Chapter 28
Alexander
“What do you want to talk to me about?” Alexander asked as he stopped in front of Boaz. He took the werewolf’s hand and pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight. “I told you I would find you, remember?”
How was it possible that he had missed him this much?
He pulled back slightly and looked at Boaz. The werewolf held his gaze, and in that moment it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
Alexander closed the distance between them and kissed him.
Someone cleared their throat, but Alexander didn’t care. He deepened the kiss, holding Boaz tighter. Boaz let out a soft sound, clinging to him.
“Alexander,” Blade said. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Come on, stop. We need to talk,” Boaz whispered, gently pushing him away.
Alexander pulled back, even though he didn’t want to. He would have preferred to keep kissing him, but Boaz stepped out of his arms.
“Okay, fine,” Alexander said. “Why are you here?” He glanced around, his eyes landing on the coffin.
“We’re looking for the stake,” Boaz said.
“Why?” Alexander asked.
Manlius cleared his throat, drawing Alexander’s attention.
“You’re still infected, Your Majesty,” he said.
“And your blood carries the infection. Three young witches are suffering from the same affliction you had before we put you to sleep. We have to destroy anything that came into contact with your blood.”
What?
Alexander looked between Boaz and Manlius, stunned. He had known something was still wrong with him, but he hadn’t thought it was contagious.
“How did that happen?” Blade asked.
“There was an explosion…” Manlius began, but Alexander barely heard the rest.
He was reeling.
He stared down at his hands as if he could see the claws at his fingertips.
A monster lived inside him.
“Will they be okay?” he heard Blade ask. He came to stand next to Alexander, taking his hand.
“We don’t know,” Manlius said. “We have to wait and see. His Majesty healed himself. Maybe they can do the same.”
“Except I didn’t heal myself,” Alexander said. “What’s going to happen now? Their families will probably want me dead.”
“Don’t say that,” Boaz said, his voice soft and sad.
Would it hurt him if he died?
Alexander stared at the werewolf, his heart in his throat. They had only just begun to know each other, but he liked the thought of Boaz caring, of worrying about him.
He stepped closer, drawn in by something he could not control.
“They will,” Manlius said, shattering the moment. “Maybe if we figure out how to heal them, we could appease their families.”
“We need to do it soon. It seems the demons have already started to make their move.”
“What are you talking about?” Boaz asked.
“I had a vision,” Blade said.
“Fuck me,” Manlius muttered, pacing toward the coffin. “This is not a coincidence.”
“No,” Blade said.
The room fell silent, and everyone turned to look at him. Alexander had been dreading this moment. He knew that the second Blade shared his vision, everything would start to unravel.
“Shit,” Manlius muttered. “What did you see?”
“I saw the veil. It had a small opening, like it hadn’t been fully closed, and it was pulling in the blood that dripped from the stake you used to subdue Alexander until it turned to ash. As it did, the opening grew wider, as if the blood was feeding it.”
“Fuck,” Boaz said. He turned and ran up the stairs.
Alexander followed, concern tightening in his chest. He found him in the courtyard, standing still, staring into space as if searching for something.
Alexander stepped toward him but stopped when he heard Manlius and Blade approaching behind them.
“Can you see it now?” Manlius asked.
“No,” Blade said, stepping forward. “I can only see it when I’m having a vision. And I need a strong surge of sexual energy to trigger one.”
Manlius sighed. He turned to Boaz. “We should gather everyone. They need to know what’s going on so they can prepare.”
Then he turned to Blade. “Is there anything else we need to know?”
Blade looked at him, and Alexander gave a small nod.
“I saw Drago. He’s still alive.”
Boaz’s head snapped toward him, his eyes wide.
“Your brother is alive. Does that mean everyone else is alive?” he asked.
“I only saw Drago,” Blade said.
“But if he’s alive, others could be too,” Manlius said, hope lighting his eyes.
Alexander groaned inwardly, already seeing where that hope would lead.
Misery.
How were they supposed to get them out of the underworld?
“Come on, we should call everyone and have that meeting as soon as possible,” Manlius said as he hurried to his truck.
Alexander reached for Boaz, but the werewolf was already moving.
“He’s hot,” Blade said as they followed. “A little uptight, but hot. No wonder you were rarely home.”
