Chapter 10 Cassius
~Cassius~
She continued to sneak glances at me as we neared our destination through the extremely dense forest, her shadows swirling all around us and concealing our approach.
Despite it being daytime, there was little light. Even without her shadows, the forest around us was so dense it swallowed most of the illumination.
“Is all well?” I finally asked, having hoped she’d eventually voice whatever those looks my way were about. Yet she hadn’t. Understandable, given all that was on her mind.
As the words left my mouth, I realized how utterly ill-equipped they’d sounded.
“No,” I began again, correcting myself. “Of course I know all is not well. I simply meant, in this instance, is there something specific you wish to discuss? Something behind the looks you’ve been sneaking my way for the past thirty-one minutes?”
“Thirty-one minutes? That’s specific.” She chuckled then and the sound was incredible. Especially in light of everything. “I knew what you meant,” she told me seriously then. “And I also know you weren’t being flippant in the least.”
Thank goodness.
I was aware that I had come a long way with that sort of thing, but I also wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that there wasn’t still work that needed to be done.
“I just… before everything that happened at Vantiqe, I wanted to talk to you about what happened that night. But we never got to address it. Now we’re in this very brief calm before another storm, I thought we should take the time to… you know… discuss it, I guess?”
I frowned. She had come a long way with opening up lately and after she’d dropped her defenses it had felt very natural for her to do so. But now she was being rather… awkward about it. I didn’t understand why she would—oh—that night! Of course.
“The night we made love. That is what you are referring to, yes?”
“Yeah,” she answered, fiddling with the sleeves of her hoodie.
Well, Lazriel’s hoodie.
She’d emerged from my bedroom wearing it this morning, along with Sylas’ Nexus Band ring.
Although the ring was currently de-powered, it gave her a connection him.
She had been staying at mine and Ketheron’s apartment for the last few days while she’d been recuperating.
She’d wanted to see to the Blood Trace before she was fully healed, her urgency unbearable, her wish to act immediately understandable.
But she’d calmed and rested, recognizing that being fully healed was the only way to proceed safely.
She and Ketheron had grown closer in a wonderful way since she’d been staying with us.
Her personality worked very well with his.
And he, of course, wished to understand my fascination with her.
“You wish to discuss our lovemaking… now?” I queried.
“For one, I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Okay?”
She fiddled with her sleeves again, struggling to look me in the eye. “It was your first time… doing that. I know that your first experience with sexual pleasure was with Lazriel when he fed from you, but that night when we actually—”
“That was not my first experience of sexual pleasure.”
She swung her head toward me. “It wasn’t?”
“My first experience was when you were fornicating with Lazriel in The Fade that night, when I felt yours through the Soul Brand, and it… affected me so profoundly that I had to… tend to matters… personally… in response.”
She choked and actually stopped walking.
I pulled up short as well and turned to face her. “Have I upset you?”
“I upset you, Cassius.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Your first sexual experience was feeling me with somebody else, not even your own experience either. And one tinged with upset that you were on the sidelines, kept from me.”
“Kept from you by my own design, remember? I am the one who denied you my side of the Soul Brand in a ridiculous bid to protect you. And as for that being my first experience of sex, I believe it was much better that way. It eased me into it. As then did my sensual feed with Lazriel. It meant that when it came time for us, I was actually ready for you.” I took her hands in mine.
“Be mindful of that guilt again. Guilt that is not yours to take on. You know that I brought that on myself. You also know that there is nothing you could have done. You had no power with that and it’s absolutely my fault.
It’s something we’ve since rectified together.
So let us not dwell on what has already been healed and bettered, yes? ”
A little smile spread over her face. “It has been bettered, hasn’t it?”
“Oh, very much so. And as for the night we all came together and you took me inside you… it was the most incredible experience of my life, exceeding all that has ever come before in my many centuries of existence.” I leaned in and whispered at her ear.
“And I wish to do it again. In fact, I have been fantasizing about it rather obsessively.”
A little tremble went through her and I felt a great deal more through our Soul Brand.
And then she chuckled.
I eased back to look down at her.
