Chapter 7 Lazriel #2
“Still not healed.” He tutted as he took in the sight of the gashes in my head still bleeding, that wheezing sounding from my ruptured lung, and me struggling to stand steadily and remain in one spot from the dizziness of it all.
“Your healing abilities can seem like such an asset when standing against lesser beings who do not possess your physical durability. Even magic-wielders. You’ve come to believe that from your antics at Graverun.
However, there is also this.” He held up his right hand and jerked two of his fingers to the side, snapping them.
He didn’t show a single sign of pain, not even a flinch.
And in a split-second, they healed. “Not convincing enough? Hmm.” He had me jolting as he pulled a stake from the inside pocket of his charcoal suit jacket.
He spun it rapid-fire in his hand, then suddenly shoved it through his shirt and deep into his gut.
He grinned as he twisted it, widening the wound, then ripped it out.
Still not even a flinch.
He lifted his shirt and I watched the wound seal in less than a second.
“This is what you are up against.” He winked at me. “By the way, when I drove this stake into my gut was your one advantage against me. But you’re still so compromised that you couldn’t even make the move needed.”
He caught my gaze dropping to the stake he was leisurely spinning in his hand.
“Not a chance,” he said with a laugh, stowing it back inside his jacket pocket. “That wasn’t for you. It’s for The Shadowed when they arrive after we’re done here. A little message to make it clear that even attempting to interrupt my time with you was a fatal mistake.”
“What exactly is your obsession here?”
“So much you don’t know. All because of your whore mother.”
I snarled, my fangs dropping involuntarily.
“There’s the vampire coming out to play. Yes. Between this and our last encounter, now I see how it works with you.”
I swallowed hard. “I asked you a question.”
“Yes, you did. And you continue to be impetuous, to display arrogance and attitude when you know you are severely outmatched. Stupidity doesn’t quite cover it with your approach here—antagonizing an enemy when you should be pleading for mercy.”
“I don’t beg.”
“That’s not entirely true now, is it? I believe your interactions with Sylas Morgrave are an exception to that? Perhaps the Immortal as well? Maybe even that hybrid bitch of yours? Then again, it is no surprise, given who your father is.”
I jolted. “What?”
“Your father knelt to your mother.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was enamored with her. Star-crossed lovers. That pathetic mess that compromised his judgment several times over. Namely, in creating you. Hybrid filth. Born hybrid filth—between an Ancient Vampire, an exceedingly pure bloodline that he stemmed from, mixing with wolf trash.” He hissed and shook his head with disgust.
Adrenaline and rage collided.
I could feel my dizziness wearing off substantially now.
I was breathing a lot easier.
The gashes in my head had healed.
That creepy grin spread over his face as he noticed, not even a moment for me to feel better and make a move before that had occurred.
“Go on. Take your shot.”
I shifted my weight.
“Fist to the left temple. Hmm… not advisable. Given our height differences, you’ll have to overextend. It will compromise your speed, which is already weak compared to mine.”
My gaze darted elsewhere.
“No. You can’t rip my heart out. Even employing your wolf claws, my durability will prevent you from reaching deep enough, especially with a single propulsion of your fist.”
I shifted my gaze again—this time to his throat.
He went to speak, to discount the move he believed I was going to make.
Not so, fucker.
With a burst of speed, I thrust my boot—
Straight into his junk.
With the full force of my hybrid strength.
Given the pain threshold he’d demonstrated, I didn’t expect him to retch and double over. But I did expect it to momentarily stun him.
And it fucking worked, he went rigid, even grunting.
It gave me the opportunity to execute my real move beneath the subterfuge, and I thrust my hand forward with my speed, intending to drive my fingers into his eye sockets.
If I couldn’t currently overpower him, I could compromise him.
I was a half an inch out from connecting when he snagged my wrist, his eyes staring down at my fingers right there, so close.
“Good youngling.”
“What? You—”
“I already knew you had a strategic mind? Of course. You see, I am all-knowing when it comes to my prey.” He pushed against my hand, and I gritted my teeth as I fought against it, but he just dragged it down, overriding my strength.
I called my claws, my hand shaking against his sheer fucking power. And then he shoved them into his chest, driving them deep and holding my hand there as he bled, as they sank into his flesh.
“Mmm… invigorating and highly arousing.” His gaze flicked to mine. “Much appreciated.”
I tried to yank my hand back, but he held fast. “Kneel.”
“What?”
“Kneel and I will release you.”
