Page 23 of Fated In Forever
He uncorked the vial and poured its contents onto the etched runes. Every drop hissed when the liquid hit the salt and the air began to boil. The golden chains stretched, bent, bending at the edges as they began to break apart.
Yes.I raised my arms above my head, bent my head until my chin touched my chest.Give her back her life. Give her back her future, make me endure the pain, so she never has to hurt.
When I opened my eyes, the training room was gone. There was only Vicious and me and a world of whirling darkness around us.I’m sorry. But this is the only way.
Liar.Her smile was slow and terrifying.There’s always another way. I reject your attempt at nobility, Malachi, like I reject your attempt to get rid of me.Her lip curled, nothing but anger in those eyes.Try again. Try harder.
Then the room snapped back into place, along with our audience and Brendan’s chanting, though Vicious’ dark glare told me that moment hadnotbeen a figment of my imagination.
Thorne tried another spell, then another.
He dribbled black salt over the runes, then white.
Nothing worked.
I looked at him through the acrid smoke and smiledwith genuine pity.You tried, Brendan, and for that, I am truly grateful.I sighed.Breaking something like this is like changing the pull of the moon on the tides. You might as well try to stop the sunrise.
The candles had burned down to nothing but pools of wax imbedded in the salt. I stared at the ritual circle, at the scattered herbs and crystals that should have worked.
“Fuck.” Brendan muttered. “This is humiliating. I’ve never failed before.”
Nikolai crouched down at the edge of the circle, his golden eyes scanning the runes, the salt, the wax before locking on mine, his voice echoing through my head.
I might know how to break the bond, but there is risk involved. Great risk, both to you…and your female.There was a tension in his posture. He knew something—I could feel it in the careful way he chose his words.
Brendan cleared his throat, his weathered face was grave as he exchanged a meaningful look with Nikolai—another secret passing between them I wasn't privy to. “There might be another way,” Brendan said carefully, his Irish accent thick with something I couldn't name. Regret, perhaps.
Evie looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
Nikolai's jaw tightened, and that familiar flutter of unease stirred in my stomach.
“He was changed in the waters of an ancient magic that predates our kind. To heal him,” Nikolai explained, “he'll need to return to the source.”
“The pool,” Brendan said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Oh no.” Evie was looking between them like they’d lost their minds. “We can’t go back there.”
I fully, one hundred percent agreed with her, but I also understood the logic.
“That’s not happening,” Riordan insisted. “The room…that pool is buried, beneath an entire mountain. Magic is leaking from the ley line, there’s a rift above it big enough to swallow up the mountain and everything on it.”
“This will require your blood, Evangeline,” Nikolai said, the words seeming to tear themselves from his throat. “Your blood is the key to reversing the spell. But you need all the components. The pool, the portal, the magic from the ley line. Combining them all together is the only way to reverse this.”
The room went very quiet. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath.
“Myblood?” Evie repeated slowly, straightening her shoulders, that familiar stubbornness tightening her jaw. “Fine. You have it, so long as you swear to restore him, and that is the only thing you change.”
I had so many fantasies, she grumbled inside my head.You’d better not die before I get to live them out, or I will kick your ass, I swear I will.
10
EVANGELINE
Ididn’t like this.
Didn’t like the feeling I was standing on shifting sand, that nothing happening right now was real, that Malachi—under his ridiculous guise ofbeing noble—was lying to me again.
That Nikolai and Brendan knew more than they were letting on.
