Chapter 8 Lazriel #2
He patted my cheek. “Not your concern. At least not until you are finally mine.”
I didn’t get to speak more to it, as he went on, “So, back to my initial point… due to your abandonment issues and the painful rejection you’ve suffered, of course you’d latch onto the first signs of affection in Sylas, Velra, and Cassius, and thereby liken it to love.
You’ve essentially been conditioned to view it that way.
” He beamed down at me. “That’s not your fault.
But it is something that can be undone.”
“I don’t want it undone.”
“It will actually help you if it is. Velra has been marked and she won’t survive much longer, so she’ll be gone anyway.
Cassius is slated to be mentally broken by heavy Dark Fae mind-meddling and Puritas will take control of him completely.
And Sylas is being pulled deeper into The Shadowed.
Even if he resists the call, Morien will take his life.
So, you see, Lazriel, they will be gone regardless. ”
I hissed, my fangs dropping with the vehemence of it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not gonna play out like that. At all.”
He patted my head and stepped back. “You require time to absorb it.”
“That’s not—”
“In the meantime, in a bid to help you become more accepting of the reality that you will belong to me, I have a gift for you.”
A rush of adrenaline usurped all the rest that had already been rolling through me from the moment I’d woken up and realized my predicament—because he started unbuckling his fancy, tailored dress pants, kicking off his designer shoes in the process.
Amusement danced in his eyes as he saw the worry that I clearly had failed to hide in mine. “No. Not that. It isn’t time. Although, it’s delightful that your mind went there.”
Where the fuck else would it have gone with him first stripping his blazer and shirt off right in front of me, then now going for his pants?
He was trying to fuck with my own thought process, trying to make me believe I was thinking things for reasons that I wasn’t—reasons that benefitted him and what he wanted to get from me.
My dad’s words to me about Victor played on my mind.
“As for what that filth said to you, bear in mind that every word out of his mouth was calculated and spoken with twisted intent, to elicit specific reactions in you.”
He’d called it.
Right now was proof, as was every interaction I’d had with the maniac.
And I had to hold to that. Hold steady.
No matter what he said, what he did.
No matter that the fucking holy water was weakening me and making me feel more than a little off, something that was confusing in itself.
“You’re not even going to ask what your gift is?”
“Strangely, I can’t seem to give any fucks.”
Instead of snapping, or bursting forward and crunching my bones with his next-level strength, he merely smiled. “You’ve certainly inherited your father’s stubbornness. He was a tough nut to crack about certain things as well.”
What things? Part of me wanted to ask that, but the other part knew he’d just twist the narrative to suit him.
“You know it takes two, right? I also have a mom.”
He tensed. “She’s not a part of this.” Then he ground out bitterly, “She never should have been a part of any of this. The only reason she hasn’t become my target is because she had a hand in creating you.”
Just a hand in it? Jeez, he was demented. With our every exchange, he kept demonstrating more disturbing depths to it all.
“Can’t even say her name, huh?”
He pulled his pants the rest of the way off, then burst toward his closet, and neatly hung them up alongside his shirt and blazer.
“Made especially for me,” he explained, as he strode back over, now just in a pair of tight gray trunks.
“Hard to come by and very expensive. I don’t want unworthy blood on the fabric. Yours I would wear with elation.”
I looked away as he started to run his hand over the front of them, clearly trying to draw my eye there.
“Blood?” I asked instead. “What blood are you talking about? Whose?”
“Ah, yes,” he said, with some sort of creepy glee.
“Your gift.” He rubbed his hands together as he stopped a foot from me.
“This ties back to our earlier conversation, specifically concerning the deep scars of rejection you’ve suffered through in your life.
” He winced. “A life so new too. Still so young, yet so much damage.”
“Are you building to something?” I gritted out.
“Still such impatience, such attitude. You’re fortunate that it arouses me much more so now, rather than merely being seen as an obstacle.
” He cocked his head to the side, then told me, “Before you were rejected by your pack for the vampiric aspect of your nature, you experienced another form of rejection. Specifically, your first crush that wasn’t on a female.
That crush was on a wolf within your pack named Jesse Harmon. ”
Holy. Shit. The creep factor was beyond—knowing that meant he’d researched so fucking deeply into me. Maybe even actually been watching me as well.
