Chapter 10 Rest
Rest
Two weeks later…
Ryder looked over at Grayson’s sleeping form.
His beloved looked fully at peace, not as he had when their king had forced him to rest a fortnight ago.
In the beginning, Grayson’s face had been tense, grimacing, even in sleep as he fought things in his dreams and staved off whatever imaginary fears he had for their future and his past.
Slowly, but surely, as Grayson spent most of his time at the Weryn Palace when he wasn’t with the students, those grimaces had faded and his expression had smoothed out into true laxness.
It culminated in this moment where he appeared like a sleeping prince with no worries or concerns to trouble him.
“You’re watching me sleep again,” Grayson murmured without opening his eyes.
Ryder drew two fingers along Grayson’s cheek.
They were both resting on their sides, facing one another, in the incredibly large bed in his bedroom suite in the Weryn Palace.
Furs were piled on top of them. Plump pillows were under their heads.
Crimson curtains were drawn partially back so that they could see the crackling fire and glimpse the warm, wood floors of the room.
Even with a palace rapidly filling up with Vampires, it felt like they were alone here.
“I am,” Ryder admitted. “I find it very peaceful to watch you sleep.”
Grayson smiled. “I am relaxed, though I shouldn’t be. There’s so much to do. And this lull in the Sect’s attacks worries me more than I can say.”
A slight tensity entered Grayson’s relaxed form. Ryder stiffened at it, but forced himself to breathe and let it go.
“We have found no sign of any continuing presence of the Sect in Nightvallen, but that is good in some ways. Namely, they are not here to cause trouble,” Ryder said carefully.
“None that were not let in through other channels,” Grayson reminded him. “Daemon has not let me use my powers on everyone.”
He had not allowed Grayson to use his powers at all. Though Ryder would never have thought it, there was a fragility to Grayson that he had allowed himself not to see.
“He needs to be turned,” Daemon had said to Ryder the other day.
Daemon, Julian, Siban and Ryder had met in the woods as both Ryder and Siban were now working with Julian on his second and third forms. Right at that moment, Siban and Julian were practicing shifting from human to animal to human again with little time in between.
Julian no longer needed a push. He heard their laughter as Julian shifted only partially and had a large fluffy tail attached to a very human body.
He’d never heard Siban laugh so much, but they were opening up more and more every day.
And Julian just had that effect on people.
Theirs was not a stuffy, arrogant, distant prince, but one with so much life and kindness in him that Ryder felt energized by it.
But that energy found an angry output in that moment.
“Then tell him that,” Ryder responded with a touch more exasperation that he should have with his king to be completely respectful.
He grimaced and bowed his head. “I apologize, my king. My frustration is getting ahead of me.” He was leaning against a tree and he shifted his weight impatiently. “But it’s hard seeing him… struggling.”
“I know. And you are right that if I were to tell him to find a Master and turn, he would do it,” Daemon responded.
“But?”
Ryder stared hard at the most powerful of Immortals, the being he would do anything for. He forced himself not to wonder which Master their king would want for Grayson.
“But Ashyr is not wrong in his assessment. As a seemingly helpless human and a favorite of yours, he draws Legion’s attention most effectively. It keeps the other students quite a bit safer,” Daemon answered. “Not to mention through his aid, we have caught three of their people already.”
“And we’ve learned quite a bit from them, but not the most important things. Even with Caemorn stripping them down to their souls.” Ryder shuddered.
He truly liked Caemon now, but his abilities were a bit terrifying. He knew how helpless one could be in the hands of the Kaly Vampire.
“Yes, Legion has effectively cordoned their people off from one another. They only know what they must and no more. They receive instructions through dead drops so they never meet those in other cells or those above them.” Daemon tented his fingers.
“You sound like you admire them,” Ryder growled.
Anything to do with Legion got his back up. The desire to grind them into the ground was the only emotion he felt from his past. Considering that Legion had sent people to harm Grayson he was fully on board with that plan.
Daemon chuckled. “Oh, Weryn, you did create them for the very purpose of waging war.”
“Not against us,” Ryder reminded him.
Daemon shrugged as his eyes went to where Julian and Siban were wrestling in their animal forms in the grass. “No, not against us. But often the student feels they must overcome the master to achieve masterhood themselves.”
