Chapter 14 Winter
~Winter~
“Is this locale to your liking?”
That smooth voice with the rich, velvety low timbre wrapped around me, pulling me from another dream I’d been having that I couldn’t recall for the life of me now, and drawing me into a new space entirely.
I blinked rapidly as my surroundings started to materialize.
I’d been brought to some sort of chamber with black marble vaults sweeping overhead, lines of midnight-blue enchantments tracing the many arches all around, pulsing soothingly.
I startled as I moved around and touched water, finding myself in a pool of some sort.
A long, recessed pool crafted from black stone.
What the—I was sitting against one of the edges in a relaxed position, shirtless and in just a pair of black swim trunks.
“Well? Be my good youngling and answer me. Is it to your liking?”
I swung my head as Ruxnoth materialized over on the side opposite me, upon a shimmering deep blue ornate piece of furniture that seemed to be a blend of a pool lounger and a throne. Deeply odd.
Almost as odd as him relaxing there half-naked, all that long jet-black hair flowing around him, his chest on full display with those blue fissures all over his skin. His thighs were spread wide in his sleek black pants as he watched me with unnerving interest.
I cleared my throat. “It’s not exactly a locale, is it? It’s a manifestation. Some sort of phantasmal plane—a dreamscape.”
“Ah, deflection. A classic, if not disappointingly pedestrian, tactic when one is unnerved.”
“I’m not unnerved by you.”
His lips quirked. “Yes, I know.”
“Then what was—”
“I wanted you to recognize that fact.”
“No. You were concerned I’d see you like my family and their close allies do, those who know about you and Sanctus. When you let me go, you knew it was a risk, and you’re checking that you gambled correctly.”
His eyes lit up. “I have missed you, miraculous boy.”
“Message received by the fact that you brought me here.”
“Alas, that wasn’t for my benefit.”
“What are you talking about? You didn’t pull me here to tell me something, to check in?” And to make sure I was still on his side—from his perspective at least.
“I brought you here because you need me.” He rose from his throne-lounger oddity, and strode—well, more like glided—toward the very edge of the pool. “The cravings are becoming too much to bear, are they not?”
I swallowed thickly. “That’s not—”
“The cold is worsening. You require my assistance to ease your pain.”
“No,” I ground out, finding it a struggle to keep eye contact.
I wasn’t exactly known for my ability to lie believably.
I didn’t like it. It tasted wrong.
But with everything that had happened, I’d come to learn in harsh and almost forced ways that there was a version of it that I could actually manage.
Much like him.
Just obviously not quite on his level. I didn’t exactly have centuries at my back. Nor did it come naturally to me or sit well with me.
Well, not when it came to direct lies, like the one I’d just uttered.
But keeping certain things buried—or tangled—was something I could do, though. That I’d had to do a little of ever since he’d infected me. And because of all the complicated dangerous stakes it had brought along with it, all the awful revelations.
I sucked in a breath as he stepped out onto the water’s edge, then… walked on it.
Father had been right about his god complex. Jeez.
But he wasn’t the only god here.
I was a different breed entirely.
They all knew it.
So many feared it.
But they hadn’t yet experienced it from me.
And when they did, things would never be the same.
Because, yes, with what Ruxnoth’s designs for me and Sanctus had brought about, there was no choice now—I had to make them experience me that way.
To spare everyone I loved.
They just wouldn’t like it.
That wasn’t yet, though. And they couldn’t be made aware of it.
Just like Ruxnoth couldn’t.
He believed he had me leashed.
And unfortunately, he did actually have a part of me bound.
Something he was clearly about to demonstrate now, and deepen.
I just needed to find a way to break that. I just needed a little more time.
And that was why I was allowing this now.
Through my training with Dad, which had been going on for several weeks now, it had opened up so much to me, given me so much.
Especially stability in things I’d previously considered too high-level to ever allow myself to perform or partake in.
And along those lines, it meant I was now confident that I had the means and the control to be able to blast my way out this dreamscape.
But I needed Ruxnoth to touch me. I needed him to infuse me with that warmth.
Just not to only… revel in it now.
I had deeper plans where that was concerned.