“No,” I ground out, with a swing of my fist.
He batted it away with such force that he snapped my fucking wrist, making me howl at the brutality of it.
Then he grabbed my jaw in a vise grip.
“Such a pretty face,” he said, making me shudder as he stroked my jaw with the pad of his thumb. “Such a pretty body. What a shame it is to destroy it. And over and over at that, as per my plan. Especially when all you need to do, at least for right now, is kneel at my feet.”
He drew his thumb over my lips and I tried to jerk my head away, but he held fast.
“Or would you rather open for me?”
“Burn in hell, motherfucker.”
His eyes flashed and he squeezed, forcing a cry from me as he cracked my jaw.
He wrenched my other hand from his chest, then forced my own fingers to my face, dragging his blood all over my cheeks, my nose, my chin, my lips.
“Mmm… I’m loving the degradation for you… being marked by another against your will… you look spectacular.”
“I’m a… born hybrid,” I eked out with the broken fucking jaw really compromising my ability to speak. “You think I… haven’t been… degraded… before?”
That eye twitch happened again.
And then he roared and tossed me into the diner.
There was so much power behind it that I crashed through the front windows, shot right through to the counter, slammed into the fucking drywall behind it—then blasted through the kitchen, scraped a metal fridge, and careened out the back door, the entire thing disintegrating under the impact.
I landed in a heap on my stomach, choking up blood, bleeding from every fucking where, bones shattered, lungs wheezing again from what was definitely severe internal damage.
Rubble, dust, and glass covered me—shards of that sharp shit slicing my throat, my hands, my legs, even puncturing right through my leather jacket.
This was the worst day not to be wearing my tactical gear.
My ears were ringing, but I felt his approach.
Not a moment later, he fisted the back of my jacket and hauled me up, then slammed me against a tree, getting in my face again.
I choked up more blood as I wearily noticed he had a length of twisted rebar clutched in his hand, torn from the diner’s wreckage.
He pulled something from inside his suit jacket—this time the other side.
He grinned as a vial came into view, a swirling white liquid.
And then he poured it over the sharpest end of the makeshift weapon.
“Holy water,” he told me.
No. No. No.
I tried to struggle against his hand to my chest that was holding me to the tree, but it was just useless in my current state—or at all, apparently.
He smirked sadistically.
And then he drove the massive thing into me, angling it sharply through my gut and up through my body, just missing my heart.
I screamed out into the night.
But that brutal pain was nothing compared to what it became when the holy water took effect and started burning—inside me. It was searing through my fucking veins, boiling my blood.
He drew up close and licked the side of my neck, tasting my blood, as I shrieked and spluttered.
“Wanted to have a taste before the holy water spreads everywhere. Hmm… interesting. More vampire than you realize. So potent. What a shame that you don’t know how to use that power. Ancient Vampire blood courses through your veins, yet you squander it.”
“S… stop.”
He scented me, his eyes hooding. “Seeing you this way is exhilarating. Feeling your agony, your terror, your heart pumping so violently, these tremors as your blood boils with holy water… just intoxicating.” He leaned in.
“Thank me for schooling you and I will give you an antidote to the holy water.”
“N… no.”
He angled the metal. “One more scrape and I nick your heart. It won’t kill you, but it will demonstrate what true agony is, especially with the holy water in play.”
When I hissed instead, he shifted his weight, intending to do it.
Something caught my attention despite all the agony, the intensity, the fucking demented insanity of it all.
Movement?
No.
A… feeling.
I didn’t… I didn’t understand.
A rush of wind tore through the area.
I’d barely registered it when Victor was slammed into from the side at a power I could barely reconcile and with a speed that even I couldn’t fully register, ripped from me, and sent spinning out into the distance.
A dark figure filled my vision.
Before I could take it in, agony ripped through me as the metal was yanked out of me.
I started to drop, but I was caught, then gathered against a strong body.
A deep male rumble sounded. “That filth is gone. You are safe now.”
I struggled to look up, but all I could see were eyes cast in shadow from a low-hanging black hood, the rest of his face obscured by a metal mask.
Hold on… metal mask?
I caught sight of a syringe a second before it was plunged into my throat.
“The burning will cease in mere moments and your healing will hasten.”
“I don’t…” I collapsed against him, on the verge of passing out.
“It’s all okay. Rest. Heal. I’ve got you now.”
My surroundings started slipping away.
He sighed heavily. “Son.”
It was the last thing I heard before I passed out.