Fated In Secrets (Nocturne Vampire Clan #2)

Chapter 69

69

BLAKE

M y knees almost went out from under me as I landed on the front lawn of Darkmore, barely able to grasp what I was seeing.

Evangeline, dead center of the front lawn, hands raised to the sky, chanting an ancient spell she couldn’t possibly know, opening up a portal to let our enemies inside. Soldiers in black uniforms with red crests on their chests streaming past her.

Evangeline. Listen to me. You have to stop. Stop now.

Beside me, Riordan bellowed the same warning I sent screaming down the mating bond, my heart a savage twist of rage when nothing got through, her face blank. Then I lost sight of my mate across the front lawn flooded with armed soldiers—too many to even fucking count—a blast of enemy magic reducing one wing to smoking rubble.

“Nash is organizing the Knightsguard, but we can’t wait, Blake, another minute and we’ll be overrun.” Riordan growled out a curse as Collum stepped through the portal, followed by Valaine, both of them finding us through the crush of bodies.

Collum’s grin—one fanged, thanks to Evie—was all the challenge Riordan needed and he vanished, reappearing to block Collum’s charging forces with a storm of white, blinding fire tinged with red .

I headed for Valaine, gathering my shadows as I dematerialized, my magic ready to devour, to do what my darkness did best. Destroy .

By the time I landed, Valaine was gone, but his soldiers weren’t, so I turned my rage on them instead, silken shadows turning to blades of shredding power, sharp and hungry and ready to rend. They bent and broke and tore, tender flesh and delicate bones no match for my consuming rage.

No mercy. No hesitation.

They wanted violence? I will deliver them violence, I will make them bleed. It has been a long time since I’ve allowed my magic loose, a long time since I’ve let violence sing in my blood, a terrible consuming song that will echo for days.

Weeks.

Months.

But nothing matters now except extinguishing the light from my enemies eyes, crushing their beating hearts, breaking their bones so they cannot stand. They thought their numbers would save them. Their weapons were enough. But beneath my magic, steel turned brittle as ice, magic guttered, bullets melted into puddles of silver and lead.

Nothing survived me.

Nothing ever did.

I blinked and the entire western end of the castle was in flames.

A second blink, and piles of dead soldiers littered the once green lawn, blood-stained grass turned black under the rising moon, my battered hand banded around the throat of a fresh victim as I watched the life fade from his eyes.

Another blink and the moon hung above me, gilding the dead in silver. One rageful scream and my head snapped to the left, Riordan charging across the grass, colliding with Collum Lazarov in a fury of steel and fire.

I swallowed.

Rohr’s fire…wasn’t only fire.

A pack of rabid creatures spilled from his hands—dragons, snapping wolves, beasts I’d never seen before. All of them conjured from pure, white flame, all of them tinged crimson red, remnants of Ravok’s corruption.

Battle raged around me, but even my shadows paused to watch Riordan and Collum face off, my king’s magic flickering from one form to the next, dealing that bastard a hundred hungry bites for every blow he landed on Riordan. Words were exchanged, Collum screaming something I couldn’t hear and Riordan grinned, his magic disappearing as he drew his own sword.

Everything inside me went quiet, fear flickering to life like a heated blade, ready to strike.

No, don’t be a fool, fucking finish him.

But Riordan was cocky and young and too fucking proud for his own good. I started across the field as they parried back and forth, my friend’s footwork impeccable, every blow perfectly timed.

Riordan was good—he’d better fucking be, I’d trained him—but Collum was a killing machine and a dirty fighter with everything to lose.

And still…hope blazed in my heart when Riordan blocked every one of Collum’s powerful strikes, spun, parried, then drove his blade between the fucker’s ribs, ripping it back out in a shower of blood.

Collum went to his knees, then was up, hand braced to his side, sword point fixed on Riordan’s heart. I didn’t stop moving, but this was already over. The want-to-be-king was getting his reckoning from a real king. Lazarov was already dead. Riordan knew it, as he easily evaded the next strike, and the one after that, waiting for the perfect opening.

When he drove his sword through Collum’s heart, I was still so far away that bastard’s scream took a full second to reach me, followed by the hissing slide of steel through flesh as Riordan withdrew, then in one mighty swing, cleaved the asshole’s head from his shoulders.

“Blake Marten.”

