Chapter 17 Sylas
~Sylas~
Scion. Scion. Scion.
That fucking name… it had been haunting me for days on end.
Ever since it had come out of Velra’s mouth and shocked the fuck out of me.
Because it shouldn’t have come.
It shouldn’t have been spoken.
It should be dead and buried.
Quite literally.
It swirled around me, the urgency in it willing me to take heed, to pay attention, to figure it all out. Namely, how the fuck it was being spoken again.
But I… couldn’t.
I couldn’t maintain my focus.
It wouldn’t let me… my own fucking mind wouldn’t let me.
Without my magic, my compartmentalization was collapsing all over the place.
The first day I’d gotten here, I’d managed to hold it at bay. It was actually when I’d been able to crack that antidote and send it off to Kai. Not earlier today—days later from when I’d arrived back here—like I’d told Velra and Cassius.
And then I’d started working on the Valley of the Dead issue, trying to determine precisely what damage had been done when I’d not only invoked Auctoritas Mortis but also then killed myself, entered the metaphysical plane, and Kai had subsequently melded his power with mine to pull both me and Velra out.
Violations upon violations that had surely impaired the fabric of the death realm—in several ways that would take study from one so incredibly learned in specific death magic and how the place operated, like me, to determine the precise details of.
That was when I’d discovered that Velra’s theory had been correct. That being working with Scion had used my power. They had pulled me in there intentionally in order for that exchange to take place.
The Valley of the Dead had experienced several tears—breaches—during that fuckfest of epic proportions.
It was currently holding due to a mix of the black magic from Scion, and the fact that when Kai had reached in, his magic had been protected and enveloped by Cornelius Martel’s Celestial-based power.
But those were just patches.
Temporary ones.
I shoved my hand through my hair as I sat on the floor of my bedroom against the wall, the thing cracked behind me from smashing the back of my head into it in a bid to pull myself from the fucking flashes that had been inundating me.
The reason I’d stretched the truth with Velra and Cassius was because why I’d really come here and needed space was to research Scion.
It had been my immediate goal.
My number one fucking priority.
But of course, as with so much with me, the way I’d had to live my life, I’d had to throw up smokescreens just to do what I needed to—finishing the antidote work first, determining the situation with the Valley.
Although the Valley aspect pertained to the overarching Scion nightmare, so there was that.
I was just… so fucking sick of it.
The pretense.
Having to go around, instead of through.
My hands started to shake, a lightheadedness surging.
Not again.
It was a mark of another brutal flash coming.
“Stop,” I ground out.
But of course it didn’t.
It slammed into me.
Lightning sparked, becoming flash lightning in moments, tearing into the sky and shooting all around the area.
And then I slammed my palms together with all that power, creating a mammoth shockwave that was akin to a necromantic nuke, blasting into the Animated Fleshwork.
I waited the brief moments it would take to drop them cold where they stood, indicating they’d been returned to the Valley of the Dead. Then I’d return their bodies via magic to their correct gravesites.
That didn’t happen.
I blinked back to the immediate and pushed to my feet, staggering over to my bed, my limbs shaking.
I snagged the edge of the blanket, just a moment before another flash hit me like a real bitch from hell.
It had all been an illusion.
But what was left as the film dematerialized had me choking and stumbling back.
Twelve piles of ashes.
“No. No. No. No.”
“Oh, it’s very much a reality,” a voice whispered with sadistic glee on the wind. “You murdered them, necromancer.”
I choked, the blanket tearing off the bed with me as I collapsed to my knees.
“You… did this.”
Corvin flashed his fangs as he held his magic steady, continuing to drive the drill deeper, tearing through my flesh, while he held me immobile with the chains—and the devastation of what he’d set me up to do.
“Yes. The great Sylas Morgrave has been outmaneuvered.”
“Stop!” I roared through the room, through the whole house, filling it with my furor that this was happening, that I couldn’t stop it from happening.
I slapped my hands to my head as another memory from that night of Glasswake Massacre bled into me.
Making me bleed with it.
“Your father would be so proud.”
I gritted my teeth. “Leave him… out of it.”
“How can I?” he gestured at the dead. “This is just like his handiwork, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Go… to hell.”
He chuckled nastily. “Looks like it’s you who’s going to be headed there now. I’m sure this will torture you very nicely.”
I snapped back to the immediate, gasping for breath, unable to draw in a steady or deep one, my nails digging into my scalp as I trembled all over.
