Chapter 7 Lazriel
~Lazriel~
They thought I hadn’t heard.
They thought I’d been too distracted with a wolf run to be paying attention.
But I’d been listening and scenting my surroundings the entire time, initially just to keep hearing Velra and Sylas breathing, their heartbeats sounding.
Until Cassius and Kai’s voices had reached me.
“What he did, invoking Auctoritas Mortis, won’t go unnoticed by the Guardian Movement. It’s a severe and undeniable violation of his conditional freedom—as he likes to refer to it.”
After I’d heard that, my wolf run with Warlow had been cut short when the toxicity of Velra’s blood had gotten to me and I’d thrown up.
He’d given me one of those tonics and I figured it was Ryker’s magic in it that had cut through the auditory reduction spell Kai had put in place, so I’d been able to hear what they’d been discussing.
“I overheard Ryker and Cornelius discussing the overarching situation that led to these near tragedies tonight. Their priority is to tend to the Puritas situation. Something I know you and Sylas were already aware of.”
“I understand your frustrations. Our goal, however, was to obtain actionable intelligence before we fanned the flames of panic. Or fueled the flames of wrath and vengeance unchecked.”
That was the full scope of why Sylas had been acting off those few days prior.
It hadn’t just been about my father or the Blood Trace.
Well, it had been… it was just much more deeply tied to it than he or Cassius had led me and Velra to believe.
And, honestly, I wasn’t actually angry about that.
I understood it.
Especially with Velra factored in and everything she’d been through because of Puritas.
Of course they’d wanted to keep it a secret, off both our radars. They knew what it would do to Velra. And they also knew what I would do to protect her from it.
Something crazy.
Something reckless.
Like I was sure they’d consider what I was doing now to be.
“And the actionable intelligence? Where does that stand?”
“There are leads that we can discuss and now share, especially with Sylas compromised, likely for the foreseeable future.”
But after hearing that about their leads, it had become clear that I was needed. Especially with Sylas now down.
The Shadowed had intel on Puritas. That was now damned clear to me with everything else connecting and falling into place after I’d heard that conversation between Cassius and Kai. It was why Sylas had been pushing me to let him track my father.
But that wasn’t the only reason I was headed out on this mission now.
“I am also aware just how little time Sylas had left before this even transpired earlier.”
He was fucking dying! Not just slowly or over time now. He was on a ticking clock.
And as much as it enraged me and hurt me that Sylas hadn’t told me, especially after our fucking agreement for him to be open and not cut himself off, I was choosing to focus on action, on what could be done about it.
That also lay with The Shadowed.
The vampire underground was connected to information that other beings weren’t. There were answers to be found there.
Normally, trying to find answers there was impossible, because they operated in whispers, in shadows. And outsiders were definitely not welcome at all.
But now I had a link there—my own fucking father. And he damn well owed me for shirking me all these years. Better believe I’d make him pay up.
I sucked in a breath as I tore down the backroads on The Hound’s Shadow, my trusty Yamaha MT-10, at a hundred miles per hour.
My gaze darted to the indigo crystal attached to my handlebars.
Kelsana’s spell.
I had to admit, as much as I’d disliked her initially, she’d really come through and done amazing work with it.
She’d managed to fuse Sylas’ blood and obtain the Blood Trace tracking results for me and she’d spelled it into the crystal on my bike that was guiding me toward my father.
My gut twisted as thoughts of Cassius snuck up on me again.
I didn’t take what he’d done for me last night lightly. What we’d done for each other, with each other. It had meant a lot to me and I knew it had to him as well.
Sneaking out after that… it hadn’t exactly sat well with me.
I just hoped he knew that it didn’t take away from what had happened between us. And, fuck, he’d helped me too. I’d gotten a lot of shit out of my system that would have made it near impossible to think clearly otherwise.
But I’d had no choice.
He—and Ketheron—would have stopped me from leaving the apartment. For my own safety.
I couldn’t allow that.
And I hadn’t.
