Page 141 of Revealing Fate

Kal’s glower intensified as he moved to the third door. He knocked again, louder this time.

And again, they were left to wait.

“Kal, who⁠—”

A plump woman emerged from the farthest door, peeking into the hall. “Kal?”

Beulah Porter rushed toward them, blue eyes wide, and made a shooing motion with her hands. Felíne had the urgent desire to turn and dash back the way they’d come, but Kal stood his ground.

“Beulah,” he said, voice like granite. “Where is Saul?”

Another man stepped into the corridor behind Beulah. Divine mercy. The man looked terrible. Dark hollows ringed his once keen chestnut eyes, dull sandy hair plastered to the curve of his skull. His cheekbones were more prominent, his skin pallid. The man coughed, a horrible barking gasp, and Felíne sucked in a startled breath.

Saul held a limp square of linen to his mouth with one wobbling hand and braced himself against the wall with the other. The cloth came away tinted with dark liquid.

Felíne rushed forward to help without thinking.

“Kitty, wait—” Kal began.

“Kalevar, behind—” Beulah cried.

Felíne turned in time to see a male in second form tackle Kal from behind. Kal lunged for one of his many weapons, but didn’t have room to maneuver effectively in the narrow hall. The lithe blond-pelted male hefted a wicked-looking metal contraption over Kal’s head and bolted it in place.

Kal roared as the male deftly disarmed him and cinched his arms painfully behind his back, fastening thick manacles over the still-raw skin of Kal’s wrists.

Felíne jerked a throwing knife out of her sleeve and was relieved of it a heartbeat later. Another man had joined the tussle in the corridor, moving easily past Saul, who sagged against the wall, to clap Felíne’s hands into twin iron cuffs at the small of her back.

“Unhand me!” she cried as she was forced to her knees.

Heavy metal was thrust over her head as well, caging her neck and skull in a contraption identical to the one that confined Kal.

“Rask, you traitorous squid,” Kal grunted as the male leaned a heavy knee into the space between Kal’s shoulder blades. “They said you left town.”

“I did,” the blond male, Rask, replied. “Then I came back.” He glanced up from where he leaned over Kal’s prone form to skewer Felíne with a furious blue glare. “I couldn’t leave to retrieve Railah without first securing justice in her name.”

Justice? For Kal’s mistake?

No, Felíne thought, realization dawning. Justice for my duplicity. For my lie. Through the haze of fear and adrenaline that day when she’d faced the grimalkin in the arena, Felíne remembered the face of a fair-haired man in the crowd—one who’d fired a crossbow into the pit, narrowly missing her.

That man had been Rask Harless. And Felíne had been his intended target.

Kal’s attention fixed on the man who had slipped into the hall and shackled Felíne’s hands. He strained against Rask’s weight, head reared away from the vicious barbs that ringed the inside of the metal cage and pressed into his neck. Despite his obvious state of duress, Kal’s blackened stare promised retribution. “Lucien,” Kal snarled, “you fucking coward.”

Felíne tensed as the bite of cold fingers dug into her arm from behind.

“Couldn’t bother to get your own hands dirty, could you, Cross?” Kal continued, straining. “Better to get someone else killed for your fucking scheming.”

Felíne craned to look over her shoulder, the barbs of the cage jamming into the side of her neck. Lucien Cross stood behind her—a slender man of average height with an entirely unremarkable face and dull brown eyes. Eyes that currently peered questioningly across the hall toward Rask.

“They’re outside,” Rask replied, answering the unspoken question. “Both dead.”

Lucien lowered his pitiless gaze to Kal, still belly down on the floor beneath Rask’s larger bulk. “Congratulations, Mr. Kaine,” Lucien said in his slippery voice. “You’ve added two counts of murder to your list of offenses.”

Beulah shoved forward. “What’s the meaning of this, Lucien?”

“He sent his fucking attack dogs to kill us,” Kal spat. “Not money well spent, though, was it, Cross?”

Beulah’s incredulous glower was severe. “You hired hitmen? Without the Conclave’s knowledge? Without Saul’s knowledge?”