Chapter 19 Lazriel #2
“I know well how your father operates. He is trying to empower you at this stage of your development and training. As such he will be keeping his distance. However, he has demonstrated how much he cares for you and how you impact him emotionally—stepping out of the shadows to attack me is proof enough of that, especially given the current circumstances across the supernatural world.”
In my peripheral vision, even as I kept my attention focused on the maniac just a few feet from me, I saw that Sylas was just about to dip into the kitchen, when Victor’s words had him jolting, and briefly stilling.
I snapped my fingers and he pushed on, making me wince as he staggered a bit.
Fuck. I should have healed him. But he’d wanted to keep my marks on him. And, yeah, I’d obviously fucking liked that too. My vampire side was definitely a lot freer now.
Although, marking somebody with your bite was also a wolf thing, so maybe it was bit of both.
Victor’s grating voice with that know-it-all tone continued on, “That means he wouldn’t have been able to allow you to take your leave entirely, not without him watching over you in some manner.
With his intention to empower you and give you space, that won’t be The Shadowed.
It will be him scent-tracking you from afar.
Right now, my blood is masked by yours. He won’t know I’m here.
Even with his incredible intuition, I will currently read as a mixture of you and Sylas Morgrave—given the one who assisted me with this little masquerade. ”
“Morien Morgrave’s blood is also in your system?”
“That and his magic—with the black magic properties filtered out, as that would be a giveaway to Dear Daddy.”
My jaw ticked. The thought of him ingesting my blood was so fucking demented. It was… it was a violation. A really fucking sick one.
“Your pulse is jumping, precious. You are deeply unnerved.”
Unnerved? Piece of shit. I was deeply immersed. Highly attuned to every little thing about him—except for his stupid scent.
And because I was, because I didn’t let him fuck with my concentration in that manner, I felt it when his talons twitched.
It was the giveaway I needed.
Sure enough, as he burst toward the kitchen, intending to go for Sylas, I was already moving, smashing my boot into the back of the couch with such force that it sent the entire thing careening into Victor.
He snarled as he was blown back, the impact sending him crashing through the front window, taking a chunk out of the wall in the process.
I heard him smack into a tree trunk outside about fifty feet away.
Sylas’ voice reached me from the kitchen.
“Cassius, the ward has been breached.”
“That cannot be. There are no Celestial enemies to us. As such—”
“Victor Halrow is using a blood mask. He ingested Lazriel’s blood and he’s had it fused to—”
“If I cast him out from afar right this instant, it will force Lazriel outside with him also.”
“I’m aware. We… we fucking need you and Velra. Now. ASAP.”
A rush of movement drew me back to the front door, just a second before Victor hurtled through and ran at me.
I managed to dodge out of his reach by a mere two inches, and he slammed into the wall, cracking it really severely. Like, structural damage severity.
“You’re not being good for me!” he roared, incensed that it wasn’t so easy this time to fuck with me. “You’re making this much worse for yourself.”
I felt a faint reverberation through the floor a moment before he swung his fist.
I dodged it again, ducking low.
But this time he anticipated and swept his leg at me, his designer shoe slamming into my face.
Blood sprayed and bones crunched under the brutality of it, and it had my head snapping back.
With another blur, he was there, ripping me off my feet with a sweep.
I grunted, spitting up blood as I hit the floor with jarring force.
He snarled and pounced on me, fucking straddling me, his knees pinning my legs down, his hands confining my arms at my sides.
He leaned in close and scented me. “It would serve you much better if you would only kneel to me, acquiesce to my will, and become my plaything. Your current approach endangers not only you, but also your father.”
“What?” I rasped, choking up a mouthful of blood, my ribs trying to heal, one clearly fucking with my lungs. Just like last time he’d attacked me.
I knew my pulse was racing like mad.
I was sweating, but not from the physicality of the fight itself.
It was because I was doing every fucking thing I could to stop those flashes of what he’d done to me last time, to prevent the trauma of it from infecting me right here and now.
I couldn’t let it in.
He’d definitely win out then.
He’d destroy me, he’d take Sylas and hurt him.
“Your approach to my fixation with you positions me as a threat in Remnant’s eyes. So he’ll hunt me, he’ll attempt to take my life. And that is so very bad for him and for you, now that you’ve developed sentiment toward him.” He smirked maliciously. “We are tethered, Lazriel.”