“Blade, not now,” Alexander warned as he climbed into the truck.
Boaz took the front seat, leaving Alexander to get in the back, even though he wanted to sit beside him. Blade slid in after him, and they drove to Manlius’ house.
Alexander braced himself for the familiar scent of incense and candle wax that clung to the place. Blade wrinkled his nose as he stepped inside.
“You’ll get used to it,” Alexander said as they walked.
Manlius led them to a sitting area and quickly excused himself with Boaz to make calls.
“So, this is what a coven looks like,” Blade said, looking around, though there wasn’t much to see in the sitting area. Not like the other room with the candles. Alexander wondered what Blade would think of that. Blade was half witch, but he had never really been around others like him.
“Yes,” Alexander said.
“Is it just the sorcerer here, or are there others?” Blade asked, his eyes full of curiosity.
Alexander made a mental note to ask Manlius to show him the candle room. Blade would probably love it.
“I haven’t seen anyone else,” Alexander said. “I think it’s just Manlius.”
“Hmm,” Blade murmured, running his hand over a chest in the corner.
They fell into silence as Blade continued exploring the room. Alexander reached out with his senses, searching for Boaz. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat grounded him.
Alexander closed his eyes and simply listened.
Minutes later, Boaz and Manlius returned.
“It’s going to take a few hours, but every supernatural creature is on their way here. You can go home and come back once everyone arrives, if you like,” Manlius said.
“Can we wait here?” Blade asked, turning to him. The eagerness in his voice was clear, and Alexander couldn’t refuse.
“Sure,” Manlius said.
Alexander stood and walked over to Boaz. He took his hand and led him out of the room. He wasn’t entirely sure where he was going, only that he wanted a moment alone with him.
He climbed the stairs and pushed open the first door he came to. As soon as it closed behind them, he pulled Boaz into a kiss.
Boaz responded immediately, holding onto him as the kiss deepened. It was intense, filled with everything they hadn’t said to each other.
Alexander pulled back after a moment, breathing hard.
“We shouldn’t be doing this. We should be trying to find a way to stop this,” Boaz said.
“That’s what we’re doing. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take a moment. I need you. Didn’t you miss me?”
Alexander pulled him in again, trying to kiss him. Boaz pressed a hand against his chest and pushed him back, stepping away from the door.
“Stop. Be serious for a second. Not everything is about sex or your need for a distraction. This is serious,” Boaz said.
“A distraction? Is that what you think you are to me?”
“Am I not?” Boaz asked. “Who thinks about fooling around when every supernatural being out there might want them dead? You ran away from your mother because you couldn’t deal with what needed to happen. And you’re doing it again. You’re distracting yourself.”
“Fuck you, Boaz,” Alexander said, reaching for the doorknob.
“Come on, Alexander. I didn’t mean it like that,” Boaz said.
“I don’t care what you meant,” Alexander replied, walking out of the room.
He shut the door behind him, his chest tightening painfully.
The door opened again behind him, but he quickened his pace and went down the stairs into the living room. Manlius was speaking quietly with several beings who had already arrived. Alexander recognized Fae, witches, and shapeshifters among them.
They all turned as he entered. The atmosphere in the room shifted immediately.
Manlius cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, let me introduce you,” he said quickly, trying to ease the tension.
Alexander nodded and stepped toward the gathered group. There was wariness in their eyes, but also something else, something like hope.
They all wanted their loved ones back.
More and more beings arrived, and Alexander was introduced to each group in turn. Blade stayed close by his side, as if sensing he needed the support.
“I think we should begin,” Manlius whispered to him a while later.
“Yeah,” Alexander said.
He turned, and his eyes collided with Boaz’s.
The werewolf stood in a corner of the packed room with his own people. Alexander hadn’t seen him since he left him upstairs. He forced himself to look away before following Manlius to the center of the room.
“Everyone… everyone, can I have your attention, please,” Manlius said.
“Are we really going into war?” someone in the crowd asked, a sad note in their voice. Alexander looked up and saw it was Bayley, the leader of a pride of shapeshifters as Manlius had introduced him. “We barely survived the last one.”
“You said you saw some of the people trapped in the underworld and that they’re still alive. Did you see anyone from the Fae folk?” Killan, the Fae king, asked.
