Chapter 29
Lafayette continued to scream, blood pouring out of his mouth from the laceration.
Lafayette yelped again when Van retracted his nails from his hand.
Van used his free hand to toss Lafayette against the nearest wall, lifting him off his feet like he weighed nothing more than a plastic cup.
Once Lafayette smashed into the wall, his yelps were silenced, and he slid down the wall and crumpled to the floor without so much as a whisper.
I wondered if Van had just killed him, and Van must have thought similarly, because he walked over and knelt down beside Lafayette’s unmoving frame, lifting the man’s good hand and checking his pulse.
“He’s alive.” Van nodded, dropping Lafayette’s hand with abandon, turning back to look at me. “Which is far more than he deserves.” He wiped the disgusted sentiment from his face as his eyes turned into kind hues of violet. “Are you okay?”
I just nodded, unable to find my words. The sound of rustling behind me caused me to turn, seeing that Xoah had shed the other bullets from his body, no longer bleeding from the attempted assault as the wasted bullets embellished the marble floor.
Groaning, Xoah lifted himself off the floor once more as I turned back to see Van.
“Wow.” I heard Xoah say, Van slowly making his way over to me.
“I’ve never seen an olatsma’s true form but I never would have guessed that that’s what you guys look like.
” He scoffed, but his lips were upturned, clearly entertained.
“You look like a metallic chimera of different beasts. Fucking awesome.” Xoah smirked.
Van ignored the comment, stopping in front of me before he could reach me, like he’d wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around me to affirm that I was okay but he’d thought better of it because of how he currently looked. A sadness came over him, and it tore me up inside to see it.
Eliminating the space separating us, I ran up to him and threw my arms around him. Well, around him as much as was possible, given that he was now seven feet tall and practically a moving metallic statue.
Slowly, I felt his arms wrapping around me.
His new touch felt heavier, and it suddenly dawned on me what he’d meant about crashing the plane if he had shown me his true form when he’d first revealed that he wasn’t human.
Xoah was right, Van sort of was like a metal chimera of animals that humans were already familiar with.
Except way fucking cooler. His natural form was sleek, dangerous, and above all, most surprisingly to me, hot.
He really was something to marvel at, my metal chimera man.
My eyes flared against his chest. I’d just thought of Van as mine.
Instead of tossing the thought aside and thinking I was being ridiculous like I normally would, I told myself that Van was mine.
Isn’t that what I’d been feeling all this time we’d been hooking up and spending time together?
I wasn’t shying away from that anymore, especially now that I’d had the honor of witnessing what he looked like without his human illusion.
When I finally came out of Van’s embrace to stare up at him, his eyes were glistening that beautiful purple, full of emotion.
“My true form doesn’t scare you?” His voice was raw and vulnerable, even through the dual tones that it now made, making my chest hurt.
Smirking, I reached up and stroked his cheek, feeling that his metallic skin was the softest thing I’d ever touched in my entire life.
His little metal feathers seemed to move around my touch, accommodating my intrusion.
Staring into his eyes, I shook my head. “Nothing about you could ever scare me, Vanguard.” His full name on my tongue seemed to soften his eyes, tears threatening to drop at any second.
Before he could speak, I decided to just let it all out into the open.
No more withholding. I shook my head again.
“Not when I have such strong feelings for you.”
He took a small shocked inhale, his purple eyes wavering again. “You…having feelings for me?”
“Of course I do.” I chuckled emotionally, feeling my own tears about to stream down my face. “I was terrified to say it, to admit it. But it’s true. I know it’s complicated as hell, but—”
“Alistair,” He cupped my face, staring into my blue eyes like they were his salvation, making my body heat from within all over.
“Hold on.” He stepped back, rolling his horned shoulders.
I took a step back as the violet light washed over him, his body beginning to retract to the usual view of him I was used to.
His body rumbled unnaturally as the purple light kept washing over him and he was back to wearing his human illusion.
Back to being the Van I’d first met all those months ago.