I pulled my gaze away from Riordan’s battle to my own, meeting Valaine’s mocking smile with a curious tip of my head, one hand reaching beneath my Kevlar vest to toy with Cass’s gold ring strung on the chain.

Normally, the moment I touched that warm metal, regret scraped across my heart, shredding that soft, beating organ into a thousand tattered pieces.

But now…

My dark magic severed feelings as cleanly as any blade, and all I could do was watch this monster advance, curved blade in either hand, catching crescents of silver moonlight. Valaine was good.

The best, if I was being honest.

Honed in cruelty darker than even my imagination, I saw every last wicked intention reflected in his glazed eyes, in his craven smile, the set of his shoulders rolling forward as he raised his right hand.

I mirrored his movements, except instead of sharpened steel, I wielded something far deadlier, and despite all the bodies stacked behind me, my power was roaring for more. More blood. More pain. More death, because my greedy magic devoured such things the way a glutton devoured food.

And tonight, they would feast.

Valaine’s sword split the air as silently as an undertaker’s scythe, that bladed edge winking when it collided with a lick of shadow and smoke too faint to be seen. A vicious clang echoed across the bloodied battlefield like a bell.

The monster reeled back, while I advanced, one lazy step at a time, stalking him across blood-slicked grass and churned up dirt, through clouds of acrid smoke billowing from the burning castle.

Another skilled blow that should have ended me, and Valaine’s precious sword shattered, the pieces strewn through the blackened grass like mirrored shards. And still, I prowled, waiting for the moment he broke, for the moment he realized everything he ever believed about me was wrong.

“I’ll carve you up like your sister.” Valaine taunted, “Cassmira begged so sweetly…that was her name, wasn’t it? Begged and begged, offered me anything I wanted.” He tossed his ruined blade aside, pulled a shorter one from his boot. “ Anything .”

I never stopped herding him deeper into the fray, watching pride turn to panic, strength turn to fear, waiting for that delicious moment when Valaine realized his mistake in coming here.

Laying his filthy hands on the people I loved .

Shadows spun out of me in a torrent of black, Valaine tripping over the bodies of his own soldiers, casting his eyes over the smoky field, searching for backup that never came.

“Blake Marten, serving a doomed king.” Valaine hissed, spinning the short blade, eyes paler than the moon at half-mast over his shoulder. “Tonight Riordan Graves’s reign ends.” He sneered. “The murderer who killed his own sire for power. You thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you?”

If Valaine only knew the truth, he’d be more careful with his words, but no matter .

I drifted closer, well within range of his long sword, his face a dance of contradictions—greed and wariness, curiosity and disdain—before he struck.

This time, my shadows weren’t lazy, they were fast, furious at his taunting, tired of him breathing air for one more day, sick of him living, when Cass was fucking dead .

When he’d put his hands on my mate .

When he’d come here to kill my king .

I knocked his weapons away, my shadows circling Valaine like a flock of hungry crows, forcing him backwards, my magic humming that hungry, wicked song inside my head, charring my insides with hate. I matched his every halting step, brutally patient and slow, the evil, darkest part of me wanting to draw this out forever.

I loved the hunt too much. Enjoyed the crippling, trembling terror building in Valaine’s face as his movements grew sloppier, more desperate.

I relished every stumble, how he tripped over bodies, slipped through blood, crashed down onto his hands and knees, scuttling backward like a bug, eyes pinned on me, waiting for that last, final blow.

Not yet. Not quite yet.

“You killed my sister.” My sister, who was nothing but good. My sister who wrapped her arms around me and made me feel alive. My sister, whose ring I still wore around my neck to remind myself this fate always waited for Valaine.

His death, by my hand.

“She deserved to…”

Valaine’s mouth was still open, fresh hate spilling from his eyes when I took his head, hair-thin shadows slicing cleanly through bone and flesh, leaving a fine spray of blood suspended mid-air .

His body joined the rest on the grass, another mound of ruined flesh, never to rise again.

Somewhere, deep down, I might have felt a flicker of grim satisfaction, but then the magic swept through me, demanding more violence, more blood, more death.

But as I welcomed the oblivion, as I readied myself for more death, I caught a flash of golden hair. And impossibly, a tremor of terror raced along the mating bond, a heated blade plunged into my heart, tumbling me into the now .

My shadows tore away, laying the battlefield bare, Riordan bellowing my name over and over again, pointing, pointing at…

Evie, her pale, tear stained face tipped back to the sky as she screamed.