Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
This was right.
The blade pressed against her throat, cold steel kissing the soft flesh where her pulse hammered like a caged bird. Nadi could feel the edge of it—sharp enough to split her skin with the barest pressure. Her hand was steady. Her mind was calm.
This was what she was supposed to do.
Somewhere, distantly, she could hear screaming. A voice she recognized. A voice that meant something to her, though she couldn’t quite remember why. It was calling her name, over and over, with a desperation that should have meant something.
Nadi. Nadi. Nadi!
The blade bit deeper. A thin line of warmth trickled down her neck.
And then something hit her like a freight train.
The world spun as she was tackled from the side, the blade flying from her grip and clattering across the concrete floor. She hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs, and suddenly the fog in her mind shattered like glass.
Raziel was on top of her, his weight pinning her down, his face inches from hers. His crimson eyes were wild with something she’d never seen in them before.
Fear.
He was shaking her. His words barely able to break through.
“Fight! Fight me!”
“What—” she started, but the words died in her throat as the memories came flooding back. The command. Kill yourself. The absolute certainty that she needed to obey. The way she’d lifted the blade to her own throat without hesitation, without question, without—
A gunshot cracked through the processing plant.
Raziel jerked, his whole body going rigid above her.
For a moment, she thought he’d been shot in the heart—thought this was it, this was how they both died, in this rusted-out hellhole surrounded by enemies.
But then he was moving again, hauling her up by the arm and dragging her behind a massive processing vat as more bullets sparked off the metal around them.
“You’re hit,” she gasped, seeing a dark stain spreading across his left arm. The fabric of his already-ruined suit was torn, and beneath it, she could see where the bullet had carved a furrow through his flesh.
“I’ll live.” His voice was tight. Controlled. But she could hear the pain beneath it. “You almost didn’t.”
The reality of what had just happened crashed over her like a wave of ice water.
She’d tried to kill herself. She’d wanted to kill herself.
And not because his words had dredged up any of the despair or hopelessness or any of the dark thoughts that had plagued her over the years—simply because Raziel had told her to.
“You can control me.” The words came out flat. Dead. “Your power works on me now.”
Raziel’s jaw tightened. He didn’t deny it.
“Since when?” she demanded, her voice rising despite the danger of their situation. “Since when, Raziel?”
“I don’t know.” He peered around the edge of the vat, tracking the movement of their enemies. “It shouldn’t be possible. It’s never been possible. My power doesn’t work on fae—”
“Well, it clearly does now!” She was shaking, trying to control the volume of her voice.
Actually shaking, her hands trembling at her sides in a way she couldn’t contain.
All this time, she’d thought she was immune.
All this time, she’d believed that no matter how dangerous Raziel was, he couldn’t touch her mind the way he touched humans’.
That had been her safety net. Her secret weapon.
The one thing that made working with him bearable.
And now it was gone.
Then it hit her. “The—the wedding. I…” Terror sank into her. “I drank your blood.”
For a moment, he stared at her in shock. Gunfire broke their moment of revelation. “We’ll discuss this later,” Raziel said, his voice dropping to a hiss. “Right now, we need to—”
“Oh, don’t stop on our account!” Lana’s voice rang out across the facility, bright and amused. “This is fascinating. I had no idea your little pet was susceptible to the family gift. Mother would have loved to know that.”
Nabrisi’s deeper voice followed, cold and mocking. “Looks like the bullet found its mark. How does it feel, Serpent? Being on the other end of a hunt for once?”
“I’ve been shot before. And you have poor aim.
” Raziel’s tone was casual, almost bored, but Nadi could see the way his injured arm hung at his side.
The wound was worse than it should be. Silver, maybe.
The Rosovs would know what it took to put down a vampire.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Rosov. ”
“Oh, we intend to.” Asha’s soft, giggling voice drifted from somewhere to their left. Closer than the others. Flanking them. “The question is whether we take you apart quickly or slowly. I’m rather partial to slowly, myself.”
Nadi forced herself to think past the panic clawing at her chest. They were surrounded.
Outgunned. Raziel was wounded, and she had just discovered that her supposed immunity to his power was a lie.
But she’d been in bad situations before.
She’d survived the slaughter of her family.
