Chapter 24 Sylas
~Sylas~
Fuck! Motherfucker! Fuck me!
“I’m fine.”
I blinked and looked out at Lazriel finishing off the fifth blood bag I’d conjured for him, squeezing out the last few drops.
Off my look, he added with a quirk of his lips. “Now, I mean.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face.
“That was… whew… so that’s what Immortal blood is all about. Holy fucking shit.” He had a starry-eyed look as he uttered the words.
He was high.
Unequivocally affected and awfully high on Immortal blood.
“He relaxed into it, you know?”
“What?”
“Cassius… as I deepened the draw, he was into it.”
I frowned. “You’re sure?”
“Shit, yeah. I felt it. No doubt about it.”
That was… interesting.
I didn’t get more time to think on it as Lazriel tossed his finished blood bag on the floor at the foot of his bed—because, of course—then leapt up and executed a backflip onto the mattress and threw his hands in the air with a whoop.
“Take a breath and try to relax. You ingested a mass amount of his blood.”
So much that if Cassius hadn’t been Celestial born, he likely would have died. And then I would have needed to pull some necromantic death violation magic in order to pull him back from the Valley of the Dead. The fact he was so deeply tethered to Velra would have put her at risk too.
And it would have been solely my fault.
Absolutely not Lazriel’s.
I was the one who’d lost their fucking mind and not only struck an Immortal being, but made him bleed twice, and right in the presence of a vampire. And a vampire who didn’t feed from vein, the shock of Immortal blood in the air being all the more intense and wholly overwhelming as a result.
I, Sylas Morgrave, had lost control.
And that had cost Lazriel.
It had hurt him.
In his high state he wasn’t feeling that or acknowledging it, but once the effects of Cassius’ blood faded, I had no doubt that he would.
One of his greatest fears and the reason he discounted his vampire side a great deal, was losing control of the demon within, which was exactly what had happened with Cassius. All because of me.
Fuck, I felt sick with it.
Lazriel snagged my hands. “Come on. Wanna take a ride with me?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “You know what kind of ride I’m getting at?”
“Yes, that’s abundantly clear.”
“Then, come on, strip that hot-as-hell body naked and get up here on your back so I can ride your cock like a real demon.”
My body heated at his words, but I pulled my hands free.
That didn’t help, because then he ripped his shirt off. Literally ripped through it with his claws. And then his wild gaze held mine as he grasped his pants and went to open them.
“Stop.”
“Stop?” he asked, unable to read the room in his current state. “You, nympho necromancer, don’t want to fuck? I mean, normally you know I can go all night, but now, the way I’m feeling, we’re talking non-stop all the way into the next day as well.”
“I’m not feeling well, Lazriel,” I lied. Well, sort of.
That managed to get through. “You’re desiccating?
” He jumped off the bed and came to me, then abruptly ripped my shirt open, buttons flying everywhere in his haste and him clearly not being in full control of his strength.
The aggressive action knocked me back against the wall with a painful jar that had me grunting.
“Sorry!” he cried, retracting his claws. “Shit, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” I assured him.
But it wasn’t enough. He still pushed my shirt off my shoulders and then scanned my body. “Nothing. You’re not desiccating.” He sucked in a harsh breath. “Thank fuck.”
“I just need to rest. I feel a little sick after I channeled such potent power against Cassius.”
“Okay, then rest with me.” He gestured at his bed. “I’ll take care of you.”
I started at his words.
Take care of me.
That was the issue, wasn’t it?
The reason I’d snapped and lost all fucking control with Cassius.
He’d put me in that position. In the position of having others believe they needed to take care of me.
In a position framing me as weak, as an invalid.
A position that undercut my power and most definitely my ability to control things. Especially how I was perceived.
When I remained silent, he started playing with my fingers, trying to hold them, even though I wasn’t reciprocating because I was using my mental fortitude to hold him off sexually, prevent it from getting to me, and to contain my seething at the rest.
“What’s this?” he asked, suddenly yanking on my hand and holding it up between us.
I glared at the ring how adorning my index finger.
“It’s Velra’s doing.”
“Velra? She gave this to you? When?”
“She spelled it onto me. It’s her version of a Nexus Band.
It forms a connection between her and me to detect when I’m in danger or being harmed.
It’s only visible now because me using potent magic against Cassius blasted through the glamor she’d employed.