A hand landed on my shoulder, sending a shot of adrenaline through me.
I swung my head.
I couldn’t believe it.
He was here.
“Lazriel,” I rasped.
“I’m fine.”
He eyed me as he fixed my bed covers into place, after he’d already gathered all my papers and journals that had been all over the floor.
He’d even picked up my art supplies for my charcoal paintings which I’d knocked over when the flashes had first started happening a few days ago.
“Thought you hated it when I gave you that bullshit line?”
“Yeah, well,” I said, taking another sip from my blackcurrant tea. I’d had a pot on earlier and he’d warmed it for me.
So, yeah, it had basically been non-stop for the last fifteen minutes since he’d walked in and found me there on the floor like a sniveling weakling unable to handle their own shit.
And that wasn’t me.
I couldn’t let it be either.
I was a trauma survivor. Not a trauma victim.
When Lazriel was upset or disturbed, he liked to act. Usually sexually, but also violently, hence his whole Graverun hobby.
The fact he hadn’t stopped moving and doing since he’d seen me in that state told me just how much it had rattled him.
He finished the bed, then turned to face me fully, folding his arms across his chest. “You should sit down. Your pulse is racing.”
I smirked. “As it should with you standing here in the flesh after so long. And in my bedroom, no less.”
He glared at me. “If you think you can dirty talk your way out of this—”
“I’m certain that I can. You’ve eye-fucked me three times in the last ten minutes.”
“Sounds like your own sexual appetite is skewing things. That was concern. Concerned looks I was sending your way.”
I put my tea down on my art desk and walked to him, closing the distance between us, and glad as fuck that there was no longer any shakiness, that I was no longer physically compromised.
Well, apart from the fact that I didn’t have my fucking magic.
“My sexual appetite is skewing things, hmm?”
“That’s right.”
“That doesn’t sound like you talking. Seems you’ve learned a few things while you were away. Remnant’s speech patterns, I presume?”
“Maybe. Who fucking knows right now after the mind-fuck that has been everything lately. But what I do know is that you are definitely not fine. But there is a way to—”
I pressed my fingers to his lips. “Shh. Let me just finally revel in you actually being here. It’s been too fucking long, babe.”
I took him in, those vibrant green streaks in his thick dark hair that made his steel-gray eyes pop. His biceps were bulging even as he just stood there in a black tank that pulled taut across his delectable abs, basically molded to all that pristine hardness and carved muscle.
Speaking of said hardness, as my gaze swept lower and I took in his black jeans, it was brazenly clear just how turned on he was by this turn of events, the intensity flaring between us, being in the same space, up so fucking close, after far too long.
He had more scruff around his jaw than normal, giving him a bit of a harder edge.
He looked a little different, seemed a little different, actually.
More controlled.
But also relaxed.
So that control was no longer coming from intense repression of his vampire side.
Being with his father had helped him, then.
I dropped my fingers from his lips and ran them back and forth through his scruff, and his eyes fluttered closed briefly. Mmm. “Missed you.”
“Missed you too.” His lips lifted with amusement.
“What?”
“Nothing. You just… had a hard time without me, huh? Your shirt’s rumpled and only done up with one button, which isn’t even through the right hole.
There’s a rip in your pants, and you’re even barefoot.
” He reached out and ruffled my hair. “And your usually perfectly spiked hair is wild as fuck.” He stepped closer, our chests pushing together, making my breath hitch and a little groan escape him.
“Really giving off the whole mad magical scientist vibe.” His eyes flamed. “Sexy as fuck.”
“And here we thought you were the messy one. Guess without my magic, you’re seeing the cracks.”
“I know about the binding, Sylas.”
I started. I actually had to clear my throat. “Well, then you see.”
He shook his head. “No. This isn’t about the magic. It’s about the damage you’ve never dealt with. It’s about—”
I slammed my lips to his.
He stilled for a moment, before he linked his arms around my neck and kissed me back with a whole lot of fervor, even thrusting his tongue into my mouth.
As I grasped his face, needing to hold him to me, his hands were all over me.
Frantic.
Desperate.
In my hair one minute, brushing over my shoulders the next, down my arms.
His fingers dug into my chest then and he ripped at my shirt, then shoved it off me and tossed it violently across the room.
I tugged at his tank and he broke our kiss so I could rip it over his head.