Chapter 48 Anything But Jazz
Anything But Jazz
Ronan
Draven’s fingers closed around Sage’s wrist, and I saw the exact instant her terror shifted into hope.
It hit me harder than any blow Victor had landed, a combination of relief that she was getting help and regret that it couldn’t be me leading her to freedom.
I knew she was in good hands, though. Draven was the only vampire I’d ever trust to take care of my mate.
He guided her toward the door, his body angling just enough to shield hers, and she followed without hesitation, looking back only to check on me before she was whisked away to safety.
Good girl.
That was the last clean thought I had before everything inside me fractured.
Victor tore free of the demons restraining him with a roar that shook me to the marrow of my bones. The air distorted around him as he crossed the space between us in a blink, his shoulder slamming into my chest with enough force to lift me off my feet.
We went through the couch together, wood exploding and fabric shredding. The impact drove the breath from my lungs as my back met stone, pain flaring white-hot across my ribs.
Fuck. I knew he would be strong, but this was on another level.
Forced or not, he’d clearly benefited from the mate bond, stolen the strength Sage and I should have shared.
That thought was enough to rally me, because I wasn’t giving up. There was no way I was leaving this world with Victor still alive, free to torture Sage for the rest of her life.
If I was going down, I was burning Victor to ash with me.
I rolled before he could pin me, fire bursting from my palms on instinct, licking across the ceiling and walls. Heat flooded the room, smoke clawing as I dragged myself upright.
Victor smiled at me, his mouth smeared with blood and his eyes incandescent.
“I don’t know what you’d hoped to accomplish by coming back,” he said, voice thick with hunger. “Because you certainly aren’t leaving here with my mate.”
I laughed, the effort scraping my throat raw.
“You’re fucking delusional.” Fire curled around my wrists. “She was never your mate.”
He lunged again, and this time I met him head-on.
Our collision cracked the marble beneath our feet. His fist caught my rib in a devastating strike. Something inside me splintered, sharp pain stabbing deep with every breath.
I welcomed it, though. Pain meant I was still conscious.
Catching his wrist mid-swing, my fingers locked around bone and sinew that felt like iron beneath my grip. More flames erupted from my palm, searing his skin.
Victor snarled and wrenched free, smoke curling off him as he backhanded me across the jaw. I tasted blood, staggering back and barely keeping my footing.
“Demon trash!” Victor shouted over the roar of the office burning down around us. “You think she’ll really choose you over me?”
I stepped into him again, ignoring the way my body protested.
“She already has,” I said.
I slammed my palm into the floor, calling Ravaric’s power.
He answered in fire.
It surged outward, shattering tile, splitting stone, climbing the walls like a living wave, hungry and desperate. The heat compressed the air until it felt like the demon god’s breath itself.
Victor leapt clear with impossible grace, landing atop a shattered table, red eyes blazing. His skin blistered where the flames brushed too close.
Alarms began to wail somewhere deep in the mansion. Shouts echoed in the corridors. Guards converged, magic flaring in panicked response as weak, ineffective sprinklers attempted to douse the hellfire I’d lit and stoked.
We clashed again, and again, and again.
I let all of my power tear through me unchecked, let it roar out of my chest and into the world. Columns cracked, the lights shattered overhead, and molten glass rained down as Victor tore me aside to avoid the collapse.
A demon screamed somewhere to my left. A vampire hit the floor and didn’t rise.
I didn’t look, but Victor did. Just a fraction.
I seized the moment and him by the throat, driving him backward, straight through the far wall of the office. Stone exploded outward into the hallway beyond, debris raining down around us as we crashed through into open space.
He slammed into the floor hard enough to crater it.
Before he could rise, I hauled him up again, immense heat boiling over my skin, the bond screaming in my chest like a living wound.
“And do you know why she’ll always choose me?” I growled, his claws raking weakly at my arms. “Because with me, she’ll always have a choice.”
I leaned in close enough to smell the rot beneath his cologne.
“Say hello to Sanguiel for me.”
I slammed him down again and brought both hands together.
The fire compressed, focused and white-hot.
Victor screamed beneath me, the sound almost sweeter than Sage’s laugh.
It cut off abruptly, swallowed by the roar as I poured everything I had into the flames. The heat distorted reality itself, the air rippling as if the world couldn’t decide whether to exist anymore.
When I finally pulled back, there was nothing left of Victor Corvane that could threaten anyone ever again.
