Page 69 of Red Ruin

I blink past Vhex’s shoulders, trying to figure out his game without making any sudden moves.

We bumped and rolled too much.

Now, we’re sprawled inside the array.

“We have to move.” I untangle my silks from Vhex, finally turning my attention out.

As soon as my silks are free, they freeze.

I lock eyes with a knot of darkness that stabs into my soul.

Remy burns with cold thirst, regressed into a twisted mess of suffering who only knows how to say one word.

“Guide,” he hisses.

His relapsed damage rips me in half horizontally, like two claws splitting down the middle of my throat.

Fighting to keep my voice soft, I reach into the dark. “Remy?—”

Shadows spear from the ground. They rip me off Vhex’s body, then balloon around me.

Vhex’s outraged roar sneaks through with a sound like a rocket taking off, then the ominous crash of stone. Within a heartbeat, everything is muffled.

Bruised, burned, and awkwardly hollowed out, I wobble to my feet. I can’t tell if I’m caged in shadows, standing in the same spot as before, or if I’ve been banished to a lightless prison at the bottom of a gorge.

“Remy!” I call as I swing into the shadows.

My fists pass through chilly wisps. I can’t see shit in the suffocating dark.

Vhex’s heat still lingers on my skin, but his silks are gone. There’s no sense of Remy, if he was ever here.

The emptiness hums in my ears.

Remy forgets my name when I’m not standing in front of him.

The motherfuckingvampireisn’t going to remember he sent me to solitary while he and Vhex casually unleash a fresh apocalypse.

Not on my first day in command, assholes.

Fuming, I spread my silks. I feel like a big, blue anemone, baring my sensitive soul to stalking sharks.

No matter how I try to attract his attention, Remy doesn’t appear.

I need better bait.

“I know you’re here.” I chew at my lip, widening the slash from Vhex’s fang.

It doesn’t taste like berries anymore.

“Come back to me, Remy.” Tasting blood, I call into the dark. “I have what you want.”

CHAPTER18

REMY

The devil roars.

I fight his fire and the throb in my skull.

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