Chapter 15 Lazriel #3
I burst from the silo in the next second, using my vamp speed to rip down the side of it without having to worry about a long plunge down that would slow me.
Then I tore across the distance to the building, right through the entrance with the ripped off door, then cut across the edge of the battlefield on my dad’s side, until I stood to his right.
I watched as a couple of the vampires helped up Lucas who had woken up.
He shrugged them off, then staggered over to the army, keeping behind the fourth line, his magic glowing as he swept a palm over himself, healing the damage he’d sustained like I’d seen Sylas do before.
Actually, as I’d seen many magic-wielders do before.
But of course Sylas came to mind the most where that was concerned with all his vigilante battles. Glorious, incredible heartthrob.
I caught myself. In the middle of this? I was thinking that in the middle of this high-pressure, high stakes situation?
Oh, right. I really was just calling on the vampire all the way and it was activating a deep lust in me that I usually checked with the wolf. Not this time. It was intense as fuck.
In fact, it all was. I could feel the positions of every single soldier without even needing to see them. I could sense magic being called, vampires shifting their weight, hear even fangs dropping.
“Lazriel Thaine,” Lucas ground out. “The born hybrid.”
“That’s correct,” Remnant rumbled. “My son.”
Lucas’ eyes shot wide. “Your son? You’re the one… the Ancient rumored to have… that can’t be. Conjecture is that it was Lucian Black.”
“Lucian Black?” I let out a laugh that had my dad eyeing me with intrigue and surprise.
I guess with him being so serious on the battlefield, it was a departure for sure.
“In deep love with Jaxon Silver, Ryker Morgan, and Mia Snow? Fathering a child with somebody outside their unit? Ha. You purist fuckers really are another level of delusional. You don’t see the truth of much beyond your own bullshit beliefs, huh? ”
Lucas sneered back at me. “They want your head on a pike. You know that? There’s a directive and everything.
Just about you. Your Crossborn leader is gonna be dismembered and ripped limb from limb and spread out right alongside you.
That fucking Immortal husband of his will see he’s not the almighty force of protection he thinks he is.
And the entire world will see what happens to a born hybrid.
They’ll cower, they’ll kneel in fear, and then they’ll all be wiped from the face of the—”
Remnant roared and shoved into the army, sending a dozen of them flying toward Lucas. Two magic-wielders threw up a shield before they made contact, them bouncing off it. Remnant was there in the next second, ripping their heads off. Every single one of them.
Reacting with emotion.
Because of me.
Because of what that shithead had threatened.
He stood in the middle of the sixty left, right there in a dangerous position.
I burst in there too, snapping four necks of vampires on my way, then blowing back six more, clearing the way for my dad and me.
I caught sight of his smile just before he focused on the fight, then grasped the shoulders of two lunging at him from either side, and crushed their skulls together, before tearing them from their bodies in a very bloody macabre display, the blood actually spraying all over him as he held their heads high in the air.
Two power streams slammed into him and he tossed a head at either magic-wielder, the sharp sounds of necks snapping as they made contact ringing out to my deeply immersed senses.
I leaped up and spun into a kick that blew back another two magic-wielders in front of me just as they tried to fire at me. It knocked them onto their asses unconscious.
Hands grabbed at me—my arms, my tee from the back, trying to pull me down, while another three came at me from the front.
I grunted and hissed, fangs dropping.
I let them take me down to the floor.
But at the point of impact, I jerked sharply to the side and rolled, hooking my leg around one of them and tossing them off me and into two others.
As it blew them back, I snagged the ankle of another from my position on the ground and threw him over my head, stunned at my power as he hurtled fifty feet into the distance, his neck snapping against the concrete and even taking a chunk out of it.
As more moved in, I blurred back to my feet much faster than I ever had been capable of before.
I could feel my heart pumping, that fresh blood warming me.
But not just the blood.
It was that barrier being down now.
It was accessing something I hadn’t felt fully before.
Something I’d been too scared to allow proper breath.
But in this moment, it didn’t feel out of control or even scary.
It felt like freedom.
