Chapter 8 Lazriel
~Lazriel~
Familiar voices—in a majorly fucking bad way—reached me, as I started to come to, fighting against a nasty heaviness wearing me down and trying to stop me from fully rousing awake.
“This is the last part I will play in your fixation with Remnant’s son. Do you understand me, Victor?”
“So long as that includes our blood vow.”
“Yes, yes, I won’t kill him. Nor will I reveal to Puritas that you have him captive. But they cannot know that I have facilitated this kidnapping for you.”
“Playing both sides, Morien… how devious and calculating. Why would I reveal that when I commend it? Besides, I’m essentially their enemy now. I had to draw a line or they would have murdered my pretty thing.”
“Your pretty thing… you really are deep in obsession with him.”
“Just stick to this last part of yours. I don’t need your commentary.”
“Even commentary warning that this won’t end well for you? As soon as word reaches Remnant, he will lay waste to everyone and everything standing in the way of recovering his son.”
“Mmm… I was already hard just looking at my plaything all strung up so nicely and invitingly for me, now you reference Remnant losing control. After all these years, I can’t wait to taste it, to bear witness to that stoic, deadbeat sire of mine raging and raising hell.”
“Well, I suppose we all have our fantasies. I wish you well with yours coming true.”
I heard some shuffling around, then a spark of power.
“Here you are. The device is finished. It will work as you asked. A very potent form of inducement—known to the uneducated as pleasure magic. It will do nicely with the erotic torture you have in mind for your youngling toy.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s the end of it where this is concerned.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Good. I will return within a few days following my tiresome days-long meeting with Puritas.”
“Ah, the price you must pay for ultimate power.”
“Indeed. It won’t be long now, though. And eradicating hybrid kind will serve us both well—with your obsession excluded of course.”
With that, I felt a flare of power, Morien obviously teleporting away.
I managed to rouse awake enough to open my eyes cautiously.
Victor had his back to me, so I tried to hurriedly take in the situation even as my mind was still feeling fuzzy, my eyes heavy. Come to think of it, my body was tingling in an almost painful way, like a pins and needles sensation rolling through my veins.
Some sort of drug he’d shot me up with? Or a spell from Morien?
I looked to see that I was shirtless, my tactical pants open, and I was barefoot.
My feet touched the fancy black marble floor, while my arms were wrenched above my head, my wrists encased in metal cuffs connected to chains that were screwed into the ceiling.
Shit.
There was light coming from a gold chandelier a few feet over from where the chains were screwed in, and I was just about able to make out the blacked out windows in my peripheral vision, heavy curtains covering them.
I swallowed hard as I caught sight of the four-poster bed just within the field of my peripheral vision.
Gold snake effigies encircled the posts while black silk sheets and pillows decorated the massive thing, semi-sheer drapes hanging down.
There was a seating area near Victor with a wraparound gold velvet couch and a black marble coffee table opposite.
An open door along that wall led into a partially visible walk-in closet.
And there was one more door to the far left of where I was, which I could see a corridor through. Possible escape route. Just like busting through the windows.
“Acclimating back to consciousness nicely, Lazriel?”
I jerked in the chains overhead at the sudden sound of Victor addressing me.
“Sweet place,” I spoke, choking a little on my words as I found my throat extremely dry.
I forced onward, especially as he turned around and threatened to unnerve me as he eye-fucked me so blatantly.
“Looks new—except for these chains. You just moved in? Couldn’t wait for somebody to see the new digs?
You know, most people will have objects as housewarming gifts.
” A snarl escaped me. “Not strung up people.”
His lips curved. “The chains were used on me by your dear daddy. A punishment. And not the kind I usually go in for. He bled me out, tried to indoctrinate me back around to his way of thinking.”
That must have been what Sylas had referred to when he’d brought up my dad putting Victor down three centuries back.
“Indoctrinate? Given what I’ve come to unfortunately know about you, I’m thinking you mean him trying to get you to see reason, ease away from the whole psychopath bit?”
He sauntered toward me, one slow and drawn out step at a time, his eyes all over me again. “A psychopath, as you so eloquently refer to it, is just a being greatly misunderstood. Overlooked, ahead of their time, a maverick.”
