30. Justin
Justin
P avel’s gray skin was hardening like a riverbed stripped of the last of its moisture. The effect spread like a wave, radiating out from the old witch’s wrinkled hands, still glued to the sides of the gargoyle’s head.
It took a moment for Justin to puzzle out what was happening.
Looking down at his own discolored forearm, it finally clicked.
Seb’s father was a time witch, and he was using his affinity to rapidly age whatever he touched.
Although vampires didn’t seem to get older, the legends said it was just extremely slow, and that after many thousands of years, a vampire would begin to shrivel and mummify.
Maybe this was confirmation of the legends. Even the most powerful vampires known to Justin were only five or six hundred years old. He had no idea if any truly old ones still existed.
The understanding hit like a lightning bolt. For a vampire, time might bring a shriveled, mummy-like existence. For a gargoyle, it would be a permanent dormant state.
Pavel was halfway there already.
Justin’s vision turned red, and once again the crimson surge threatened to take over. This time, however, his demon didn’t control him. The beast of his vampirism pulsed under his skin, but now it was his partner. And they both raged.
Justin screamed, flying toward the old witch, claws out and hungry for flesh. Recognition flashed in the bearded man’s eyes, and he deftly slid out of the way, keeping one hand on Justin’s mate.
Slashing through empty air, Justin recovered, landing and turning back. His breath hitched when he caught a glimpse of Pavel’s face head-on. His mate was fully stone now, anger and frustration written on his monstrous face, perhaps for eternity.
A volcano of rage erupted in Justin. He would not lose his mate, not when he’d just found him.
Justin went for the witch again, and once again the old man feinted, but he kept a hand on Pavel, which gave Justin hope. Perhaps the witch was still fighting to kill the gargoyle, and his mate wasn’t lost for good.
It was the elderly witch’s commitment to draining the years from Pavel that was his undoing. As he dodged, his left arm stayed stretched out to the gargoyle, and in one clean motion, Justin severed it at the shoulder. The limb fell to the deck of the stage with a wet thump.
Sebastian’s father screamed in pain but didn’t stop moving. As Justin twisted to finish the job, the witch’s remaining hand went to Justin’s throat. He squeezed, and Justin’s airway closed as the flesh of his neck atrophied.
The shock of the attack stopped Justin in his tracks.
The old witch’s touch emitted a weakness that was nearly impossible to fight.
Justin’s mind railed, attempting to marshal his energy for another attack.
For fuck’s sake, he’d taken off the guy’s arm; if he could manage another attack, he could probably finish the job. Yet he found himself unable to move.
That’s when he heard Sebastian’s voice, carrying faintly from inside the dome of wind magic where he and his sister battled.
His mate was singing. Justin had only seen Sebastian use his voice in his spellwork once before: in that horrific dream they’d been trapped in.
But it was different now. Sebastian was more confident in it, and the three of them were now mated.
The people that walkéd in darkness
That walkéd in darkness
The people that walkéd, that walkéd in darkness
Have seen a great light
Have seen a great light!
On his final note, strands of blue light stretched between Justin, Sebastian, and the stone form of Pavel.
Confused at first, once the connection began to surge with energy, Justin understood.
This was the power he’d used in Linda’s library, his ability to access the innate magic of his mates.
Except now, they had completed the bond, and if what had happened in the library was a ripple, this was a tidal wave.
Justin was filled with energy, and Sebastian’s father couldn’t stand against it. No one could. The weakness finally retreating, Justin swiped his claw and took off the old man’ s hand at the wrist, blood spurting from the newly made stump.
There was no waiting now. But instead of simply decapitating him, Justin snapped his neck. When the witch went limp, he sank his fangs into the old man’s carotid artery.
Although he preferred to drink only from his mates, he hoped blood, especially the blood of a powerful witch, would heal the sections of his body that had been mummified.
He struggled to swallow down the warm liquid. Although there was still a pathway, both his trachea and his esophagus had been partially obstructed by the witch’s power.
As the blood hit his stomach, a tingling sensation spread throughout his body, concentrating on the areas the witch had attacked.
Justin hoped it would be enough, but he didn’t have the time to find out.
He ran to Pavel, grabbing the gargoyle by the shoulders, but his mate’s flesh had become cold, immovable stone.
There was a roar, followed by a strange woosh, and Justin turned to find Sebastian and Veronica staring as he squeezed the hard granite of his gargoyle mate. Although Sebastian was still standing, Veronica was on her knees, her clothing torn and covered in burns and bruises.
“You…you killed our father…” Veronica whispered, the confusion of battle still on her.
Sebastian ran to Justin’s side, his hand going to the vampire’s back, and he brought their foreheads together. At his touch, a dam broke inside Justin, and he gasped for air, tears pouring from his eyes.
“It’s Pavel… Your father used some kind of aging spell. I’m scared, Seb. He might be gone. ”
Sebastian spun back to his sister.
“Nothing is worth this. You attacked our mother, brought that fucker back into our lives,” Sebastian said, pointing toward his father’s lifeless body, “and you killed my mate. You could have left. Why didn’t you leave? Why did you come back?!”
Veronica flinched at Sebastian’s words, then quickly recovered herself. Anger and pity warred in Justin’s heart. Veronica was Sebastian’s sister. He didn’t know what he would do if a family member turned on him like this, and his heart hurt to watch Seb go through it.
“I cannot walk away. What she did to us…what she did to me…I can’t forget it, and I can’t let it go.”
If Sebastian was conflicted, he didn’t show it, instead stepping away from their dormant mate and addressing his sister in a clear and piercing voice.