And as a dozen vampires closed in around me and then a magic-wielder fired their power at me, I didn’t feel the burn of the magic like I usually did, something I pushed through, but actually cost me to be able to do.
This time it was just an annoyance.
Three other blasts hit my back and I did feel the weight of it then.
I mean, I wasn’t Remnant.
But I was definitely feeling stronger.
The magic forced me forward and the vampires circling me moved in, some lunging.
I batted two away, watching as they sailed into the concrete wall again. Whoa.
And then I gritted my teeth and pulled on my power, pushing off with a burst of speed and clearing the magical streams.
The ones firing at my back couldn’t react in time to stop before their power blasted into the one who’d been streaming at me from the front, and it took her out, burning a hole right through her chest and killing her in seconds.
I grimaced.
I hadn’t killed anyone in this battle, but that.. I hadn’t meant for that to happen.
It had me hesitating and then six vampires ran me into one of the walls. I scented three of them as being centuries old, and felt the force of it too as I jarred against the concrete, and it even cracked behind me.
Being pinned like this… it… it freaked me out.
In a way I hadn’t been prepared for.
A memory slammed into me before I could stop it or even hope to get a hold on it.
Victor 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.”
I jolted as a hand wrapped around my throat, pulling me back to the immediate.
My claws dropped of their own accord, and I slashed across the offending arm and the vampire hissed, then drew back, his arm torn almost all the way through and blood spurting everywhere.
As the others wailed on me, a wolf howl tore from my throat, my fangs retracting before I could stop it.
A blur of movement flitted across my vision, and then they were all ripped from me, screeches sounding as their hearts were torn from their bodies, then tossed into the fray.
And then my dad stood before me. “Being cornered called memories of Victor’s attack to the forefront?”
“Yeah,” I breathed.
He laid his hand on my shoulder. “You are here now. You are well. Do not let him have any part of you. Not even in memory. The fear he wished to incite in you holds no bearing. Look at what you have already accomplished.” He smiled. “I am incredibly proud.”
He tensed then.
But it was too late.
I saw it hurtling toward us. Propelled with incredible speed—magically-produced speed.
I reacted, bursting in front of my dad just as it hit, that orange ball of swirling magic slamming into my chest, the concentrated sunlight detonating all over me.
I grunted at the impact.
But that was it.
It couldn’t ignite me.
It couldn’t even burn me.
Lucas started.
“I’m hybrid, fucker. It has its advantages,” I hissed at him.
That was all I got out, and he didn’t get the chance to utter another word, as Remnant burst toward him and literally ripped his fucking throat out.
As he shook off the mess of blood and fluids while the motherfucker fell in a heap adding to the so many dead, I saw him scan the battlefield. Everybody was down.
He eyed all the ones I’d taken out, then smiled to himself, before then bursting toward all of them and staking and decapitating, because I hadn’t killed a single one of them—except that magic-wielder.
“I couldn’t,” I told him as he finished the macabre work and strode back to me, spitting on Lucas as he went.
He simply nodded.
“You’re okay with that?”
“Of course. It’s your right. Crossing such an irreversible line is no small thing. Do you understand why I had to approach this battle the way I did, though?”
“Arresting them would have been better, way cleaner, and saved you a lot of fucking death.”
“I agree. However, it was not feasible.” He stopped in front of me and explained, “They mean to extinguish lives based on the sole notion that those lives do not meet their idealized interpretations of what a life should be, that said beings are different to them. They believe hybrid blood and makeup is impure, when in fact it is extraordinary. They are zealots, their beliefs twisted also by notions of power and dominion. It is a rot deeply infecting them all. That cannot simply be cut out, nor cured. It must be terminated in its entirety. It is also a message, Lazriel. That hybrid kind is not without allies, and that these allies are of pure blood also, yet do not detest hybridized natures. It reinforces that Puritas are fanatics, that their viewpoints are outliers, not the predominant rhetoric. And that their stance and actions will not be tolerated.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve erased madness to protect innocent lives.
Unfortunately, extreme measures are sometimes the only viable options.
Especially when it comes to these sorts of bigots.
There is no reason prevalent amongst them.
And without reason, diplomatic means are impossible. There is only definitive action.”