I couldn’t suppress a shudder as he shook off his designer charcoal blazer, then tugged off his shirt with a burst of vampire speed, baring his massive muscular chest.
He sped over to a closet, then hung them up in several bursts, before then unfortunately returning to stand before me.
He purposely misinterpreted my reaction and smirked.
“Yes, relish the view. Soon you’ll be permitted to touch as well.
” He grasped my jaw in that way he was too fond of doing.
“Back to the psychopath thing and my reframing of it… a maverick, overlooked, ahead of their time… don’t you see how similar we are in those respects?
You are most definitely a maverick. Ahead of your time undeniably in the way you view and advocate for hybrid kind, the way you approach much.
And you were overlooked by your deadbeat father for years on end.
” He stroked my jaw and I only just managed to suppress another shudder.
“Who in their right mind would be so foolish as to overlook you?”
“There’s no mirror here,” I bit back.
I braced myself for him to crack my jaw like he’d done before.
Instead, I got a surprise as his eyes shone at me and he actually even loosened his grip. “You’ll see soon enough. Don’t fret, precious.” He studied me, this time without any sexuality to it. “Are you in pain? Or is it just slight uncomfortableness permeating your veins?”
“What is it? What did you do to me?”
“Diluted holy water.”
I jolted. “What?”
“All is well, no need for panic. That previous instance where I tortured you with it, I used a concentrated dose. This was just very slight, enough to keep you docile.”
“Docile for what?”
“To make it easier for you to enter into a more accepting and open state of mind, something that, given our previous encounters, I’m aware needs some work.”
“There is no version of this where I’m in an accepting state of mind when it comes to you.
Doing this, bringing me here, and whatever else you have planned with that device that Morien made for you, is all pointless.
You’re an enemy to me, you tortured me, and you can’t see reason. You’re warped, Victor.”
He stepped up closer, making me grit my teeth as his bare chest pressed against mine.
It got worse as he slid his fingers into my hair, stroking softly in an almost tender sort of way. “Mmm, I’m delighting in the way you growled my name. Do it again.”
“No,” I ground out.
His fingers skimmed over my cheek. “I’m aware that a facet of this resistance from you has nothing to do with me, or what’s between us.”
What’s between us? His delusion ran even deeper than I’d already clocked. Actually, it seemed to be worsening with our every encounter.
“It’s about those you believe you’re in love with.”
“I am in love with them,” I bit back, the rawness to that statement bursting out of me almost automatically, because my love for Velra, Sylas, and Cassius ran so deep.
“Yes, you’re predisposed to view it that way.”
“Predisposed?”
“You’re a victim of abandonment. By your father, no less.
He may have explained it away and you may have reconciled, but it doesn’t undo the wound it inflicted.
A wound that runs so very deep. That’s also compounded by the extreme level of rejection you’ve faced because you’re a born wolf-vampire hybrid—from your pack, from Puritas and others across the supernatural world who share their beliefs. ”
“If you’re trying to form some sort of twisted bond with me by drawing a parallel between us, you’re way off. My dad rejected you because of your actions, not because of what you are. And as for your Puritas comments, you’re a fucking member.”
“We’ll come back to your assumption concerning Remnant. But as for Puritas, I’m not in it for the rhetoric.”
“Then what?”
“Access.”
I frowned.
He explained, “Access to powerful, influential beings. To rare magics and spellwork.” He ran his thumb over the stubble on my jaw, making me shiver under his touch, the increased intimacy of it.
“Let me share a secret with you, beautiful hybrid… I may hold the role of Execution Oversight, the one who oversees their extermination facility, Genexis, but there are very few who I’ve actually murdered.
My unmatched speed among every single member working alongside me at that facility, along with sleight of hand, some borrowed magic like that portal you saw me create with a Specus Relic, have created a smokescreen.
In truth, I have actually removed those brought there and spared their lives. ”
I started, my eyes shooting wide.
He’d done what?
“You saved them?”
“Most of them. Some couldn’t be trusted, some had already been mentally broken before they reached me. Those I couldn’t risk sparing.”
“No. You’re not a benevolent force.”
“Of course not. Like I said, it’s about access to power and influence for me.”
Holy shit. “You’re building an army, and one made loyal to you because you saved them and offered them hope in the darkest moment of their lives.”
“Precisely.”
“Where is this army?”