Chapter 15 Cassius
~Cassius~
“Not again.”
I looked up from my meal—a chicken pot pie that Ketheron and I had actually managed to make rather well. It wasn’t only just barely edible food this time, it was delightfully scrumptious.
A laugh burst from me when I saw that his fingers were coated in marshmallow stickiness.
“You were playing with them too much again before consuming them.”
“I was,” he admitted.
He rose to wash his hands, only to halt at the heavy thud on our apartment door.
I frowned. We’d already spent a great deal of time with Ariana and one of her loves, Nyx, today, so it wouldn’t be her. And she wouldn’t knock so harshly. Even though she could literally punch her fist through both the ward and the door in one definitive move.
It wouldn’t be Vorzyr because he would never come to see me. We’d technically made our peace after I’d assaulted him, his loves, and taken Ariana from them briefly when I’d first descended to this plane to do the Celestial Plane’s bidding, but he still held a bit of a grudge.
And it certainly wasn’t Kai. Even his knock was sarcastic and drenched in ego. Not fierce and brutal like this one we’d just heard.
As for Ryker Morgan or anyone else from the higher echelons of the supernatural world’s command structures, they always warned us if they were intending to come by.
“Who is it?” I asked Ketheron.
He frowned and then scented with the vampiric and draconic aspects of his multi-hybridized nature. “The same scent you had on you after you visited the Wraeven Academy campus a couple of nights ago and cloaked yourself in that pit.”
“Graverun.”
“Yes. That.”
“It’s Lazriel?”
He nodded. “That’s the name you mentioned. The wolf-vampire hybrid.”
I raised an eyebrow. This was a move of attempted dominance on the youngling’s part.
Not the normal way a wolf—or a young, impetuous vampire—would assert dominance. It was much more restrained and civil, yet also calculative.
Of course. Sylas Morgrave.
He’d very likely encouraged this.
With an irritated grunt, I rose to my feet.
Ketheron swiftly rinsed his hands, then followed as I strode to the door and opened it to find the hot-headed chaos machine that was Lazriel Thaine on our doorstep.
He was dressed in his tactical gear, his ready-for-anything garb, which I considered violently provocative to all those around him—his need to ensure everybody knew he was ready for battle at a moment’s notice. Both a challenge and a deterrent in equal measure.
And dangerous.
Dangerous and foolishly volatile.
His eye twitched as he took me in, seeming surprised at the sight of me in merely a charcoal tee and a pair of black lounge pants, slippers on my feet.
“Cassius,” he uttered, like he could barely stand to say my name.
“Wolf hybrid,” Ketheron spoke. “Hello. Nice to meet you.”
Lazriel looked to the side of me to take in Ketheron standing there in his sweats. He raised an eyebrow at the molten slivers all over his skin—perhaps they reminded him of the scars all over his own body, many that were visible on his arms, his throat, even his face.
“Hey. Same,” he told Ketheron, in a much more pleasant tone than that which he’d used with me. He turned his attention back to me. “Figured I’d bring this conversation to your door, seeing as though you’ve ignored all my other more peaceable efforts to make it convenient for us both.”
Yes. Definitely Sylas’ influence all over that line.
“Good idea. That’s very proactive,” Ketheron commented, a moment before he swept a glowing gold hand over the doorway, which created a path through the ward, allowing Lazriel passage.
I ground my jaw.
Lazriel smiled at Ketheron again, then stepped into our apartment.
“What can I do for you?” I asked, wanting to move this along and get him out of here as soon as possible.
“You know very well that I’m here about Velra.”
My stomach twisted at the sound of her name, especially with it rolling off his tongue.
And especially because I’d literally felt the sexual liaison between them through our Brand. Now the one who’d touched her like that was right here before me.
“She is not my concern.”
“Bullshit.”
“Check yourself, wolf hybrid,” I commanded.
That only made him seethe at me.
Ketheron turned to me. “He is greatly distressed, yet holding very tightly to his control, trying hard to push past his innate wolf and vampiric instincts to react with aggression or violence.”
Translation: I needed to tone it down.
I shifted my weight and took a moment, annoyed with the situation and myself for reacting so strongly—and rather emotionally—to this encounter.
The more time that went on while I remained now rooted to this plane, the harder it became to check my emotions, to continue to be able to bury them beneath my polished and stoic exterior.
Especially where anything pertaining to Velra Nox was concerned.
Somehow, I managed to tell the wolf hybrid calmly, “Please continue.”
He folded his arms across his chest, apparently settling in.
“Look, Sylas thinks this weird-ass connection between you isn’t as cut and dry as you might be worried about.
He thinks it might be a good thing for her to have in her life, something to be furthered and used in a positive way between the two of you.
” He muttered under his breath, “As much as it pisses me off, if it can help her, I’ll deal with it. ”
“I don’t want her unnecessarily impacted by our Soul Brand. It’s not fair to her.”
“I informed you that the Brand does not impact her free will in the way you were concerned about,” Ketheron spoke.
Hades.
