From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Chapter 37
Not everyything was a lie.
Which part?
The storyy about Hawke’s brother? The rest of his familyy? Farming his
lands, and the caverns he used to explore as a child? That he’d been in love
before and had lost? Or all the things he’d said about me?
Whatever he said that was true didn’t matter. It shouldn’t as I paced
as far as the chains would allow, which was not veryy far at all.
After he’d left, I’d sat on the mattress and tried to sort truth from
fiction, which had felt impossible. Somehow, even more improbable, I had
drifted off to sleep. Myy mind hadn’t shut down, but myy bodyy had simplyy
given out on me. I’d slept until the nightmares drove me awake, myy
screams echoing off the stone walls.
It had been so long since the memoryy of the night of myy parents’
deaths had found me in sleep. That it would find me here was not at all
surprising.
I brushed several loose strands of hair back from myy face as I turned,
careful to not tangle myyself in the chains.
Mayybe…mayybe the Ascended were vampryys, created accidentallyy byy
the Atlantians. I could believe that. It seemed too much of an elaborate lie
to not be real. And I could believe that Lord Mazeen had been the cause of
Malessa’s death. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t capable of such crueltyy.
And gods, I believed what Hawke had said about how he’d gotten the
brand. Mayybe not the part where the Queen had been the one to deliver it,
nor what he’d been held for, but the rawness in his voice couldn’t be
forced. He’d been held against his will, and he’d been used in wayys even I
couldn’t comprehend.
Believing that didn’t mean everyything else he claimed was true. That
the Ascended were feeding off mortals, sequestering them in temples and
stealing into homes in the middle of the night to create Craven out of the