“Shh,” he soothed, as he crouched down right in front of me, still not sinking into the water at all. “There is no shame in it. You merely wish to feel alive. Only a monster would deny you that.”
He cupped my cheek and it was so deeply overwhelming that it had my eyes fluttering closed for a moment, compromising my concentration.
“No,” I gasped.
“All is well. Allow it to soothe you.”
That special heat began emanating from his palm.
And then he slapped his other hand to my bare chest, another wave of it pushing into me, heating my very being, feeling like it was animating death incarnate.
I threw my head back and choked out a cry at the sharp intensity that escalated the longer he maintained contact. “Fuck… oh fuck.”
“Yes, there it is. You’re being very good for me.”
I wasn’t ready… I’d thought I was. I’d thought I could do this now.
For them.
For everyone. And it would literally be everyone at risk if he achieved his endgame.
My family, especially my dad… what he’d do to protect me… it would destroy him. And that would destroy us all.
“If you had reached out to me like I advised—and made possible—things wouldn’t have escalated to such an awful level of discomfort for you, Winter.”
He was mad.
This was punishment—through the demonstration of how wonderful it would be if I obeyed him? As in how much would be lost and closed to me if I didn’t?
“Made possible? When you fused some of our blood with that Spiral Thorn instrument?”
“I know you felt it, a connection constantly open for you to latch onto, to reach out to me. It’s also how I’m able to gift you this now even though it is occurring across planes, something I wasn’t previously able to do without compromising Sanctus.”
When I didn’t say anything, he pushed more heat into my chest and it surged through me, making me pant and tremble all over because it was almost… too much.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Ungh…”
“Use your words. Explain it to me.”
“Like… you said before… I’m not… ready. Not up to par… for you. And what… you need from me.”
“I also recall conveying that you would need me in the meantime.”
His magic sparked on his palms, but this was infected with a gray tint alongside his usual midnight-blue.
I was choking and shuddering in the next moment as it poured into me—ice. Fucking ice tearing through my veins.
“What… is that? No! Don’t!”
“This? Why, this, my deathborn darling, is what it will come to feel like at all times for you if you keep your distance from me again. In fact, if you’d waited another few days, this is what you would have experienced.”
The gray tint went away and then the warmth soothed the ice-like sensation stabbing through my veins. Slowly. Very fucking slowly.
I squeezed my eyes shut, gasping and sinking back against the side of the pool.
I heard a splash and I blinked to see him now in the actual water.
Then he was wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his bare chest, even stroking my hair. I shuddered and not just because of the ice hell.
“I detest seeing you uncomfortable, but you needed to be aware of the consequences. If you’d obeyed me, it wouldn’t have been necessary. Do you understand going forward how things must be between us?”
“Y-yes.”
“That nasty sensation will leave you soon, so long as you remain against me for a little while longer. Not to worry.” He stroked my back, my hair again, offering what appeared to be benevolent comfort. “I am proud of you.”
“You… are?”
“Aside from your misstep regarding maintaining contact, you have impressed me with your training. You’ve made remarkable progress in such a short timeframe. It is the mark of a true prodigy, meaning also that you will be readied much sooner.”
I was still shaking, the warmth taking time to heal the damage he’d done.
Purposely.
While he’d made sure to praise my training accomplishments with my dad, he thought that ‘improvement’ was just rooted to my necromantic performance and confidence in that specific area.
He’d infected me before too, which he’d used to gauge both my temperament and my knowledge base in all sorts of things.
But he’d missed something.
I’d kept a lot of knowledge locked up tight, basically sealed away.
He wanted my Necromancy, so that was what he’d been focused on.
It was what everyone was focused on. But I’d stored that knowledge away using my frost through a trick Mom had taught me when she’d schooled me in every single aspect of my Wraith side.
I’d stored it away, higher-level information I’d been taught by Father, Ketheron, Ambrose, Grandpa, even Kai Hunter, over the years, due to my fear of becoming a megalomaniac like Morien. I’d thought if I’d stripped that from myself, it would help me to keep away from ever going down that path.
But shortly after Ruxnoth’s abduction, I’d unlocked all that and let it infuse me again.
It was how I now understood a lot more about what he was doing when he provided this ‘living warmth’ to me.