Chapter 22 Cassius #2
But a red glow shone, preventing it from closing, just as Sylas stumbled across the threshold, one hand fisted in Lazriel’s hair, his other grasping his rear as the two of them basically devoured one another’s mouths.
“Sorry, Cor. Just finishing up something,” Sylas spoke, between licking, nipping, and kissing Lazriel.
“I’m sure you can understand,” he said, as he shoved Lazriel onto the top of an empty desk on the edge of the aisle, then stepped between his spread thighs, actually grinding against him right there in class.
Some students looked on with erotic intrigue, but none seemed surprised, which said a great deal. Mostly about Sylas, I was sure, given his reputation as a maverick who strode to the beat of his own drum. Half his trouble without a doubt.
Given that Sylas clearly believed that Cornelius was teaching this class, it made sense that he’d think himself above being reprimanded.
Sylas was a key member of Cornelius Martel’s Arcanum Order.
Also, it was well known that Cornelius was very public with his affections for his husband, Warlow, hence Sylas’ line, “I’m sure you can understand. ”
“Not Cornelius Martel, Sylas,” I spoke.
He stilled, recognizing my voice.
As he pulled from Lazriel and turned, I flinched at the sight of black lipstick marks all over his jaw and throat.
Lazriel didn’t wear lipstick and with me feeling their erotic play with Velra, it was very clearly hers. Fresh lipstick. She’d been all over him just moments ago.
When Lazriel pushed off the desk and turned to me also, I saw he was boasting the same marks.
I couldn’t help it, I flinched.
My stomach roiled and I had to clench my fists to prevent myself from reacting in a more obvious way.
Lazriel’s eyes were wide with surprise as he took me in.
But Sylas… his narrowed and fury burned out at me.
“Take a seat,” I spoke, flicking my magic at the door again. This time with more power than necessary, making it slam with a definitive and rather showy display of might.
The two of them took a few moments to get over their shock at me standing here, and then they settled into the two-seater desk.
Lazriel stared at me curiously, clearly connecting his talk with me days ago to me being on campus now.
Sylas continued to glare at me with seething anger, rapping his fingers sparking with his magic on the desktop, neither the threat nor the message in it lost on me.
Hmm. He was agitated that I’d revealed his sickness to Lazriel.
Well, it didn’t seem to have impacted their relationship if the display just now was anything to go by. Or what I’d felt the other morning from Velra’s end where the three of them had come together.
He had to wield control at all times and I’d taken that from him with what I’d done. Just as he’d done to me when he’d sent the wolf hybrid to my door.
I looked away and focused on the task at hand.
Personal matters could not be given attention at this juncture. I had a job to do.
Clearing my throat, I settled in the magical circle and began, “Welcome to Ritual Ethics & Celestial Lawfare. I am Professor Ashmoor.” I clasped my hands behind my back.
“This class will cover the philosophy of power. When to use it, when to employ restraint, as well as the cost of both. You will benefit from an inside look at Celestial doctrines. We will also explore free will versus duty: ethical decision-making in crisis, and moral paralysis versus necessary intervention.”
I saw students writing away, already immersed.
“The Celestial Plane mistook structure for righteousness. It led to the downfall of that plane and the True Celestials as we once knew them. Its laws no longer protected the innocent. Rituals once bound by oath were later bound by compulsion. They used magic to enforce what will no longer could. In doing so, they sacrificed sanctity for certainty." I shook my head. “Power has the ability to corrupt even those who believe themselves infallible and above such things.” I gestured at the textbook they’d all placed on their desks. “If you’ll turn to Section 3B, we will discuss the Celestial Plane’s transition from will-bound law to magical enforcement—the first step on the road to their decay and enforcement of oppression on their own and this mortal realm.
Let us begin with The Original Four Types of Celestial Beings: Visionaries, Healers, Anchors, Guardians. ”
I smiled inwardly as I noticed that I had the attention of the entire class already.
This was clearly a topic they were deeply interested in.
That made sense, given that so much about the Celestial Plane had been either hidden in secrecy. With the Severance and the awful things that had almost come to pass, knowledge was key now. And these students were some of the first to get the chance to become informed.
Hmm. This was going to be much more pleasant and… dare I say it… enjoyable than I’d envisioned.
I threw myself into the lecture, strangely becoming much more evocative with my words and my motions, not just keeping my hands clasped, and I was rewarded by surging interest and frantic notetaking from my students, many even raising their hands to ask impressively astute questions.
Through it all, I felt Sylas’ fury burning a hole into me, but I compartmentalized it away.
I wasn’t going to allow anything to ruin this unexpected pleasant experience.
I’d had so few of them that I knew their worth more than most.
I responded appropriately as several students waved to me on their way out of class.
I’d assigned two sections for them to read in order to prepare for the next lecture.
We’d move into specific tasks and assignments once more of a base had been established with which to draw from.
I looked up as I overwrote the magic of the levitating texts in preparation for the next professor, as a shadow fell over me.
Lazriel Thaine.
“This is your way of finally doing what I asked, huh?” he spoke, eyeing me curiously.
“What you asked of me? Is that really how you wish to phrase it?”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
I leaned against the desk and folded my arms across my chest. “I will no longer be enforcing a distance between myself and Velra. Does that satisfy you?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered, honestly.
I frowned. “Why is that?”
“She doesn’t like surprises. You must know that. And you showing up here unceremoniously like this is gonna qualify as even beyond that—more like an earth-shattering sort of shock.”