“Lies,” I choked out.
“Why do you think he hasn’t attempted to kill me? Even with me aligning with Puritas, abandoning his teachings? Because, pretty thing, should I fall, he falls alongside me.”
“No.”
My dad had told me that we’d kill Victor together. Knowing he was tethered to the bastard… it would be suicide. No. He wouldn’t.
“Oh, it’s the indisputable truth. Back when he still loved and treasured me, he spared my life.
With the circumstances at play, this tether—Nexus Letale—was the only way.
I was his first creation. He made me in his image.
” He eased back, his creepy eyes burning into mine.
“Yet, now there is you. Blood and flesh. Not a sireling, but his biological son.” He roared, lifting one hand off my right arm and wrapping it around my throat. “Your existence ruined everything!”
In his fury, he’d made a mistake.
I took full fucking advantage of it with his arm off one of mine, and jerked sharply to the side with all my strength.
It destabilized him just enough for me to rear back and throw him off. I launched into a blur of backward momentum, channeling my wolf side to twist it into a full backflip off the floor, landing on my feet the second he hit the far wall and dropped on his ass.
He sprung back to his feet immediately, licking his fangs at me.
Instead of earning a shudder from me like he’d obviously intended, it sparked an idea.
But I needed a distraction first.
Fortunately, Sylas had my back—as per usual.
A carving knife whipped through the room, spinning toward Victor.
He reacted, swinging his head and moved to snatch it out of the air.
But he failed.
The knife defied all notions of physics and bent around his attempted interception.
Magic.
It tore into Victor’s throat.
Damn, it had overridden his insane durability and titanium-like skin.
He spluttered and staggered back into the wall, fighting to pull out the blade.
But it didn’t move an inch.
I clocked Sylas in my peripheral vision at the threshold of the kitchen.
While Victor was reeling, he held up two fingers in reference to the blade.
Two minutes it could hold buried in Victor’s flesh.
Part of Sylas’ Specus Relics collection clearly.
Weirdly, it didn’t have the feel of magic to it, which was why I’d just clocked it as a regular knife. Although, that had to be intentional. If Victor had sensed it, he would have altered his reaction, realizing it wasn’t just a normal blade.
Time to implement my idea.
Although blood was oozing down his throat, it wouldn’t be enough.
It wouldn’t bleed him out. Not with his Ancient abilities being a factor.
“Remnant… has the… stake,” he spluttered out, bracing himself against the wall with his free hand, while he still struggled with the magical knife. “The one that… can kill… Ancients.”
“Lies. Everyone knows that’s with Lucian Black.”
“Not… anymore. He has an… ally.” He glanced between me and Sylas, somehow managing to look so fucking smug with a knife in his throat. “Cornelius… Martel.”
“The silver magic,” I heard Sylas mutter under his breath. “It was him.”
What?
Fuck this.
I made my move.
I leapt forward, black fur sprouting on the backs of my hands, then spreading all over, bones snapping, then realigning, limbs elongating, shifting my entire form in split-seconds.
Painlessly, as an added bonus, because I was hybrid.
I dropped my fangs and Victor’s eyes shot wide. Yeah, a wolf with vampire fangs… not exactly an everyday thing. I hadn’t even been sure I could do it.
I was channeling the vampire fiercely, Sylas’ blood and that of the fresh human feeds I still had in my system, heating me, intensifying everything, as I dropped that barrier between the two sides of myself, and melded them.
Victor grunted as I hit, pouncing on him, ripping him off the wall in the process, then pinning him beneath my twenty-foot mammoth black wolf form.
I twisted the knife in his throat and he roared.
And then I sank my fangs into the wound.
He thrashed beneath me as I buried them deep and drew like a fucking beast—quick, brutal, and determined.
Couldn’t have him with my blood and that also similar to Sylas’ blood in his system.
It was way too dangerous.
And draining this much, this fast, would also obviously weaken him.
A fuck of a lot.
I was drinking so fast that blood was pouring from the corners of my mouth, and his wound was widening, flesh tearing.
From his gargled screams and clawing at the floor beneath me, it was clear he only liked pain on his terms.
Good to know.
“Lazriel!” Sylas yelled.
I felt a tug from Victor a moment later.
He’d ripped out the knife.