She’d survived years as an assassin in the metropolis.
She’d survived Volencia’s court and Mael’s machinations and being thrown back into the Wild.
She could survive this.
“The Iltanis,” she whispered to Raziel. Panic was taking over. “Where are the fucking Iltanis? They were supposed to—”
“Not coming.” His voice was grim. “This was always a trap. Kalo and Ebiti sold us out.”
The betrayal shouldn’t have stung. She’d known, deep down, that their sudden helpfulness was too good to be true. And they’d already suspected it. But now, knowing that the remnants of her people had handed her over… knowing they were about to die?
“Come out, come out, little brother,” Lana called in a singsong voice.
“There’s nowhere left to run. The facility is locked down.
My dear husband’s family has every exit covered.
And your fae friends?” She laughed, the sound echoing off the rusted metal walls.
“They’re not coming to save you. Not this time. ”
Raziel’s hand found hers in the darkness behind the vat. His grip was firm despite his injury, his fingers interlacing with hers in a gesture that felt almost desperate.
They nodded.
Might as well die fighting, together. She braced herself and readied to charge. They wouldn’t make it far. But it would at least be an honorable death.
They never got their chance.
Gunfire erupted from the direction of the main entrance—not the controlled, targeted shots they’d been dodging, but a full-scale assault.
Screams followed, human and vampire alike, along with sounds that Nadi couldn’t immediately identify.
Tearing. Rending. The wet, meaty thud of bodies hitting concrete.
And beneath it all, a sound she did recognize.
War cries. In a language she’d grown up speaking. In voices that echoed with the wild magic of the deep places beneath the world.
The fae had arrived.
* * *
Raziel couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as Kalo and the worthless fae finally decided to show up. He couldn’t imagine why. Their betrayal was almost complete, after all. Why change their minds now?
Just a few moments more, and both he and Nadi would have been dead.
Not that he wasn’t grateful, however.
It’d have to be a mystery for another time.
A figure emerged from the chaos at the facility’s entrance. Tall. Lean. Moving with the fluid grace of someone born to violence. His blue-white skin was spattered with blood—most of it not his own—and his silver eyes gleamed in the flickering light of the processing plant’s emergency lamps.
Kalo Lohti smiled, and it was the smile of a predator who had just cornered his prey.
“He’s going to get himself killed—” Nadi hissed.
“Not our problem at the moment,” Raziel replied, holding her back by the wrist. Otherwise, he knew his little murderer would likely charge in to try to rescue her would-be betrothed-turned-betrayer-turned-unlikely-savior.
“You were supposed to stay outside.” Lana’s voice had gone cold. The playful cruelty was gone, replaced by something harder. More dangerous. “That was the arrangement, Lohti.”
“Unfortunately,” Kalo said, still advancing, “there was a change of plans.”
Behind him, more fae poured into the facility.
Not just Iltanis—Raziel could see the markings of half a dozen clans, warriors who shouldn’t have been working together, who had been scattered and broken by years of vampire persecution.
But here they were, fighting side by side, cutting through Lana’s forces with brutal efficiency.
“You treacherous bastard,” Nabrisi snarled, raising her gun. “We had a deal—”
“Deals with vuampi are never worth keeping!” Kalo laughed. “Consider this my wedding gift to your whole miserable family! A reminder that the fae are not your dogs to command!”
The chaos was spreading through the facility like wildfire. Guards who had been focused on Raziel and Nadi were now turning to face the new threat, splitting their attention, breaking their formations. It was exactly the kind of disorder that created opportunities.
Nadi saw it too.
“Now,” Raziel hissed. “While they’re distracted.”
They ran.
Not toward the main entrance, where the fighting was thickest, but toward the side of the processing plant—toward a maintenance corridor that Raziel had spotted during their initial infiltration.
It was a gamble. There could be guards waiting.
There could be no exit at all, just a dead end where they’d be cornered and slaughtered.
But considering their other options?
He would take his chance.
They ducked under a low-hanging pipe, vaulted over a conveyor belt that was still churning out processed mushrooms, and burst through a rusted door into a narrow service corridor. The sounds of battle faded behind them—not gone, but muffled, separated by layers of metal and concrete.