Claimed by the Prince of Darkness novel Chapter 221

Chapter 221: The Other Plan Disrupted

When Lucian arrived at the harbour, the cobblestones were left raised and the ground broken. He pushed the men away as he made his way forward. He could smell blood in the air and the closer he got, the darker his eyes turned until his eyes fell on the two bodies laid on the ground.

Lucian’s steps slowed before it came to a halt. For a long moment, he did not move at all.

One of them belonged to Dane and the other was Lachlan. His brother lay still on the ground, his face pale and covered in dirt, his once vibrant, mischievous eyes closed. And where his chest should have risen and fallen, a gaping and hollow wound sat there.

Lucian knelt down before his hand reached for his brother’s. Even though it was winter, his brother’s fingers were still cooling, as though death had only just finished its work. As though he had missed saving him by seconds.

Though the young Slater’s face betrayed nothing, something had been gutted just as cleanly as his brother’s chest. A wound that bled invisibly but endlessly, pooling somewhere deep beneath the surface of his aloof expression.

Lucian’s thumb moved once across the back of Dane’s hand and he caught sight of dirt beneath the nails. Dane would have complained about it. He always did. Even after returning from a hunt covered in blood, he would sit there picking the smallest speck from beneath his nails.

And when Dane didn’t move or comment on it, Lucian picked the dirt from beneath his nails himself.

With how peaceful his brother looked, one would think it wasn’t a painful death if it weren’t for the gaping hole.

When Lucian’s own body turned against him and everyone else looked at him as though he had become something monstrous, Dane had stayed. He had simply been his brother, consistently and entirely, in a world that had otherwise shifted beneath Lucian’s feet like sand.

"Don’t scare him away. He’s going to walk her down the aisle," Lucian had said earlier that morning, catching the sly look in Dane’s eye as Lachlan avoided his gaze across the breakfast table.

"Scare?" Dane’s answering chuckle echoed now at the back of his mind, warm and rich and utterly unrepentant. "If I wanted to scare him, little brother, I would have used far more creative methods. I’m merely letting him stew."

"I should have denied your offer today," Lucian whispered, too quietly for the people around him to hear.

He had known there was more behind Dane’s offer than simply accompanying Ruelle to the harbour. He had noticed the way his brother’s attention had begun to linger on her cousin, but he didn’t question it. Dane had always gone wherever his curiosity took him, and Lucian had never seen a reason to interfere. Besides, knowing his brother’s tastes and how easily his interests had come and gone over the years, he had doubted this one would be any different.

Yet now Lachlan lay dead beside him.

Regret began to seep through him like slow poison. It started in his chest and spread outward with the smoke like tendrils that put the other people there on guard.

"Where is Ruelle?" Lucian questioned, while his eyes were still on his brother.

The people around had no answer and they shifted where they stood. There was a pause before Peyton answered, "Ezekiel used her appearance to fool us..."

His fingers tightened around Dane’s cold hand and he finally stood up.

"We have already sent the men after the trail, sire!" an officer informed, but Lucian was aware of how useless people could be.

Claude and Peyton stood on the side, heads bowed low in shame, the weight of death pressing down on both their shoulders and the young woman missing. With so many bodies crowded near the harbour and so many conflicting scents tangled together, it had been nearly impossible to discern which scent belonged to whom.

"How did this happen, Peyton?" the officer demanded sharply, rounding on the vampiress who had been entrusted with guarding the human girl. "You must have gotten distracted. This is precisely why women are unfit for such jobs. Tch."

Peyton’s hands clenched at her sides, her jaw tightening, though she said nothing in her own defence. There was nothing to say. She had failed. That single truth sat heavier than any insult he could throw at her. They had all been standing near the food stall together until Dane had wandered off to speak with the harbour’s official about the recent break-in. After that the pureblooded vampire had disappeared.

"What a tragedy..." one of the officers muttered under his breath. His gaze moved to Dane’s body. "How did this person even manage to kill him in the first place? And to think no one noticed?"

"The killer must have been following them," whispered another person. "If it was coincidence, it was bad luck..."

"The young miss should have stayed put in the mansion rather than gone out to shop," Minister Gaile remarked in the corner, adjusting his coat with a disappointed shake of his head. "I mean, given how things have been as of late, it was rather reckless of her."

Lucian’s hand had closed around the minister’s throat with a force that lifted the man clean off his feet. His eyes had gone utterly black, while thick tendrils of inky darkness began to spread. The gathered men scrambled backward, tripping over one another in their haste to put distance between themselves and the enraged pureblooded vampire, who looked like he was hitting another corruption.

"I should blame Ruelle?" Lucian’s voice was low and raw with a fury. "Are you certain that is the conclusion you wish to draw, Minister? Should I, perhaps, punish you instead—for sending me off to work today when I could have been with her?"

"Lu—Lucian!" Minister Gaile’s hands scrabbled uselessly against Lucian’s wrist, his nails digging into unyielding skin as blood began to drip from the puncture wounds forming beneath Lucian’s grip.

Lucian looked at Minister Gaile as though there was no reason to keep him alive. The skin beneath his eyes had begun to change, dark markings spreading like roots beneath the surface.

"Lucian, let go of him!" Lord Azriel quickly rushed to his son’s side, though even he hesitated to touch the writhing shadows coiling around Lucian.

"Or should I blame my father instead?" Lucian continued, his grip tightening. "For agreeing work was more important so that no one suffers the way my family did? Or perhaps I should blame my brother—my dead brother—for volunteering to escort her? Or shall I blame myself for not being careful?"

"Is it easier for you," Lucian snarled, leaning in close enough that Minister Gaile’s face had turned an alarming shade of purple, "to simply blame the one who is still alive to hear it?"

He harshly pushed the minister, who stumbled gasping for air.

Lucian turned, his eyes falling on Lachlan, whose eyes carried a look of shock in them. He bent down before reaching out—his hand steady despite everything—and drew his palm gently over Lachlan’s eyes, closing them.

A few other figures belonging to the courthouse arrived in their fine coats and polished boots. They surveyed the shattered harbour with expressions ranging from bewilderment to carefully composed concern.

"How is there an earthquake in the middle of the winter?!" one of them questioned in confusion. His eyes swept over the damage before he instructed the men, "Have the place cleaned and cleared at once."

A hand settled gently on Lucian’s shoulder.

"Lucian."

It was Lord Azriel who tried to compose himself, as it wasn’t the time to falter. When Lucian did not respond, his hand tightened enough to anchor his youngest son. He advised,

"You need to find Ruelle. I will take Dane and Lachlan home."

Lucian’s jaw worked. His grip on Dane’s hand remained firm for a second longer before he finally forced his fingers to uncurl and let go. His brother was dead and Ruelle was somewhere he didn’t know yet, and suddenly there was very little left that Lucian cared to protect from himself.

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