“You have a choice, Vee. Either you take yourself far away from the Bayonne Circle, never to return, or I kill you now. You brought this man, the so-called father who abandoned us, back to hurt our mother. You murdered my mate. I promise, between Justin and myself, we can take you out. And your death will not be a pleasant one.”
“I…” Veronica’s face was covered with indecision as she took in the scene. Her gaze alternated between the body of her father and Justin. She was evaluating him, covered with blood and surrounded by dismembered limbs as he was.
“I don’t know if I can?—”
“Wolf!” a woman’s voice rang out, clear and commanding.
A sharp twang rang through the opera house, and Veronica twitched as a crossbow bolt sprouted in her eye socket .
Justin spun around, searching for the source, as he was confronted with the stares of the thousands of audience members. The conscious stares.
Of course. When Sebastian’s father died, his time spell had faded, bringing them out of the frozen moment and ushering the audience back to awareness.
He scanned the audience until he found the source of the attack. High above, on the edge of the fourth balcony, stood Wolf, a crossbow in his hand and a grim expression on his face. He had killed his sister.
“Witches, spread out!” Linda barked from the audience, and at least fifteen women and four men spread across the front aisle. Of course. She had ordered her son to kill her daughter. The woman was ruthless, Justin gave her that.
Justin assumed the witches would deal with the patrons somehow, with what they’d seen, but he didn’t care.
He turned back to his mates. Sebastian had been staring down at the body of his older sister, but after only a moment, he stepped to Justin’s side.
Their hands found each other as they faced their dormant gargoyle, not caring at all about what was going on behind them.
“We have to get him out of here,” Sebastian whispered. “Now.”
The witches of the Bayonne Circle cast some spell to smooth over the audience members’ memories of the fight, but Justin was too busy to worry about the details.
Instead, he and Sebastian convinced a confused stagehand to transport Pavel to the storage space on the basement level.
With some quick thinking, a dolly, and a freight elevator, they got him offstage before anyone realized the stone gargoyle wasn’t part of the set.
The witch and the vampire stood in the dim light of the basement storage room, staring up at their dormant mate.
Justin was overwhelmed with fear and exhaustion, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the stone gargoyle.
Despite Pavel’s inhuman visage in this form, he was still so handsome, his jaw set in the determined expression of the last moments of the battle against Sebastian’s father.
Had they lost him forever? Panic was building in Justin’s chest, a growing tightness that threatened to turn incapacitating. A strong grip enveloped his left hand, lending him warmth and a thread of connection to his dwindling hope.
“Do you think he’s gone?” Justin choked out the words through the lump in his throat.
The certainty radiated off Sebastian, and Justin soaked it up like the nourishing rays of the sun.
“Can’t you feel him?”
Justin shook his head, confused. He was having trouble feeling anything other than the mounting terror and grief.
“Take a deep breath and try,” Sebastian said.
Justin sucked in a large gulp of air. When he let it out, he released as much of the pain and worry as he could. He closed his eyes.
The connection to Sebastian was like a glowing rope of blue energy in his mind’s eye. It pulsed with the care and affection flowing between them, centering him and acting as an anchor to calm sanity.
But there was another connection. It was dimmer, flickering even, and Justin worried it would fade out, but it was there, still fighting for survival.
“I can sense it. But what if it snaps? What if Pavel?—”
A light kiss brushed Justin’s temple, and he leaned into it, wrapping his arms around Sebastian’s waist. One of the greatest surprises of Justin’s mating was how kind and loving his chaotic mate had turned out to be.
The sweet gesture unlocked something in Justin, and tears flowed freely down his cheeks.
Maybe it made him weak, maybe it was ridiculous he was crying half an hour after killing Sebastian’s father and draining his blood, but he couldn’t help it.
All he wanted was time. Time to be with his mates, to build their life together.
“My love,” Sebastian said, and Justin’s breath hitched at the words. “He’s our mate. We can call him back.”
Justin shook his head. “How?”
“The two of us can strengthen the bond.” Sebastian moved behind Justin, wrapping his arms around the shorter man and resting his head on the nest of blonde curls.
“Picture it growing stronger, brighter. Imagine pushing your energy into it and say his name. I’ll do the same.”
Justin took a moment to wipe away his tears and steeled himself. He didn’t know if this would work, but it was better than doing nothing. He had to trust Sebastian.
Closing his eyes once more, he imagined the flickering rope glowing brighter, stronger, strengthening into an unbreakable line between them. He did as Sebastian suggested, imagining his own life energy flowing into it as it took on a blinding brightness in his mind’s eye.
“Pavel,” Justin croaked, his vocal cords struggling to come together.
“Pavel,” Sebastian echoed, his bass voice deep and clear. “Come back to us.”
They stood there for some time. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. Justin didn’t know. He was lost in this moment of final, desperate hope, and he wouldn’t stop reaching out until he had both of his mates in his arms.
After what felt like an eternity, there was a flash of light in Pavel’s stone eyes. Justin gasped.
“Don’t stop,” Sebastian whispered, squeezing Justin tighter.
“Pavel!” Justin called out, still visualizing the bond, now as bright as the sun.
Like a river overflowing, the life that had sparked in the gargoyle’s eyes spread, the skin in his face shifting from stone to his gray gargoyle hide. It was growing faster now, the granite rippling and loosening over Pavel’s bulging muscles, over his broad chest, finally reaching his wings.
With a loud gasp, Pavel stumbled forward and collapsed into his mates’ arms. As he did, he transformed once again, and soon Sebastian and Justin had their very human and very naked mate in their embrace.
“You made it,” Justin whispered, and Pavel tightened his arms around the two of them. “I was so worried.”
“I’m here, my loves. I’m here, and I’m yours. I’ll never leave.”