Chapter 16 Evira
~Evira~
A chill rolled over me.
Ironic for an ice dragon? In part.
But it wasn’t exactly a temperature-related thing.
It was the energy in the immediate area.
Something sinister, dark, and creepy as fuck.
I pocketed my phone and dematerialized my wings as I looked upon Winter about a hundred feet away.
Amid ruins.
He was on his knees frantically sweeping his necromantic magic all over the ash and debris before him.
His amber waves were stable. That was a great sign.
But the distress and anxious intensity coming off him was concerning.
What was he doing?
And what was this place?
I rapidly took it in. Some sort of former… castle?
The stone walls were now mostly crumbled or shattered and blackened with ash. Pillars were cracked and warped, many jagged, some cleaved in half. The ceiling was mostly a big opening, and the marble floor was fractured and covered in debris and thick dust.
Over by where Winter was, there were scorch marks on the ground, those indicative of magical impacts and stress.
There was so much of it.
It had clearly been the site of a great battle.
And judging by that nasty sensation in the air, that acrid taste of wrongness and corruption, it had been against one hell of a fucked-up enemy.
With a burst of draconic speed, I moved to close the distance, but not far into the burst, an invisible barrier knocked me back with insane force.
“What the—”
“You can’t pass through.”
I looked to see Winter striding over, worry all over him.
“You literally caged yourself away from everyone and everything?” I asked, my gut twisting at him thinking he needed to do something that extreme.
“What? No. This area was sealed off decades ago.”
Oh. Thank goodness for that.
He gestured around at the state of the place.
“This was the site of the last stand against Draco—the disgraced and maniacal Immortal. Once a True Celestial manufactured by the Celestial Plane to be their weapon without the constraint of morality, who they intended to use for unsavory tasks. But he turned on them. He was imprisoned by Cornelius Martel, but rose again about forty years ago. He then terrorized the supernatural world, before he was finally defeated. Actually, even wiped from existence by the Wrath of Hades dagger wielded by Mia Snow.”
“Oh, this is that infamous battle site. The location isn’t exactly well known.”
“Yeah, it’s a place of a lot of pain and damage.
Mia Snow, Ariana Martel’s mother, died here to vanquish the Beast. She was resurrected later on, Ariana was born, but there was a lot of nastiness that occurred before that happy ending.
” He sighed. “And then Ariana had to sever the Celestial Plane from ours just twenty years later because they still hadn’t learned the cost of their interference. ”
Yeah, that was when Haven Initiative had been born—a refuge for Celestial kids.
Like Christalyn. They were all grown up now and it had been turned into a community at this point.
Back then, though, I knew that Winter’s father, Cassius Ashmoor, and the Polygenus Entity, Ketheron, had liberated a bunch of Celestial children just moments before the Severance had been completed.
The True Celestials up there had tried to turn them into weapons like Draco and then Ketheron.
That had backfired too and the bastards had subsequently imprisoned them on the Celestial Plane for a long while.
“So, in that case, you’re here because of the Mark of Draco you experienced earlier?”
“Vax told you the whole situation, I see.”
“He was—he is—really worried.”
He winced. “I know. I didn’t mean to freak him out.”
“But you were freaking out, so it couldn’t really be helped?”
“Pretty much.”
“And is that still the case?” He’d certainly seemed anxious and distressed with the way he’d been weaving his magic around a few moments ago.
“It wasn’t Draco. I mean, I know he was eradicated. Not just ending up in the Valley of the Dead, but literally… nothing. But that taste, that feel… it messed with my thought process, I suppose, because it really felt like him, like everything I’ve heard about him, how his power impacted others.”
“And you thought, maybe, there’d been a loophole or some twisted miracle that had brought him back?”
He shook his head to himself in dismay. “It’s literally not possible. His body, power, and spirit were all obliterated. So, me thinking that was absolutely absurd.”
“You were in distress. Rationality doesn’t always hold the trump card there.”
He caught my eye, and I saw him register my double meaning. He spoke to it, telling me, “It still stands… what I said to Vax.”
“That you’d be his end?”
“All of yours. Anybody I let myself draw close to.” He tugged at his hair. “That thing that burned into me, that invaded my mind… when it called me beyond death—Transmortalis—with such disturbing reverence, it also said it would come for me. So, if anybody else is around me when that happens—”
“This is the actual absurdity.”