“Or the witches,” Melanie, the high priestess, added.
“My brother is stuck there too. Did you see him?” Frieda, a banshee, asked.
They began speaking at once, voices rising and overlapping as everyone tried to have their question heard.
Alexander looked around the room at the desperate faces. This was what he had feared. Everyone had lost someone in the war, and they would give anything to get them back.
“Hold on a second, one at a time please,” Manlius said. “Order, order please.”
“Shut up!” Boaz shouted, stepping into the middle of the room.
“We’re not going to get anywhere if we don’t listen to each other.
We all lost someone during the war, and just because Blade saw one person in his vision doesn’t mean all of them are still alive.
You all remember how vicious the demons were.
It would take someone strong to fight them off and survive, especially with nowhere to run.
I know it’s hard to accept, but the likelihood that your loved ones are gone is high.
” He sighed. “And we really can’t save anyone, even the one Blade saw.
Our main goal right now is to stop the veil from opening again.
We can’t risk it opening and letting the demons into the living world. The world would end as we know it.”
The room fell into a tense silence as everyone absorbed what Boaz had said. Alexander itched to go to him, to pull him aside and ease the hurt he could see in the werewolf’s eyes. But he knew Boaz would see it as him avoiding the issue again.
“How do we even close the damn veil again? We closed it before, but now it’s open again,” Killan asked.
“I think it didn’t close all the way,” Blade said. “In my vision there was a gap at the top. The blood went through there.”
“Is that possible, Manlius?” Killan asked. “Do you think we didn’t close it all the way?”
“I don’t know. We couldn’t check, remember? We were all drained after we managed to close it,” Manlius said
“Did you manage to regain your sorcerer powers?” Killan asked out of nowhere.
The whole room seemed to hold its breath. Manlius’s face crumpled, and his eyes filled with so much hurt that Alexander could feel it even from where he stood.
“This is not the time for that,” Alexander said, speaking for the first time since they had gathered. “As Boaz said, our goal should be keeping the veil closed.”
“But what about our loved ones?” Melanie asked. “We should at least try to save them.”
Alexander looked around at the nodding heads, and then the room broke into overlapping voices again. He shook his head.
“We’re not going to get anywhere,” Manlius said with a sigh.
The discussion went on for hours, but by the end they had not reached a decision. Some wanted the veil kept closed, while others wanted to risk everything to save their loved ones. And some wanted Alexander dead. The only thing stopping them was that they needed him for the coming fight.
Alexander had never felt so much hatred in his life.
“They’re all crazy,” Manlius grumbled as he dragged the couches back into place. He dropped onto one and covered his eyes with his hands.
“I kind of understand where they’re coming from,” Blade said, sitting beside the sorcerer. Alexander settled onto another couch, while Boaz remained standing.
“I would do the same,” Blade continued. “I would give anything to save Drago. If only I could do more than just observe in my visions.”
Manlius sat up and stared at him. “Earlier you said you induce your visions. Don’t they just come to you?”
“They do, but sometimes it’s just fragments without context,” Blade said. “Like when I saw Drago, it was just images that didn’t make sense. I induced another vision so I could confirm what I was seeing.”
“You used your vision to astral project yourself into another plane,” Manlius said, suddenly excited. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.
“I did?” Blade asked, looking from Manlius to Alexander. Alexander shrugged. He didn’t really understand how Blade’s visions worked.
“Come, I’ll show you,” Manlius said, getting to his feet and walking toward the door.
“Manlius, is this the time for that?” Boaz asked, stopping the sorcerer. “We have a lot to figure out.”
“You don’t think I’m trying to do that?” Manlius said. “I can’t fucking see the veil, but he can.” He pointed at Blade. “I can teach him a few things. We need to know what’s going on.”
“Fuck,” Boaz muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you tell me you lost your powers?”
“Is that really what we should be talking about right now?” Manlius asked.
“I guess not,” Boaz said with a sigh.
“Come, Blade,” Manlius said.
They walked out of the room, leaving Alexander alone with Boaz. The silence that followed felt oppressive.
“I should go,” Alexander said.
Before he could leave, Boaz grabbed his arm.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“Not right now. I have a lot to deal with. I don’t need a distraction,” Alexander said. He gently removed Boaz’s hand from his arm and disappeared.