Chapter 20 Velra
~Velra~
My brother was in custody.
Not Guardian Movement custody.
Ours.
I’d found out something about Cassius and Ketheron tonight as a result.
The two of them had a contingency plan that nobody knew about.
If the supernatural world ever became afraid of Ketheron again, or turned on him, they had a plan to hide him away from everyone and everything.
They had three locations, which they’d determined the viability of during their adventure trips, which I now knew hadn’t just been about the exploratory, tourist-like nature of it all for them.
The locations were heavily warded and within pocket dimensions, something that the people who’d hurt and experimented on both me and Ketheron had used to keep themselves off the radar before they’d been destroyed—Chimera Circle.
And now Cassius and Ketheron had used that idea to their advantage.
Within the tiny pocket dimensions was also a large structure that resembled a sprawling luxurious estate that was protected with Ariana Martel’s magic.
Something that Cassius had secretly borrowed from the cell that they’d kept Ketheron in beforehand when everyone had believed him to be a threat because Corvin Morvain had been controlling him.
Ariana had erected her own ward around it which no one could penetrate.
It had kept Ketheron safe from everyone.
And it would do the same again if it ever came to it.
And right now an estate within one of their pocket dimensions was being used to hold Sorin—off the radar of everybody. He’d already escaped once and from The Void, no less, a supernatural prison that was supposed to be impenetrable.
Although, with Sylas cracking the key to the antidote for the new version of Dark Fae mind-meddling out there and sending the details on to Arcanum Order, hopefully, that would never be possible again.
This Dark Fae situation had become severe and abnormal, even for that realm. So many joining the ranks of Puritas? Something was happening, something I needed to—
“Wraithqueen?”
I spun from staring out of the window into the dark forest surrounding Cassius and Ketheron’s apartment to see Lazriel standing there freshly showered and dressed, holding his forest green hoodie up expectantly.
“This smells so much more like you than me now.” He frowned curiously and with humor sparking.
“Have you been wearing this the entire time I’ve been gone? ”
Obviously he already knew the answer. His scenting of it had given it away. “You really need to hear me say it, huh?” I teased, going to him and pressing my hands to his chest and gazing up at him. “Yes. I’ve been wearing it since you’ve been away.” I arched an eyebrow. “Problem, sweets?”
“Shit, yeah, there’s a major problem.” His palms covered my hands on his chest, holding them to his sexy black tank that was really working for him and all that glorious muscle of his, those bulging biceps and…
everything. Absolutely everything. “It’s a problem that I was gone so long that you had to do that. ”
I pushed into him and he smiled down at me adoringly. “I know why you had to. It was important, so important. Not just for the gathering of information, but actually for you, Lazriel.”
“I met my dad!” he burst out with, excitedly. “Not just met him either! I spent some actual quality time with him, bonded with him, trained with him, fought alongside him! All of that, Velra!”
I grinned. “I know, sweets. It’s incredible.”
“We even… fed together. Not just from blood bags, or even glasses. From… feeders.”
My fingers flexed on his chest, feeling his pendant beneath, stroking over it. “Really?”
“Yeah,” he responded nervously. “I know I told you before that I didn’t like that. And I thought I didn’t, but—”
“That is amazing!”
“Really?”
“Yes, of course! All these years and you’re doing it! Being a vampire as well as a wolf. Embracing both! Sylas even told me that you wolfed out with fangs.”
“Sure did. Sure fucking did.” He released my hands, then shifted them to my hips, holding me tighter to him.
“You did the same thing, you know? I saw your shadows and frost working together even with your Dark Fae power. It was wild, fucking extraordinary.” He winced.
“I mean, if you paper over the actual circumstances.” He shook his head to himself and pulled away.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m gushing about spending time with my dad when your brother…
your family even back in the Dark Fae Realm—”
“Shh,” I said, reaching up and cupping his face.
“I’m so happy for you. I don’t care about my parents, not having a blood family.
It’s different for me. You were always denied a father.
I had that and it didn’t exactly work out.
But it doesn’t matter. I have you, the three of you.
You’re my family. For me, that’s all I need.
For you, with you denying your vampire nature so much and the reason behind that, you need this connection with your father.
” I smiled. “You see? It’s different for each of us where all that’s concerned.
” I stroked his bristly cheeks, noting the thicker stubble along his jawline that gave him even more of a rugged edge.
