking her body with every step.

The vampire rounded a corner just as she did, a shit-eating grin spread across his face.

“I do love a good hunt,” he said darkly, hands sliding into his pockets as his gaze slipped over her. He’d have heard her racing heartbeat, her short breaths, would have seen her trembling and mistaken it all for fear. Sick fuck.

Another wave of pain slammed into her, and then another and another, until the last thing Zylah remembered was Raif calling her name.

Chapter Five

ZylahwokeinRaif’sarms again, her heart racing just as furiously as it had been before. She fought out of his grasp, tumbling into the dirt and scrambling backwards on her hands. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”

“My mother and Ranon are coming; I need to get you back to your room before they arrive.”

“So you can watch them torture me?” Zylah pushed to her feet, arms wrapped around herself. Whatever pain had coursed through her before was gone, though she had no idea how much time had passed. They were in another passageway, identical to all the others she’d seen, and Zylah had no sense of where they were or how far they’d come.

A pained expression flickered across Raif’s face for a moment. “I can’t match their power,” was all he said, his eyes darting down to where her hand pressed against her arm. “I made them wait so I could come here first and warn you, but this has wasted time we don’t have.”

This. Like he’d expected her to try and escape and wasn’t bothered by it in the slightest. Because he knew she wouldn’t be able to. He still stared at her arm, and Zylah followed his gaze, noting the blood smeared across her palm from where she’d tumbled from his hold.

Raif bit down on his lip, one of his sharp teeth exposed, tongue darting out to run across it. “Despite what you must think,” he said, empty eyes searching hers, and he took a step into her space. “I still—”

“Don’t.” She shoved at his chest, nausea and rage and disgust and fear spiralling through her. “You don’t get to say that to me. Ever.”

A soothing feeling fluttered in her chest, there and gone before she could hold onto it. Her lips parted, and Raif took a step closer again, mistaking it for an invitation. Zylah’s hand cracked across his face so quickly she hadn’t even thought it through. Hadn’t thought about the consequences of striking a vampire when she had no magic, no weapon, no way of escaping him. His eyes widened for a second, a hand rubbing his jaw, thumb smearing the blood left behind from her open wound. He brought it to his mouth and sucked, and Zylah had to turn away from him, the sight turning her stomach.

“Well, you’re certainly getting stronger,” he told her, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. Then he took a step back. And another. “It’s this way. We’re almost there.”

Zylah ripped what remained of one of her sleeves from her sweater, wrapping it around her hand. Raif could have shredded it apart in seconds if he chose to, but it gave her a sense of security to know she had a layer between her open wound and those razor-sharp fangs.

She tried to take in every turn of the maze, called and called on her magic for a weapon, but it was no use. A dull headache at the base of her skull was all that answered. The wards rippled over her as they made it back into the final passageway, and before Zylah could register what was happening, Raif shoved her aside with a snarl.

“That is no way to greet your grandfather,” an unfamiliar voice said.

Zylah slipped past Raif, taking in the sight of Aurelia and a male with hollow cheeks and dark shadows under his grey eyes, a mop of silver hair parted to one side. Ranon.

Raif said nothing, but Ranon’s gaze moved to Zylah, his expression darkening. “You look just like her.”

“That doesn’t mean Iamher.” Pallia. Zylah was fairly certain Ranon didn’t have a good side to appeal to, that her words would fall on deaf ears, but she was tired of being compared to her long-dead grandmother.

The ancient Fae ignored her. “This place is as dire as I remember.” He took in Zylah’s sorry excuse for a room, turning in a slow circle. “I used to watch you and your sister play here as children,” he told Raif.

Zylah didn’t ask how he could watch them from his tomb; didn’t think she wanted to know the answer to how a disturbing old Fae could see the world when he should have been very, very dead.

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