Her eyes were shining, full of mirth.
“It’s so intense, huh?”
I burst out laughing. A full, hearty laugh.
The look on her face. The Soul Brand binding us and the humor she was finding there, rather than just the overwhelming nature of it.
A break through all the intensity surrounding us was just what was needed.
My laughter made her chuckle harder, and she clutched at my shirt for purchase, almost doubling over with it.
When we both finally came down from it, she tightened her hold on my shirt and stretched onto her tiptoes to press her cheek to mine.
“You know, you still keep your emotions in check, balled up tight, most of the time. I get that it’s no longer you trying to keep things from me like it was before.
It’s just you learning how to navigate them and this new existence as an Immortal, rather than a True Celestial.
” She smiled and cupped my face. “But whenever I ask you to talk about something, whenever I engage with you, right away you open all the way to me. And I can feel that fully through our Brand and from you independent of that as well.” She stroked my cheeks.
“So, thank you. That’s amazing, Cassius, and I really don’t take it lightly. ”
“The Soul Brand offers a safer way and a sort of guiding light to growing closer, which I can tell you actually want. It’s sort of like a protective bubble from which things can grow beyond once you’re more settled with it.”
I saw recognition shine in her beautiful amethyst eyes. “Yes, those were your words to me not long ago. I took them to heart. Because I want to very much be close with you and Lazriel and Sylas.”
“You’re doing an impressive job. Truly, Cassius. We all feel it from you, I promise.” She smiled. “You really don’t need to worry so much about being emotionally ill-equipped anymore.”
“You are truly remarkable,” I breathed, most definitely overcome.
But then her smile faded, that serious look returning. Her hands dropped from my cheeks.
“What is it?” I asked carefully.
“With everything else we’ve been focused on, I didn’t bring it up sooner, but now we have a moment and there’s nobody else around, I need to.
” She drew in a steadying breath. “This has to stay between us. The fallout for Sylas for performing that outlawed spell to save me would be beyond if the Guardian Movement knew about this as well.”
“Knew what?”
“Of the damage already evident that was done to the Valley of the Dead from Auctoritas Mortis.”
“What do you mean? You saw something while you were trapped?”
She nodded. “I thought I managed it on my own, tearing a hole in the periphery of the Veil just outside the Valley of the Dead. But with Sylas performing that spell, it makes much more sense. It had weakened the integrity of the plane. That was why I was able to punch a way through.”
“You did what? You opened up your own breach?”
“For a few moments. Until it was hijacked by… someone. That’s what I need to tell you,” she said, grasping my hand, urgency taking her over.
“I heard a voice that I didn’t recognize, then an orb of shimmering blue light obscuring something within itself passed toward the tear I’d made.
It was snatched by somebody on the outside in the living world whose form I could see, but not their face.
A red hood covered their facial features and all I could make out were black veins and straggly brown hair.
The veins… they had to be the mark of black magic, because when I tried to push through the breach I’d made, his magic stopped me and it chilled me and tasted like sludge. ”
“Those are both marks of black magic, yes. So you are telling me that this unknown figure prevented you from accessing the breach you had created with the aid of Sylas’ spell?”
“Yeah. He closed up the tear.”
“Hades,” I breathed.
“And the voice that was in there with me spoke to whoever that eerie bastard was when he handed him that orb of magic. ‘Scion, remember our bargain. This for my freedom. You deny me and I will see you suffer alongside me here’. Those were his exact words. Does that mean anything to you? That name?”
“No. It doesn’t. But we will investigate.” Just like we were investigating so much else. “Do not worry, Velra. We will see to this.”
“What if the Valley of the Dead is irreparably damaged? What if Sylas performing that spell to save me unleashed something horrific?”
I gave her hands a squeeze. “We have severe immediate issues to concern ourselves with. You observed a cryptic interaction with very little information to go on. The harm to the Valley could have simply been that object being passed through, and if that’s the case we will find it and nullify whatever threat it poses.
All of this can be dealt with. Although, through one step at a time. ”
“Okay,” she agreed with a nod. “I just…”
“I know, little shadow. I know. Truly.”