“I want to hear about everything with your dad, all your adventures with the big, bad boss of the vampiric underworld.”
He wrapped me up in his arms. “Fuck, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much.”
He dipped his head and heat rolled through me, knowing that motion combined with that look so well. I stretched onto my tiptoes to meet him, to feel his lips on mine, to sink into one another in a way that—
He eased from me all of a sudden.
Off my look, he warned, “He’s coming.”
I frowned in question, but got the answer in the next second as Ketheron burst into the apartment and made a beeline for us in the living room, then threw his arms around Lazriel from behind, his power meaning Lazriel had to steel himself.
Even then, he staggered a couple of steps to absorb the impact.
It was why he’d pulled from me, to take the hit of the excited Ketheron.
“You have been dearly missed, friend,” Ketheron told him, as he wrapped Lazriel in the sweetest bear hug I’d ever seen.
Lazriel grasped his arm on him softly. “Missed you right back, big guy.”
Ketheron squeezed him tighter and I saw Lazriel wince. I thought I heard something crack too.
Ketheron loosened his hold, his eyes wide. “Did I break you? I’m so sorry, I—”
“Minor upper left arm fracture. All good. It’s already healing.”
“Already?” I asked. He could heal fast, but I wasn’t aware it was that fast, mere seconds.
He winked at me. “Got a lot of fresh blood in my system.” He tilted his head back to look at Ketheron dwarfing him. “You guys didn’t visit any of those places we talked about without me, right?”
I smiled. He was changing the subject so Ketheron didn’t focus on his accidental bone fracturing.
Lazriel knew no visits anywhere aside from Haven Initiative had been possible with the threats out there and Blackline Protocol still in effect.
But he was going with it anyway to help Ketheron—just like the sweetheart that he was at his core.
Hell, all of my men were.
Cassius most definitely was and he was wearing that gentle heart on his sleeve with me now.
And Sylas, while he kept that part of him down a lot deeper, I still saw it, and I absolutely felt it.
And Ketheron, although not one of our loves, he was a cutie pie in a whole other way.
Part of the family, but in a sort of younger sibling dynamic.
“Where are Sylas and Cassius?” I asked Ketheron, before the two of them got into it. It was clear Ketheron had formed a special bond with Lazriel.
Sylas, Cassius, and Ketheron had gone to secure Sorin in that pocket dimension estate. Well, for Sorin, they’d adjusted it to make it more akin to an actual cell.
Lazriel had been here with me, him spending a lot of the time cleaning himself up.
And I’d seen that he’d also needed some space to get a handle on what had happened earlier. Before he’d left, Sylas had filled me in on what Victor Halrow had done.
“Outside,” Ketheron spoke, pulling me from my thoughts. “Talking in the foyer. Don’t worry, Velra, that has been warded now as well, the perimeter no longer only encompassing the door to the apartment itself. We saw to it before I came back in.”
Talking in the foyer?
I eyed Lazriel.
He shook his head. “Can’t hear a thing.”
“You won’t,” Ketheron said. “Cassius has used an auditory reduction spell.”
That didn’t bode well.
“I’ll see what’s going on.” When Lazriel moved to go with me, I assured him, “I’ve got it. Catch up with Ketheron. Oh, Cassius bought more marshmallows earlier—go for it.”
As I moved past them and headed for the apartment door, I looked over my shoulder to see Ketheron releasing Lazriel, then tugging him along with a hand to his tank top. I chuckled to myself, then headed through the door, approaching the foyer.
I caught sight of Cassius and Sylas talking.
Cassius was running his hand over his jaw looking like he was at the end of his rope.
Sylas was pacing back and forth in front of him, his hooded coat sweeping about.
As I drew closer, quietly and cautiously, not sure exactly what I was about to walk into, I felt a wave of Cassius’ magic roll over me, and realized I’d accidentally breached the spell.
Their voices filtered toward me.
“You siphoned Celestial magic! The magic of Cornelius Martel. To say that’s a violation of your probationary status would be an absolute understatement, Sylas.”
Sylas had done what? Oh, hell.
“Seems you’re mostly sore about it being such a struggle for you to breach and overpower it earlier.”
“This is not about my ego.”
“So the fact that Cornelius Martel may be stronger than you when you were recently miles beyond him as a True Celestial doesn’t hit a nerve?”