“What?”
“You pulling away, intending to isolate.”
“Evira, you don’t—”
I held up my hand. “Hear me out.”
Being the sweet and respectful teddy bear that he was, he gestured for me to go on.
“You’re not just anyone, Winter. Everybody knows that.
Not to mention, who your parents are. So, for somebody—or something—to come at you, they would need to be prepared, to have researched you.
Not only concerning your powers, but who you are as a person.
Your vulnerabilities, your strengths, the way you approach things.
With that in mind, it’s definitely not a stretch that they’d surmise that your instinct would be to retreat in order to protect those around you. ”
“You’re saying that this thing wants me isolated?”
“Far easier to attack or nab somebody all by their lonesome. Especially somebody who cares more for the wellbeing of others than their own when it comes to threats.”
As I saw him thinking on that, I went on, “That all being the case, they’d have clocked your growing closeness to me, Zayn, and Vaxan as well.
So even if you disappeared, or ghosted us, or just simply stayed away physically and emotionally, it’s already done.
Especially with them having already invaded your mind.
This happened right after the date earlier tonight when you were warming to Zayn again, when I’d made a claim on you—via draconic interpretations, anyway—and where you’d then gone to Vaxan for help and comfort. ”
“All very good points.” A smile graced his lips. “I really relish it when your tactical mind does its thing.”
“I have my moments, lovely.”
He stepped through the barrier and took my hand in his, the coolness of his skin melding with mine in a very sit-up-and-take-notice way, like it often did whenever we made skin-to-skin contact. “I know you do, little dragon.”
I squeezed his hand. “Plus, you know, if you pull away now, it’s gonna wreck Vaxan with how close you’ve grown.
It’s gonna tear Zayn apart after all his efforts to fix what he broke between you.
And it’s gonna hurt me too because, after what I did tonight, things are finally open for us in a way we never thought possible.
To have you slam the door on that… it would be a real shame. ”
He gave me a look.
“What?” I asked.
“Your way of reasoning—or let’s call it persuading for better accuracy—is something else. And it’s a definite callback to that night.”
“When we were together?”
“You mean, when you seduced me into taking you to my family home and schooling you in the art of sex?”
“Seduced you?” I slapped my hand to my chest in mock offense. “Moi? Inexperienced, out of their depth young woman?”
“Yes. Seduced me.”
“For the record, the family home thing was a good bet at the time, because nobody was there. They were all at Torvek’s big birthday bash at Solumira.”
“Where we almost got caught by my entire family anyway because you were insatiable and we ended up there for over two hours when you’d just cited wanting a ‘quick roll in the sack to know how it felt’.
And to know if you could have sex without destroying a non-dragon with your strength and abilities.
Me being unkillable made it a safe test.”
“We only got caught by Ketheron and Torvek. Ketheron was very cool about it.”
“He’s ‘very cool about’ everything. And you’re leaving out the Torvek reaction there.”
I winced. “Yeah, that was intentional. After what happened earlier tonight. I’m so sorry he attacked you, Winter.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It was warranted.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“My magic dropping and impacting the spell put you at risk. He cares for you so deeply, so I understand fully.”
I reached out and stroked his cheek. “You’re too understanding sometimes.
And that’s another reason why you shouldn’t pull away from the three of us.
We even that out for you, so you don’t hurt for others.
Something you need, lovely.” I smiled sadly.
“And something you deserve, whether you can see that or not.” As he turned into my touch and sucked in a shuddering breath, feeling the intensity between us that we’d spent too long swallowing down because of external factors, I told him, “But most of all, if you pull away now, it’ll hurt you.
Given how much you crave affection, understanding, and comfort.
Now you’re seeing that you can have it with us.
So, to walk away from it… I don’t want that for you. ”
“I don’t either.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He grasped my hand on his face. “But there’s still this… thing. Whatever it is.”
“We’ll figure it out. Together. Between us we all come from different areas of expertise and knowledge.” I grinned at him. “That’s another thing you’d be walking away from. A tactical error on your part.”
“Well, I don’t really think of things in tactical error terms,” he said, with amusement.
“That’s what you’ve got me for, then, isn’t it? And Vaxan, of course.”