His pants fit looser on him, but he was still covered, despite his hairy chest being quite the distraction.
He gave me a deep smile as he cradled my jaw between his rugged hands. “I have feelings for you too.”
Relief coated my heart, and I decided to let my actions speak for once.
I pressed my lips against his, my arms finally allowed to wrap around his human illusion.
His hands scoured my back, pulling me closer into his kiss as our lips smashed and melded against each other.
It wasn’t until our tongues started to find each other from our passionate kiss that we both heard the sound of a throat being cleared.
We pulled apart instantly, both our heads swiveling to where Xoah was standing, staring at us with his arms crossed. “Hello, I’m still here? At least wait until I leave to have sex.”
I rolled my eyes as Van scoffed, both of us falling into a light laughter. As much as I didn’t want to, my eyes wandered over to where Lafayette still remained, unmoving but still breathing.
“We should probably deal with him.” Van scoffed.
“Right,” I said back, just glad that my life was no longer being threatened and Van and I were on the same page about how we felt about one another.
“You call the police, I’ll call Priyanka.
” Van had already agreed, reaching into his tattered pants to dial his phone when I realized I didn’t have one of my own.
“Shit, I forgot Lafayette broke my phone.”
“You can use mine.” Xoah offered, pulling out his phone from his own pocket. I swear, for someone that had just been shot five times, Xoah seemed very unbothered and unfazed. “Assuming you know her number by heart.”
I assured him that I did, thanking him for letting me use his phone. “Thanks Xoah. I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”
Surprisingly, Xoah shrugged. “It’s fine. If there was ever a bigger sign that I should definitely be giving up flying, this was it.”
“I know what you mean,” I looked around the mess of Lafayette’s quest, seeing the disarray that was drowning in my home as Van’s voice started to fill the space as he connected with the police, walking into the kitchen to be heard.
“I’m taking this as a sign too, that I should get out of Nashville. ”
Xoah smiled, flicking his hand toward the phone still residing in my palm. “Hurry up and call your friend. Getting shot’s made me terribly hungry.”
Laughing, I shook my head at him and started to dial Priyanka’s number.
The next few hours were hectic as hell. The three of us were able to recount the events to the police, in excruciating detail.
When Van had admitted that he was an olatsma and had revealed his true form to protect us, the police looked like they wanted to ask to see it, so they could accurately understand how he’d managed to subdue Lafayette, but they’d held their tongues.
Speaking of tongues or lack thereof, Lafayette had been carted off in the back of a police car. He was still unconscious through all the commotion, and the police told us that he’d be dealt with, as everyone was getting fed the fuck up with the Rhodes family in general.
Come to find out, Lafayette had paid some guy to talk Priyanka’s ear off as a distraction back at The Gab so that he could take the time to force me back to my house, where he could enact his plan to kill me.
He’d also tasked the guy he paid with stealing her phone, but that hadn’t happened.
The guy had been helping the police to build a case against Lafayette piece by piece.
What sucked about the situation was that Veronica had no clue what her husband had been up to.
She’d been none the wiser about his master plan, being horrified when she’d learned the news.
Veronica had called me personally, after I’d managed to get a new phone, to apologize for his actions.
Which I appreciated, but I politely told her what I’d been wanting to since I’d met them: I had no interest in being involved with anyone bearing the last name of Rhodes.
Even if I did, what was going to happen?
From what Lafayette had said, my birth father was on the brink of death.
Was I going to fly across the country and meet him on his deathbed?
No. I had no fucking interest in that. And as far as the so-called money he’d been worried about me getting, I didn’t give a shit.
I’d made a name for myself out of absolutely nothing, and I didn’t need the Rhodes name to keep making it happen.
Like I’d said before, I wouldn’t take a dime from the Rhodes family unless I was giving it to charity.
More than that, with all this behind me, I felt free. My mother was gone, I’d been left the gift of returning to Phoebe in her wake, and I was free to develop my next move. And my next move was living my life.