Page 147 of Ravenous

Her throat tightened. “What?” she whispered, but she knew. He would complete the blooding. Her nightmare was unfolding, step by terrifying step.

His voice went low and intimate. “Come now. Father had a few ideas worth keeping. We’ll start tonight.”

Comprehension settled over her like a cloak of acid. He’d murdered her husband. Beheaded the one vampire royal who might have saved her. And now…he meant to fulfill Neculain’s decree.

Her nightmare of him deepened bloodred. Screams tore from her throat, echoing off stone until her own mind felt flayed open.

Screaming.

Screaming.

One hundred babes in one hundred years.

And Co?tin would father them all.

Chapter 56Thane

No’ even near midnight yet.

Sweat poured as his beast prowled beneath his skin. Holding back his primal self—mated, beneath the moon—went against every law of the Lykae. Thane gripped the bars, drawing in any faint hint of his mate, though he felt as if he stood waist-deep in her caustic magic.

At last, Straegan’s ceaseless howls cut off.

Blessed quiet. Only the surf pounding below the cliffs and the thin cries of nocturnal seabirds. Thane let his shoulders relax a fraction…

Then his brother loosed a different sound. A long, savage roar, a call to arms.

Thane’s beast bayed inside him. The two remaining guards nearby traded uneasy looks.

“Ignore him,” Thane ordered. “We’ll get through this.” No sooner had he spoken than tendrils of light sparked across the bars of his cage. Ditch’s tethering magic—so tenacious, so strong—flickered and hissed as something else flooded in: a foreign current, both cold and malicious.

The spell was changing. The world tilted.

The fuck is happening?

His beast felt…empowered. As Thane fought to keep control, he sensed a clash beyond himself as well. Magic battling magic. Had Ditch’s own coven sabotaged her spells? Would the cages fail?

Straegan slammed against those bars with renewed ferocity.

“Lowell!” Thane bellowed. Ditch’s ward could not hold for much longer. “Lowell, get back here!”

No answer.

He turned to the pair of warlairds. “Where the hell is he?”

“We’ll find him.” They hastened toward Straegan’s cell.

If my brother gets loose, he’ll kill Ditch.

Lowell, godsdamn it.

Roars erupted from the dungeon. Shouts. Screeching metal. What sounded like a battle and the scent of blood carried.

Moments later, a warlaird lurched back into view—Duncan, maybe?—one arm clinging by a strip of flesh, the other hand pressing his lacerated chest together.

“What’s happening down there?” Thane demanded. Straegan must’ve used his speed to swipe his claws from his prison.

Duncan wheezed, “Cell’s…collapsing. Guards mangled. Swords…bounce off him. Matter of time… We needyou.”