” I gritted my teeth. “She’s leashed me, trying to contain me. ”
He let go of my hand and stepped back, bursting out laughing. “Leashed? You? Come on, Sylas. It’s well known that it’s not possible.”
“What are you talking about?” I held up my hand, the ring glinting against the light of the room. “The proof is right here.”
“No, silly,” he uttered in a singsong tone, his high state really coming through. “Like her giving me the bracelet, this is her mark on you. As hers.”
“What?”
“She’s possessive. Really fucking possessive.
I’ve been seeing the signs of it lately, and it’s something she hides pretty well, but the closer we get, the more the truth of it comes out.
With my wolf instincts, I can feel it more than you can.
That ring is her staking a claim on you.
And, yeah, for her peace of mind because she was obviously terrified after she saw you in that desiccated state that night. ”
Possessive?
She was possessive of us?
That… made a lot of sense.
“Aww, you’re so cute when you’re out of sorts.”
I flinched at his words, and then he was right there wrapping his arms around me and holding me to him as he gazed at me reverently.
“I love it. I love all the sides of you. Do you know that?” He kissed my cheek.
“Do you know that there’s so much that I love about you, my sexy fucking necromantic heartthrob? ”
I slid my hand to his hip, my other lifting to stroke his hair, which had him basically purring for me. “You’re not alone in that.”
“I’m not?”
“Of course not.”
“What do you love about me then?” he asked, gazing at me with so much need and desperate curiosity.
I smiled. “I love your passion. Your ferocity. How deeply loyal you are to those you allow close. Your big, beautiful heart. Your dirty mouth and your abrasive humor. The wild and the soft. The chaotic and the vulnerability. I love your strength and your bravery.”
He cried out excitedly at my words and enveloped me in a near-crushing bear hug.
And then he nuzzled against me, little groans escaping him.
He was growing tired.
Crashing.
“How long do you think it’ll be, Sylas?”
“What do you mean?”
“Until they come for me?”
I tensed. “Who?”
“This threat? Until they get past my mom’s protection?”
“Never. I won’t allow it.” It was all I could do to prevent my fists from clenching on him as I held him to me.
“What—or who—do you think it is?” he murmured, his words trailing off now.
“We’ll find out. And they’ll be dealt with accordingly.” Brutally, actually, but I didn’t want to convey that to him when he was in this state of mind, emotionally raw and vulnerable.
Nor could I convey that I already knew the source of this threat.
I’d planned to revisit the Blood Trace thing with him tonight after we’d had dinner together with Velra, on our walk back to his dorm room, but all of that had been shot to hell by Cassius’ unceremonious appearance on campus—and my rage explosion.
I believed the results of the Blood Trace would assist with this threat.
In a way that would further bolster Lazriel and generate answers that we didn’t currently have.
Answers beyond the whispers that Charlie had given me.
If my theory concerning Lazriel’s parentage was correct, then it would bring a great deal to light and serve to protect both him and Velra from what was rising.
I couldn’t do the Blood Trace now anyway, not until the Celestial blood was out of his system. With it being so potent and there being so much he’d ingested, it would impact the spell significantly. And with him on this high I couldn’t even broach the subject now either.
As much as it nagged at me that I knew what I did about this threat—a threat that impacted both of them—I couldn’t simply reveal it when I didn’t have enough information to give them in order for us to develop a plan to counter it.
If I told them now, all they’d have was the negative of a force coming at them with no fucking solutions to fight back with. Just the fear of being hunted.
Velra had already lived through that with her brother and Puritas as a whole. It had almost broken her, and it still impacted her to this day.
And Lazriel had experienced something similar when his vampiric nature had been outed and his pack had responded brutally, the whole thing upturning his world completely.
“Nite nite.”
His voice pulled me back to the immediate moment and I felt more of his weight against me as he started to fall asleep on me even as we were standing.
“Don’t go, okay?”
“I won’t,” I assured him as I eased him over to his bed.
I pulled the covers aside, then helped him in, and he flopped down immediately, turned his head, then he was out instantly.
Well, then.
A soft knock at the door startled me and I hurried over to open it, not wanting it to sound again in case it woke him.
I opened the door to find Velra on the doorstep.
“Is he doing okay?”
I stepped back and she walked in, following my gaze toward the bed where Lazriel was now sleeping away.