Before I could even begin to process that, he continued, “He hated that you were attracted to him, something that was complicated for him by the fact that the attraction was actually returned. He chose not only to repress it, but to take out that frustration on you. In fact, he’s carried it with him all these years.
When your efforts with Crossborn became publicized and put you in the spotlight, that hatred bled into action.
He formed his own Puritas cell recently.
A cell specifically created to hunt you down and transport you to Genexis and have you executed. ”
My stomach roiled as it became clear what he was building to.
“Your supposed loves have sought out your other remaining enemies, those tied to your deceased stepfather, and removed their threat. But they couldn’t find Harmon.
” He leaned in and brushed his lips over my cheek.
“Fortunately, you have me. Mmm… my pretty thing.” I twisted in my binds, yanking on the chains when he slid his hand down over my open fly.
My breath hitched as his fingers hovered there, just a fraction of an inch from making contact.
And then he pulled it away and smirked down at me. “Not yet, remember?” He breathed me in, scenting me, as his eyes flamed with lust. “Make no mistake, though, when I am through, you will beg for my touch, and even sob in utter desperation for the pleasure I can bring you.”
I clenched my fingers in the cuffs. “Is that the line you fed to Sorin?”
He arched an eyebrow.
“He claimed the two of you were in love.”
“Ah, yes. His parents are incredibly withholding. It didn’t take much.”
“It was all lies?”
“It was a means to control a deeply sadistic and highly volatile being. Your associates ending his life did me a favor. He’d served his purpose. All that remained was tying up loose ends.”
“You were gonna kill him anyway?”
“If Cassius hadn’t already seen to it, yes. Sadistic and volatile, remember? That can’t be left out there, especially not obsessing over me. The danger of that can’t quite be quantified.” He stepped back and rubbed his hands together. “Now, onto your gift.”
Before I could get a word out, especially in a bid to find out how the shit he knew it had been Cassius who had murdered Sorin, and not Velra—or even me, he blurred from the room with his vampire speed.
I listened, finding I had to strain, because the holy water was compromising not just my strength, but my senses too. I hadn’t felt it at first… maybe the longer it was in my system, the worse it got in that respect and impacted me all over, not just strength-wise.
I heard the rapid-fire opening and closing of a door.
Then… whimpers. Definitely not his.
In the next moment, two blurs caught my eye, before a body was thrown across the floor, rolling to a stop just a couple of feet from me.
I choked as I took in that once familiar blond curly hair, the compact muscular form, and even that leather choker he was still wearing all these years later—a mark of his cruel gang that he’d run even as a teen in our pack.
Jesse Harmon in the flesh.
Or what was left of him.
He was battered and bloodied. It looked like his shoulder was dislocated. There were deep carvings across his bare torso, wounds bleeding all over the place. The denim shorts he was wearing were covered in dirt and I could even smell a whole lot of piss.
He groaned as Victor yanked him up by his hair into a kneeling position. He twisted his fingers in the strands and used it like a handle to keep his captive there—looking right at me.
Jesse’s glassy, pained eyes hardened when he saw me. “Thaine,” he croaked. It took him a moment and then a sadistic smirk curved his lips as he registered my chained situation. “Victor, this was all just a test? To make sure I was worthy to put this hybrid freak down?”
Victor tugged at his hair painfully, making Jesse cry out.
“How clueless you are. Utterly uneducated trash until the end, aren’t you?
Puritas doesn’t want your cell as part of its network.
Your shortsightedness and ill-equipped members are an embarrassment to their cause, to their organization.
Fortunately, all those members were ripped apart by me. It’s just you who remains.”
“What? What the fuck is this?” Jesse cried, coughing from the strain. “I thought you were… readying me? Part of Puritas policy to toughen up new recruits.”
“Well, your ego and repression rule all that you do, so it’s no surprise you didn’t take a single moment to question my claim.” He dragged Jesse closer to me by his hair. “I brought you here for Lazriel.”
“He’s chained up. Your prisoner. I don’t… what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that he and I are playing a delightful game. He’s not my enemy. He’s not enduring punishment. He’s not awaiting transportation to Genexis. He’s to be mine. And as mine, I’m healing him. And hurting those who hurt him.”