Was it? Was this not what he’d communicated she needed?
Was it not what Velra had wanted, what she’d grieved when I’d cut off contact between us?
Before I could answer, Sylas stormed down the gangway. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“Sylas,” Lazriel urged, going to him, and somehow posing as the voice of calm reasoning.
“I understand why you are vexed and—”
A spark of his magic pulled me up short, and then he was sweeping the two of us up in teleportation.
I jolted as we rematerialized in a secluded area formed by heavy foliage at the edge of campus.
“You petty motherfucker!” Sylas shouted at me, fisting his hands in my tee.
I shoved him back with enough strength to send him stumbling several feet away before he managed to catch his balance.
“It wasn’t out of pettiness that I revealed your situation. But you shouldn’t have sent him my way in that manner.”
“He needed it. And you fucking needed it. The fact you took it as a slight and a threat says a fuck of a lot about just how demented and ill-equipped you are.”
I flinched as his words managed to slice far too deep. “Check yourself.”
“The fuck I will. Dropping that bomb on him like that… you deserve every bit of my wrath. Telling him I’m fucking dying!”
“You are.”
“I’m treating it. It’s stable.”
That was something he told himself to make believe his situation wasn’t as dire as it truly was. And, as it appeared now, something he might actually have convinced himself as being the truth.
“You almost fucked all over what I was building with him. You almost fucked all over everything!”
“That wasn’t my intention. And did you really believe you could have built something of substance without revealing the truth of your condition?”
A burst of movement cut across my line of vision, and then Lazriel was right beside Sylas. “Shit, you’re hard to track when you teleport in a fury,” he breathed.
“Leave us,” Sylas said, not looking at him, his irate glare focused on me.
“Yeah, I can’t be doing that. Not when you’ve got that murderous glint in your eyes. Let’s take it down, okay?”
“You’re counseling me on reining in my anger?” Sylas asked with disbelief, his gaze briefly flicking to him.
I realized the brevity of it, him trying not to look too long at Lazriel, was because Lazriel did have the ability to impact him, to calm him—something he absolutely didn’t want at the moment.
No. He wanted to punish.
And, as with his vigilante work, he was determined not to stop until that objective was complete.
It was foolish in this case, given what I was.
How did he hope to achieve his goal in punishing the likes of me?
Somebody with my power could not—
His magic sparked, startling me.
"Mors omnes tangit," he uttered. Death touches all.
I jolted as a searing pain tore across my chest, and I looked down to see my shirt ripped from pec to pec, blood oozing from a deep gash he’d just drawn.
I eyed him and saw his magic was that deep crimson mixed with a darker edge—high-level necromantic power at work. Certainly nothing to sneer at.
It took a lot to make me bleed.
So it was more than just a little bit shocking to me.
It stalled my reaction time, and then that searing pain ripped across my left cheek as he drew more blood.
“Sylas,” I hissed in warning.
A snarl sounded from Lazriel and I shot a look out at him to see his fangs dropping.
His eyes were flaming.
He scented the air deeply.
Me.
My Immortal blood.
Hades.
In the next moment, he was bursting toward me with a sudden, ravenous hunger.
I saw Sylas make a move to grab him, but it was too late.
It all happened so fast and before I knew it, Lazriel’s fangs were sinking into my flesh, his tongue lapping at my blood at the same time somehow.
He was frantic.
Unhinged.
A beast unleashed.
At first there was only pain and the violation of it.
The sensation was completely new to me—shocking and beyond overwhelming.
But those flicks of his tongue… they added something more. And, as I clamped my hands down on his shoulders to rip him off me, I hesitated.
Other sensations sparked.
Pleasure.
Pleasure in the pain?
No. It was the way he was devouring me so desperately, so incredibly all-consuming, how badly he needed me in this moment.
His draw slowed a little, but it wasn’t his rabid state calming. It was him deepening it, the feed taking on another level, becoming about more than merely ingesting my prized blood.
I was vaguely aware of Sylas yelling, trying to talk Lazriel down, trying to even appeal to me to use my Immortal strength to extricate myself from his unexpected situation.
His magic flared.
But then shadows wove around Lazriel, sweeping around his head, down to his mouth, spilling inside.
He choked and pulled his fangs from my flesh, then staggered back as the shadows moved to his throat, down to his shoulders, until they were encompassing his entire body, then binding him within them.
He thrashed and roared, and even howled in protest.
And then she materialized.
Her back to me, she spoke calmly to Sylas.
“Get him some blood bags. Now. Mix it with his favored whiskey from his dorm room.” She gestured at me behind her.
“I’ll deal with him.” She reached out, making me tense for her safety as she stroked Lazriel’s cheek while he was in a rabid state only held there by her shadow magic.
“It will be okay, sweets. You’ll be okay.
I’ll see you in a little while. Drink and relax. ”
His eyes flickered, his humanity briefly breaking through, before he then started snarling and struggling again.
Velra reached behind her and grasped my hand, her teleportation enveloping us.
Her head tilted slightly toward me. I saw it then—the barely suppressed anguish in her eyes. It wasn’t just about Lazriel. It was about me too. About the sight of me bleeding, hurting. Her grip on my hand tightened.
In the midst of it, just before it took us, she told Sylas, “Now.” Then she dropped her shadow magic, Sylas snagged Lazriel with his, then she swept us away.