Page 142 of Fated In Forever
Stay the fuck out of this, Blake said, pressing me tighter to the wall, more of his shadows swirling around us, a protectivebarrier that might—might—keep us protected from the tension about to explode inside that room.
I shoved against Blake.I’m not leaving him in there alone, damn it. I won’t.
Evie, look at them. Can’t you feel the amount of power inside that room?Blake leaned into me, until I could barely move.Remember what happened before? Too much magic almost killed you. I won’t risk you again. Give Malachi his chance. This is what he wants.
He’s right, Vicious. This is between the two of us. It always has been.
“You see, while you've been playing house with these inferior creatures, I discovered how to make myself into a god.” Ravok spread his arms wide. “If the blood of a Silverwood can make my slave into a deity, imagine what it will do for me—one born of Caine’s blood.”
Romulus crept out of the shadows, as if they’d spawned him. He wasn't alone. Beside him skulked two figures that turned my blood to ice—Dante and Alistair.
What was left of them.
“You remember your uncles, Evangeline?” Ravok asked with mock sweetness. “Such devoted followers, unlike Malachi here. They were so eager to help once I... convinced them of the righteousness of my cause.”
You were right, Malachi murmured in my head.But spilling such corrupted blood into an already corrupted pool…
His eyes snapped to mine, then to Blake.Get out of here. Get Evangeline out and get her away from this place.
“Now we will see, now we will see…” Ravok muttered to himself, motioning to Romulus, who limped forward with something glinting in his hand—that silver blade, or one just like it. “Now you will all know my visions were right…” There was a frantic urgency to Ravok, in his clenching hands, the beads of sweat on his brow, the way he mumbled to himself.
Romulus moved behind my uncles, stolen witch power crackling around his fingers—Aria's red magic, twisted, but still potent. Romulus wove complex patterns in the air, his lips moving with a spell that made the stone around us shudder.
We need to kill that fuck, Riordan unsheathed a gun, one of Nash’s, if I wasn’t mistaken.One shot, this all ends. Ravok needs that magic to make this work.
His ritual won’t work anyway.I tried to reason past my panic, think this through. This won’t work. The pool is corrupted, my uncle’s blood is, too. Romulus can copy Aria’s magic, but he’s not a witch. This is going to go wrong.
Badly wrong. And Malachi was right there, in the same room.
And we’re right outside.Blake’s hand wrapped around my upper arm.Malachi’s right. I’m getting you out of here. Rohr, I’ll come straight back, then we’ll take these fucks down.
But it was already done.
The blade moved, black ichor flowed from precise cuts on both my uncles' throats, dripping steadily into the black, roiling surface of the corrupted pool. Where their blood touched the darkness, the liquid began to churn more violently, and the half-formed portal behind Ravok yawned wide, like a gaping mouth.
Wind pulled at Malachi’s hair, whipping across my face, sucking away Blake’s shadows, devouring the residue of red witch magic, the light from the glowing runes.
With one shove from Romulus, my uncles splashed into the pool face down, and sank, without so much as a struggle. His entire body shook, but he raised his hands, blackthreads of power shooting like plasma into the runes on the ceiling.
Get her out.Malachi’s voice boomed in my head, and Blake’s hand clamped down on my shoulder.Get her out before you can’t.
“I can’t,” Blake muttered through grit teeth. “I’ve been trying, but like before, I can’t dematerialize.”
On the opposite side of the door, Riordan shook his head, frustration painted all over his face.
His body was already transforming, but so much differently than Malachi’s had inside that red cocoon. This metamorphosis was grotesque, ashy blackness stained his skin, his neck, was creeping up over his jawline. His skull expanded, not like he was growing horns, but his entire head was becoming mishappen.
“When I ascend, and I will ascend,” Ravok’s ranting rose to match the growing chaos around us, “I will reduce this entire realm to ash. And then…” His mad eyes gleamed. “Then I begin again in the next realm. And the next one after that. God of everything, architect of a new reality, who will stop me?”
His body was already transforming, a sickly color stained his skin, his neck, crept up over his jawline. His skull expanded, not like he was growing horns, but like his entire head was formed from bone.
Behind him, the portal continued to expand, the runes overhead burned with black fire, those black fingers stretching out of the portal into the room, reaching for Ravok, like they were waiting to snatch the prodigal son out of midair.
Malachi turned, his eyes locking with mine, “Get her out of here, Marten, or I swear to the gods…”
69
MALACHI