I stood over the scorched remains, chest heaving, ears ringing, my body screaming in protest now that the threat had been neutralized.
For half a heartbeat, there was silence.
I had won, and Sage was safe.
But before I could truly celebrate, the cold hit.
Not a physical cold, but something that made my soul shiver.
I turned my head slowly.
Vorthain, the priest in the black robes, stood at the far end of the hall.
The thing’s hood had fallen back, shadows clinging unevenly to a body that wouldn’t form properly in my vision. One arm hung at an strange angle, while black blood stained the carpet beneath its feet, seeping into the fibers like ink.
Was it even a Magik? Nothing about the creature in front of me fell into a category I knew of.
Its teeth were bared, showing off a mouth full of fangs. Nope, this was something different. Something unknown.
Eyes drank in the firelight instead of reflecting it, swallowing brightness like a black hole, hungry and watching.
My fire surged in response, coming to my aid once more against this new foe. “We doing this?” I bellowed.
Vorthain didn’t move. It didn’t advance or reply . It simply tilted its head, studying me with a unnatural patience that made my skin crawl.
I bared my teeth in return, and it receded into shadow, melting back into the smoke and chaos as if that was where it had come from.
“Next time,” I growled, knowing damn well it could still hear me.
I didn’t even attempt to chase it, though, because Sage was gone, and getting back to her mattered more than vengeance.
The mansion was fully ablaze now. Fire poured through the halls, devouring tapestries and paintings, crawling along the ceiling. Demons and vampires clashed in the corridors, magic flaring, while claws, horns, and fangs meeting in violent bursts.
I moved through it like a force of nature, leaving nothing but ashes in my wake, my focus solely on the exit. On the bond pulling me forward, sharp and unrelenting, a thread screaming to claim the woman who’d been taken from me.
I burst through the rear doors into the night, flames trailing behind me as the mansion released its death cry.
In my mind, I probably looked pretty cool, until the cold, smoky air hit my lungs like a chock and I briefly stumbled, catching myself before I fell to my knees.
Thankfully Sage wasn’t around to see that.
My vision narrowed as my power finally began to ebb, and pain rushed in to fill the void it left behind. It pierced through my ribs, shoulder, and side, all screaming for attention.
They’d have to wait their turn, though, because somewhere ahead, Sage was waiting, alive and free. And nothing—no god nor monster—was taking her from me again.
My phone chimed in my pocket, and I coughed, taking it out. Two new messages. First was from my dad.
Looks like you have things covered. I’ll wait for you in Ignareth.
I’d call him a coward, but he’d done enough this evening for an old man.
The next message was from Ella, one of the twins who also worked with Garrick.
Hey bestie! Long time no see ;) We got your mate, she’s safe and sound. Meet us at the rest stop on Highway 13 outside of Noctis to pick her up and thank our beautiful asses for stepping in. Oh, and stop blocking Garrick’s calls. That’s not very nice >:(
I rolled my eyes.
Fucking seraphim.
* * *
Asmodiel and my dad may have been long gone, but at least they’d left one of the cars from the motorcade waiting for me outside the gates.
A lone grunt, too young to have joined the fray, looked at me through the rear view mirror, his eyes wide in awe. “Did you really do it? Did you kill the Premier?”
“Yep,” I replied, taking out a roll of vaporleaf that had survived the battle unscathed. I rolled down the window and lit it, my lungs already so fucking toast I barely felt the familiar burn.
I gave him the location for the rendezvous point and sat back, my heart racing.
It was finally over. Sage would be safe, and we could be together.
If… if she wanted to be.
I’d never be able to erase the shock on her face once she learned who I really was from my memory. Maybe it was in my imagination, but I swore I could have picked up a hint of disgust, too.
Sage was a good girl. Like, a real good girl. Certainly not the kind who’d ever want to become a mafia queen.
For all I knew, she could give me a heartfelt thank you and then bum a ride to Cindralis and wash her hands of this whole “mate” business, and honestly, I wouldn’t blame her.
As we left the city, my adrenaline finally wearing off and making way for the full extent of the pain, my mind cleared enough that I realized I was meeting her at the same rest stop where we’d kissed.
Where she’d all but admitted to me that she’d wanted a taste of a real mate bond before going back to the one forced upon her by that narcissistic bloodsucker.
I snorted to myself. “Hey, can you turn on some music?”