After I’d left and hightailed it to the outer rims of Wraeven Academy right by Graverun where I’d parked my bike, a sudden overwhelming hunger had consumed me.
It had taken me a little while to realize it was because all of Cassius’ blood I’d ingested had been neutralized—the magical and energizing effect of it—by the remainder of Ryker’s power in my system.
I’d had to sneak into Graverun and down five blood bags that were kept in the big fridge there in one of the backrooms.
I felt a lot better now. And it also meant he wouldn’t be able to track me through his own magical signature, which I was sure would be one of his go-to methods once he woke up. I wasn’t worried about Ketheron scent-tracking me because he was on lockdown too.
But it didn’t mean I had a lot of time. I could still be found. The people I’d surrounded myself with were supremely powerful beings and many of them were also talented at finding workarounds to complex problems.
So, as I caught sight of a diner up ahead and my stomach growled for something more than blood—like meatloaf, bacon, a beef sandwich, anything—I ignored the urge.
Five miles later when the diner came into view past the trees that had been blocking my full visual of it on the left side of the road, I saw it was closed anyway. Not a twenty-four-hour diner then.
Sudden movement on the dark road had a shot of adrenaline shooting down my spine.
What the—
It was gone in a blink.
An animal?
My headlights tricking even my eyes?
The weight of everything fucking with my mind?
The strain of trying to shove down the trauma of Velra and Sylas both fucking dying compromising my judgment?
But then it happened again.
A fraction of a second later, a figure stood in the road.
Another fraction later, it was right in front of me.
Him.
Victor Halrow.
It was too late.
Too close.
I couldn’t stop it.
Couldn’t veer away.
Couldn’t even leap off the saddle with a burst of speed.
I slammed into him, my bike shattering against his body, the fucker just standing there not hurt or even moved an inch by it, as the fuel tank crumpled, and the brutal fucking impact ripped me off the bike.
I was propelled through the air, landing in the lot of that diner on the asphalt, choking as bones cracked, pain lanced through me, and I coughed up blood as it punctured a lung in the process, the nasty wheezing making that clear all too quickly.
Blood oozed into my eyes and I struggled to blink it away.
I tried to turn, cursing when I braced myself on my right hand, only for a shooting pain to make it clear my wrist was shattered.
For now.
I just needed a few moments for my healing to kick in.
Footsteps sounded.
Steady, determined, ominous as shit.
I felt my wrist heal.
The footsteps drew closer.
Come on. Come on. Faster… heal faster.
“I have to commend you, Lazriel, evading the protection of The Shadowed is not an easy thing to accomplish. It takes tremendous skill. Yet, you have succeeded. They have been searching for you, fighting to get a lock on you, for nearly three hours. They are near now.” With a flash of speed, he came into view, standing just ten feet from me and looking so fucking casual about it.
“But not near enough.” He crouched down and grinned creepily.
“So, do not fret. We will not be interrupted by them.”
With a burst of speed, I shot back to my feet, but staggered unsteadily the moment my boots hit the ground.
Shit.
Victor’s lips quirked.
“What do you want?” I rasped, hating that I had to spit up my own blood in front of him, just to get my next words out. “You said it’s not time to kill me. No doubt, for some fucked-up purist fanatic reason.”
“Ah, yes, you largely discount your vampire side when it suits you.” He cocked his head to the side.
“There is much more than just the kill that arouses and sustains a true vampire, youngling. There is the hunt. Inciting fear. The punishment.” He took a step closer, making me tense.
“But in this specific case? Pretty thing, I mean to break you.”
His words to me the first time I’d encountered him played on my mind.
“That’s right, hybrid bitch, look at me with all that terror. I do love demonstrating to perceived apex predators that they’re really the prey. That fear will grow. It will drive you to the point of paranoia and near insanity.”
“All you Puritas members are fucking psychos to the core.”
His eye twitched.
A crack? Small, but something. And from what I’d already come to know of him, it wouldn’t be small to him.
“Blood calls to blood, I see.”
What the—