Ryder pushed off of the tree. “Aren’t you angry? Not just that Legion is working against us, but that I…”
Here words failed him. Daemon’s gaze slid back to him. His expression was surprisingly filled with sadness.
“Weryn, I have asked you to be my Soldier for many millennia. Every time I think we face a foe that we cannot win against, you would find a way to overcome them,” Daemon said. “So when Kaly acted, you reacted and you did what you always do: find a way to win.”
“I did not win,” Ryder’s voice was low and thick. Emotions clogged his throat.
Daemon put a hand on his shoulder much like he had with Grayson. The weight and warmth of that hand seeped into Ryder’s skin and he felt the urge to prostate himself in front of his king and offer his throat. He also felt like weeping.
“The guilt you carry is so heavy. But, in the end, it was all my decision to leave you to your own devices,” Daemon confessed. His red eyes glowed like witchfires in the dark. “So everything that occurred after that decision is my fault.”
“No, my king, you could not know how we would behave–”
“But I could have,” Daemon interrupted him. “I could have known everything–most everything–but I chose to know nothing.”
“You were in a great deal of pain,” Ryder said.
“You would find excuses for me, but not for yourself, Weryn.” Daemon squeezed his shoulder.
“I wish you would allow yourself some grace, some understanding. All my beloved friends are suffering.” Daemon’s eyes went distant as if he were looking at some far off horizon.
“But all of us shall find some solace in cleaning up our mistakes.”
“Is that what we’re doing now? Is that what your or Seeyr foresees?” Ryder pressed.
Daemon kissed his forehead and drifted over to Julian and Siban leaving Ryder looking after him.
Grayson’s voice brought him back to the present as he said, “Are we certain they’re gone from the Ever Dark? Or have they simply moved so deep into it that we can’t find them? The Ever Dark is so vast. It would be easy to get lost in.”
“I’m sure it would. But it’s also dangerous as all the hells and just as easy to die in,” Ryder pointed out.
“Keeping themselves and enough Acolytes alive to satisfy them would be quite the task. A task I don’t believe could be accomplished for all that long.
The creatures are coming back towards Nightvallen.
Brought here by the allure of human and Vampire blood.
The Sect’s position was overrun weeks ago from what I can tell. ”
“Did you smell Legion there?”
“I did. But they mostly kept to their shifted form, which made it harder to track them,” Ryder answered.
Faint frown lines appeared between Grayson’s brows. Ryder smoothed them out again by caressing the lines away.
“What is Legion’s animal form?” Grayson asked.
“A monster.”
“Your voice when you say that… You think of Legion themselves as a monster,” Grayson intuited.
“A monster of my own making.”
Guilt corkscrewed within him again. It was all well and good for Daemon to claim the majority of the responsibility for what happened by choosing to go to sleep.
But no one held a gun to the Immortals’ heads to do what they’d done.
He had certainly done his acts in cold blood.
Madness or no, he had known what he was doing when he brought Legion into existence.
And the fact that their animal form was a dread creature from the Ever Dark epitomized what they were inside and out.
“Amaris and Kayne have organized patrols while Demos and Siban are interviewing more of my Bloodline,” Ryder continued. “No one will be able to get within a ten-square mile radius of Nightvallen without one of my people knowing it.”
“You people. Sounds so good. More and more of them arrive everyday,” Grayson opened his eyes as he said this and there was a genuine smile on his face. “They all want to be with their Immortal.”
“It is a surprise. A welcome one, to be sure. But a surprise,” Ryder grunted.
He remembered when it had just been him, Demos and Siban. A pack of three. They were still his most trusted advisors and took a lead role in determining who was pack and who wasn’t. He couldn’t have asked for two better judges of character. And they were utterly loyal to him.
“Your old pack, I know you disowned them, but I thought I caught sight of a few of them downstairs,” Grayson said just as carefully as he had spoken about not finding the Sect.
“A few,” he admitted and stroked Grayson’s hair.
“I find myself less… angry than I was with them. When I look at how changed Caemorn and Balthazar are after ridding themselves of their terrible Masters and finding new meaning and a new way of being in each other… Well, I realized that I wished to see if that was possible for those turned by Lawson.”
Grayson’s eyes narrowed. “But they’re still on probation, aren’t they?”