Chapter Nine #2
“What does my association with Urzoth matter?” I ask Ilbryen. “I don’t understand.”
“Exactly how involved in your church are you, Mr. Monroe? Enough to be their poster child.”
“Enough to give Alexo a spot on the cheerleading squad,” I amend, hands clenching. I don’t want to get into my complicated history with Urzoth to a complete stranger. “That’s what I care about.”
Ilbryen studies me, her lips thinning. “Hm.” She looks down at Alexo. “If you’re sure?”
He nods again, just as certain.
“Well then,” Ilbryen says. “Would you care to introduce yourself?”
Tem makes a gargled noise of disgust. “What are you doing? He’s an Urzoth follower.”
“And yet,” Ilbryen pins him with a glare, “he allowed us into this room without violence and has made no move to attack, even with your obvious threat. A true Urzoth follower would have exhibited some form of challenge or aggression by now. There is more going on here I would like to explore. Do you question me?”
Tem’s stance and expression clearly say yes. But he proves he has at least some sense when he flattens his lips.
Alexo puts a hand on my chest, in the spot I’m coming to associate with him, laying his palm over my heart and holding it there for one fortifying moment, like he’s soaking me up.
He looks at Ilbryen one last time. For encouragement? For permission?
Her gaze holds steadily on him.
He sucks in a breath before his eyes flash up to mine, swollen with uncertainty.
“My name is Bel,” he says. “Belzaroth. I’m the mortal descendant of Galaxrien Vossen.”
I go immobile. Systems shutting down, switch by switch.
Ilbryen holds out a vial of blue liquid to him.
Alexo—Bel—gapes at her. “Really?”
“You can’t!” Tem is red-faced. “This is insanity!”
But Ilbryen bobs the vile toward Bel. “It’s a calculated risk. I think Mr. Monroe might be useful to us.” She flicks her emotionless eyes to me.
Not emotionless.
Observant. Shrewd.
Bel steps away from me and takes the vial from Ilbryen.
With a fleeting look of surrender, he uncorks it and gulps down the potion.
In spite of everything, the shock and questions and blow after blow, I lurch toward him, panicked.
Ilbryen holds up her hand. “It is safe. It’s to counter the illusion spray he uses.”
I stiffen in place, arms extended toward him, unable to get my thoughts to catch up with what’s happening.
Bel moans softly, and then he’s—changing. But also not. He’s still him, same height, same pink hair and freckles across his nose and a lean, lithe body.
But his skin transforms, goes from pale to rose gold.
Pure, gleaming rose gold the same shade as his hair; he’s a living gilded statue, reflective and shining.
His eyes are now all black with rings of gold around his pupils, and he adjusts the waistband of his pants to pull out something at the back.
A tail.
He has a tail.
That rose-gold color, nearly as long as he is tall, thin with a pointed, arrow-shaped end.
It whips agitatedly around his bare feet as he stands there, letting me stare at him.
He’s part demon. The mortal descendant of Galaxrien Vossen.
Of all the scenarios I’d been forcing myself not to think about in regard to his secrets, this wasn’t even possibility adjacent.
And in a stupid, simplistic way, I might be … relieved? Fuck, I thought Tem was doing unspeakable things to him, but Alexo—Bel, Bel—is in protective custody because a crazy cult is after him to summon their demon lord. A crazy cult that my own slightly less crazy religion is a sworn enemy of.
Just that.
No biggie.
My muscles twitch and pulse, worry discharging from where I’ve been keeping it stored since the moment I saw Bel at the karaoke bar.
Gods, I am relieved.
Holy shit, am I having a breakdown? Has this broken me? Possibly.
At my silence, Bel shifts uncomfortably on his feet.
“I have to use the spray every twenty-four hours or else—” He waves at his body, then runs a hand through his hair, tapping at a spot an inch back from his forehead.
“I, um, file down my horns, and they aren’t very big, so it’s not hard to hide them.
But it’d be too expensive to get transformation magic to make my tail vanish.
The spray only alters how things look. It can’t make anything disappear completely, so I use a small portal dimension stitched into my boxers for my tail, and—it’s weird.
I know. All of this is so weird, but I—I wanted you to know. I’m sorry I lied to you, Orok. I’m—”
His voice catches, and I’m already moving.
I sweep his face into my hands and kiss him. Fuck everyone else watching. I kiss the hell out of him, eating up his startled cry and then his relieved, stunted sob as he clings to me.