He was merely stating a fact, not liking it when things were incorrect. He wasn’t trying to undermine me, I knew that. But it really hadn’t helped.
I shoved my hand through my hair. “Ketheron,” I groaned. “May I have a moment with Lazriel—alone?”
He nodded. “If you wish.”
He waved at Lazriel, much like the children at Haven Initiative did when saying goodbye for the day. And then he took off into his room and shut the door.
Lazriel stepped up to me. “Hold up, you already know what Sylas suspected was actually the case, and you’ve still hung back and kept away from her, abandoned her and the connection you know damn well she formed with you?
A connection that takes great courage for her, that doesn’t come easy to her, and means a fuck of a lot to her when it actually happens for her?
Why? Are you nothing but a fucking coward? ”
“Why is this of concern to you—and Sylas?”
“Velra is afraid. Afraid of getting close, including sexually.”
I jolted at his brazen phrasing.
Before I could even begin to reconcile it, he continued all too quickly, “It’s not just survival mode now or rooted directly in her trauma.
I mean, not from the standpoint of being afraid to get close.
She wants to. But her power… she can’t control it in those circumstances and it leaks out, lashes out.
It hurt me. Not that I care. I kind of… enjoy it.
But she cares. And Sylas believes you are the key to being able to help her to remedy that, to ease that fear. ”
“Because of what I can feel through our Soul Brand.”
“Yeah.”
I turned from him, needing a moment.
“Cassius,” he pushed, not even allowing me that.
The impetuousness of a wolf… Hades, it was infuriating.
“She’s not supposed to need me,” I spoke over my shoulder.
“Get over yourself. Velra doesn’t really need anyone—not in the way you mean, anyway. She just could do with a little guidance, and that seems to be something you can provide.”
Insolent little—
I couldn’t stop myself, I started toward him, towering over him, literally seething down at him.
And he simply stared.
Steadily.
Unaffected.
And with such determination.
For her.
All for her.
Curses!
I stepped back, breathing heavily. “I will consider it.”
“Consider it? That’s it?”
“Yes. You’re fortunate that you’re even getting that.”
His gaze darted behind me and the next thing I knew, he was employing his vampiric speed to burst behind me to the entryway table. I spun to see him snatching up my photo of Velra. “She’s not your concern, huh?”
I’d put it there, intending to discard it, a symbol, really, of finally fully letting go of my sentiment toward her.
But it had been three days and I’d still yet to manage it, the photo remaining on that little table instead—frozen in space and time.
“Put it down,” I ground out.
Of course, he didn’t.
He held it up for me to see instead, weaponizing it, as he made me look at it—at her.
“You pulling away like that really hurt her. For somebody claiming they’re trying to safeguard her, you’re sure doing a piss-poor job of it.
And you don’t get to decide what she needs, what’s best for her—she’s a grown fucking woman.
Get a clue and lose that toxic mindset. I’ll get you a book if it helps. ”
“What sort of book?”
He stilled. “You… fuck me, the fact you’re asking…
yeah, expect a book in the mail. The magical mail.
I’ll have Sylas send it over.” He finally put the picture down, although failing to hide a longing look at it as he did so.
Then his harshness returned as he told me, “Sort this shit out in your mind and do something. Help her. And don’t take an age about it, or next time, it’ll be Sylas at your door. ”
“Sylas won’t challenge me.”
He scoffed. “Of course he will. It’s what he does. And he gets off on doing it. I thought you knew him.”
“I do. He won’t challenge me because I saved his life.”
He shifted his weight. “What are you talking about? Why would somebody like him need that level of help?”
Interesting. “I was under the impression that the two of you were intimate.”
“Wow, your bravado about not being interested in Velra is falling apart all over the place. You’ve been spying on us—the men in her life.”
“Take your leave.”
Instead, he stepped up to me. “How did you save his life? What happened?”
It wasn’t really my place to tell. However, Sylas shouldn’t have sent him my way. As such, if it would help to remove him from my vicinity and provide me time to determine my course of action regarding Velra now that Lazriel had brought this to my door, so be it.
“He is unwell.”
He choked at my words. “What are you talking about? No. No, that’s not true.”
“You can’t smell it on him?”
“All I smell is that potent scent of Bergamot.”
Ah, he was masking his scent with magic. “That is an illusion. More specifically, a glamor. Sylas doesn’t care for demonstrating any sort of weakness, so that makes a great deal of sense.”
“How serious is it, then?”
“He is gravely ill, youngling.”
“No. No. He seems… normal. Strong. Powerful.”
“You haven’t witnessed his magic fritzing?”
I saw the realization flare in his eyes. He had seen it. Sylas had of course written it off, likely claiming it was over-exertion, that he was tired, something along those lines.
Lazriel clenched his fists, his eyes darting around erratically.
“Just… sort your shit out where Velra is concerned,” he spoke, a moment before he burst back through the door and disappeared with his vampiric speed.
I closed the door and sealed the ward with a flick of my magic, then sank against the wall heavily.
Hades.