Page 84 of Fated In Forever
Riordan and I materialized straight into a warzone, fought on the crumbling stone of the Keep's courtyard, in a storm of shadow and fume. My boots hit ancient cobblestones slick with something that might have been rain, if rain carried the metallic reek of magic gone wrong. The air writhed with power, thick enough to choke on, so fouled by magic, my skin crawled as darkness brushed over me, my eyes watering.
“Holyfuck.” Riordan doubled over, bracing his hands on his knees.
The air is pure poison. And Evie is right beneath the rift.Allthat blackness spilled right over her, but unbelievably, she was…fine.
Above us, the rift yawned wider, Stygian shadows poured out in waves, not the deathly shadows I commanded, but something hungrier. Corrupted.Foul. They cascaded down the mountainside in torrents, swallowing trees and rocks alike, painting the world black.
But it wasn't the rift that stopped my breath.
Nor was it Ravok, surrounded by a rotting wall of thralls, their empty eyes as vacant as their souls.
It was my brilliant, fierce mate.
Evangeline faced Ravok, raising her arms toward the hemorrhaging sky, and she was fuckingmagnificent. Penumbral magic coated her arms—no, her arms had somehow turned black—and she was wielding the power pouring out of the rift like a conductor. Her long hair whipped around her face as she drew the spilt shadows to herself, and damn if they didn’t obey, spiraling around her in a chaotic tempest.
Then she sent them spinning across the ruins toward Ravok.
The bastard looked strong, and there was a good reason for that. With every blast of his magic, more thralls dropped, their desiccated bodies curling into husks, until he was surrounded by piles of corpses, but my mate was holding her own. No, she was doing better than that.
She was kicking his fucking ass.
“Where the fuck do we even start?” Riordan's voice cut through the magical storm, sharp with urgency. “The ley line’s been opened, and that rift is getting bigger. And Evangeline is…” He shook his head with a grin.
The dark air around us was choking, speckled with tiny bits of glittering magic, and every inhalation burned, tastingof copper and ozone and something vile that made my teeth ache.
“Fiona, Brendan and Nash have to be here somewhere. Secure them, I’ll help Evie.” I pulled my shirt up over my face, wondering how the hell she was breathing this air.
“There.” Rohr pointed to a tumbled pile of rock, the three of them crouched behind it, then to my mate, tactically placed directly between them and Ravok.
Because of course she was.
Ravok raised his hands, gathering energy for what would surely be a killing blow, and every thrall around him collapsed. I was already moving when he released his magic, my boots barely gripping the magic-drenched rocks.
My shadows exploded outward without conscious thought, pouring from every part of me in a tide of darkness that was nothing like the wild chaos above. These weremine, trained and honed and desperate to protect what mattered most. They streaked across the broken stones toward Evangeline, and the connection struck like lightning.
Her darkness and mine didn't just meet—theyexploded.
Two distinct powers, both born of the night, spiraling together, amplifying power, until what flowed between us was something incredible and new. Not shadow, not void, but a vicious force, humming with a terrible, beautiful hunger.
In that moment, I felt everything Evangeline did—the crushing weight of the rift spilling over her shoulders, the burning of her own magic through her veins, and underneath it all, her fierce determination to protect everyone she loved.
Especially me.
There is my beautiful mate,something primal in mewhispered, and her gaze whipped to mine, a fearless, sharp grin on her lips.You are my queen, Evangeline. Give this bastard hell.
And our power surged, like it never had before.
All Ravok's thralls were dead, his spell shattering beneath our darkness, his face a mix of outrage and shock that I wanted to paint on my memories forever so I could gloat over it later.
“Impossible,” he snarled, but I could hear the doubt in his trembling voice.Good. He should be afraid of Evangeline. Of what she could do.
The shadows we commanded together rose like a living thing, and when they slammed into Ravok, they didn't just strike—theyerasedeverything in their path. Stone and rock crumbled, air itself warped, and our enemy was swallowed in a fury of absolute power unleashed.
He flew backward, his arms windmilling and for one crystalline moment I relished the helpless terror in his eyes before he plummeted over the Keep's edge. His scream faded to nothing, lost in the howling wind.
My eyes might have been deceiving me, but something that looked a lot like Romulus crawled to the edge of the drop off and flung itself over, and the two rotting corpses I assumed were Evie’s still-semi-operational uncles vanished in a swirl of smoke, a second later.
The rift above us pulsed one final time, the leaking darkness slowing.