He buries his face in my neck and I hold him. Rocking him. Murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m not going anywhere,” until Ilbryen clears her throat.
Bel shudders against me. Since he seems in no hurry to let me go, I keep my arms around him as I look up.
“I’d ask how you feel knowing he’s a descendant of your god’s sworn enemy,” Ilbryen says, “but I’d say it doesn’t quite bother you, does it?”
My simple “no” feels more definitive than if I had finally renounced Urzoth.
“We have been guarding Belzaroth in one way or another his entire life,” she continues.
“But he has been in protective custody for eight years, since a sect of Galaxrien Vossen cultists began pursuing a ritual they believe requires part or all of his mortal descendant.” She motions at Tem.
“Mr. Raussec has been his handler since early summer, and when Belzaroth went missing last night, he called us in.”
“Because he was abducted by an Urzoth follower!” Tem explodes. “And you’re giving him all our secrets so he can run off to his church and have them slaughter the target to stop the resurrection.”
The target?
Fuck. This. Guy.
I pull Bel off me so I can meet his eyes. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”
Cheeks tear-streaked, he manages a watery smile. “I know.”
“We need to transform him back and get him out of here,” Tem snaps at Ilbryen. “He’s been compromised. Mostly by you.”
Ilbryen looks at Tem. It’s barely more than a flick of her eyes to him, but it’s so ice-cold he reels back.
Then she looks at me, her glare softening infinitesimally, and after a long beat, she says, almost as an afterthought, “Yes.”
Tem huffs and throws his arms out. “Finally. Belzaroth, reapply your illusion magic, and let’s go.”
Bel inhales quickly, his hands fisting in my shirt.
I constrict my hold on him. “No—what? Go where?”
“Telling you would quite defeat the purpose of protective custody,” Ilbryen says.
“Belzaroth will be moved to a new secure location. It appears the cultists are aware that Galaxrien’s heir is connected to the Urzoth church, in light of their recent attack.
They do not seem to know about Belzaroth personally, but they are getting close.
While his cover as an Urzoth follower and the paramour of an Urzoth star did seem smart—hiding him in plain sight, as it were—it clearly isn’t enough to merely be associated with Galaxrien’s enemy.
We must take more intensive measures. To ensure his safety. ”
She cuts her words with a penetrating look at me, and my mind races, hands gripping Bel’s upper arms.
He tugs at the hem of my shirt, running it through his fingers. “It’s all right, Orok.”
I frown down at him.
“It’s all right,” he says again, and tries to smile, but it’s full of all the heartbreak he’s shown over our time together, all the little flashes of it that didn’t make sense until now.
“I’m—I’m used to it. I knew they’d want to move me after the news dropped last night.
” He fights for composure. It slips the more he talks, mine splintering right alongside his.
“I wanted to tell you. I’m sorry, though; you didn’t need to be pulled into this.
But I … I wanted you to know the real me.
I just … just wanted one thing that’s mine. ”
A strange sense of calm settles over me, the unnerving immobility that came with seeing him transform, with finding out all his truths. Like this path was always laid, I just hadn’t known I was walking it until this moment.
Tem steps closer, reaching for Bel. “C’mon, kid. The waterworks are pathetic at this point.”
I seize Tem’s wrist midair.
My hand clamps down on him and he buckles, eyes going wide, and I could so, so easily snap his arm.
I look past him to Ilbryen.
“I think you and I both know I’m not letting you take Bel away from me,” I tell her. “So how about we stop with these fucking theatrics?”
Bel’s grief pauses, confusion pinching his face.
I release Tem’s wrist. Unbroken. Sadly.
He staggers back, cradling it anyway. “Asshole Urzoth follower—”
“Tem,” Ilbryen cuts him off. “Shut up.”
Tem gapes at her.
She gives me a curious look. “Do you have something to say, Mr. Monroe?”
“Yeah.” I curl my arm around Bel’s shoulders.
He’s stiff against me. “You’re not taking him.
Where would you even put him? You currently have him in an apartment that should be condemned, with a door that doesn’t even close properly, guarded by an asshole who verbally assaults him and left Bel alone.
What’s your next grand plan? A shack in the woods?
For how long? Bel deserves better than abuse disguised as a half-assed attempt at protecting him. ”
Tem surges forward, his arm covered in the glowing green of a spell, but Gulus, who’s been silent and unmoving up until now, twists his hands. An arcane wall shoots up between me and Tem just as Tem’s releasing his spell, and the green energy dissipates across the wall in a fizzle of sparks.
“Raussec!” Ilbryen barks. “Contain yourself, or I will do it for you!”
Tem scowls, nostrils flaring. “It was idiotic ever agreeing to let the target be part of this fucked-up PR charade, and it’s idiotic now to let this guy stand here and talk about shit he doesn’t understand. He’s a liability.”
“Quite the opposite,” Ilbryen tells him, her voice back to level, controlled.
She shifts her eyes to me. Then down to where I threw myself in front of Bel the moment Tem moved, how I have him held behind my back.
“We agreed to let Belzaroth be in this PR charade,” she obviously quotes Tem’s tone with a flat look his way, “as a test of expanding his circle. The protection of the Urzoth church was an opportunity we intentionally took.”
“After the target signed up without our permission,” Tem grumbles.
“And I do not blame him for it,” Ilbryen says.
“He was given an opportunity to dance when he had long been denied it as a sad reality of his protective detail, and the arrangement provided security in a way that was worth the risk. That is not how we have been lacking in Belzaroth’s protection,” she says to me.
“Our adventure parties have been stretched thin in recent years. I’ve known for some time that Belzaroth’s situation was not ideal. ”
“Not ideal?” Tem guffaws humorlessly. “I’ve been—”
“You’ve been a dick,” Bel cuts him off, coming out from behind me.
“You’ve been cruel and nasty and a hypocrite.
How many times did I have to pay for ward spell components with my internship money because you refused to waste resources?
How many times have you walked out on me for hours, yet you give me constant crap about putting myself in danger? ”
“You traitorous little shit!” Tem roars and I lurch between them again, but Tem doesn’t get close, that arcane wall still up.
Silence falls. Ilbryen’s glare on Tem is conversation enough, a potent call to the proof in his own actions.
“Mr. Monroe,” Ilbryen says, letting her eyes glide from Tem to me. “What do you propose?”
“Feed him to my teammate’s sword.”
Ilbryen grunts deep in her throat. I realize after I hear what I said that—she laughed?
Oh. That’s not what she meant.
“I mean in regard to Belzaroth’s safety,” she clarifies, a glimmer in her eyes.
My gaze tunnel-visions onto Bel. His lips are parted and he looks like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, knowing he has to jump but unsure of anything beyond the fall.
“What would you do?” I ask Ilbryen, voice low.
“Tem will be removed as his handler—”
Tem curses.
“—and Belzaroth will be taken somewhere not far off from what you described. Given the increase in the cultists’ severity, we need to step up our protection of him. We have a number of safehouses where he will be secluded.”
Bel winces. “How secluded?”
“You would have a new handler who would leave only for monthly supply runs.”
Another wince. I echo it.
“For how long?” he asks, surprisingly impassive. Or maybe he’s just resigned.
Ilbryen’s silent for a moment. “The cultists have proven they are vicious and determined. You will always be at risk, Belzaroth, and we no longer have the resources to keep shuffling you around. I’m sorry.”
So … indefinitely?
“No.” My jaw’s so tight a headache lances across my skull.
“There’s a reason the official Galaxrien Temple keeps disavowing these damn idiot cultists.
They aren’t vicious—they’re morons. The Temple doesn’t have Galaxrien’s authorized prophesied return happening for a full century, and it doesn’t involve a human component at all.
Meanwhile, these idiots keep saying shit like they need a piece of hair, or no, a whole sacrifice; they’re resurrecting Galaxrien, or no, summoning him.
They can’t even get their own fanaticism right. ”
Ilbryen’s eyes narrow. “And why, exactly, do you have knowledge of Galaxrien’s prophecy?”
For a beat, Tem looks smug, still glowering behind that arcane wall.
I don’t back down. “You listed my credentials when you came in. My Mageus in Theological Evocation. I know about a lot of religious rituals, not just this one, so if you’re implying I have some hidden ties to the cultists, I’m sure Gulus over there has a truth potion he could lob at me.
Go for it. Ask me anything, I’m an open book. ”
“Your point, Mr. Monroe?” Ilbryen pushes. And it is that, a push.
Not that I need one. This is what was always going to happen, from the moment Bel told me who he really is.
“My point is that Bel shouldn’t have to give up his life for zealot dumbasses.
He shouldn’t have to hide in the middle of nowhere forever.
He’s bright and talented and alive, gods damn it; let him live.
You need to increase his security, I get that, and I wholeheartedly agree. So let him stay with me.”