Chapter 11 Lazriel #2
My dad’s eyes flamed dangerously and he snarled over his shoulder. “You’ve condemned my son. He will never be free of this burden now. You took away his choice.”
Victor let out a creepy laugh. “In more ways than one, yes. And it was the ultimate thrill. Mmm… I can still taste him on my tongue—his glorious mouth, his fear, his fight… so much I’ll forever cherish.”
My dad’s hand clenched around the bed post, decimating it in an instant, then lifted me off and away as the entire thing collapsed.
As Victor laughed, I heard my mom’s wolf roar again.
She wanted to come in here, to see me, to be here with me, and to deal Victor a whole lot of damage.
My dad called back in Wolf Tongue, telling her to deal with the soldiers that Victor had brought here, to stay back from this aspect of the fight. In Wolf Tongue. Shit! A vampire speaking that… it was basically unheard of. The depth of their connection… it really was something so special.
“I’ve been waiting on this for centuries, Rhodric!
” Victor yelled. “You breaking, smashing and cracking for me. Just think, all it took was me developing deep feelings for your only son. The son you thought you could hide from me. You replaced me with him, now I’m replacing you with him.
He’s the better version anyway. So much better.
Open, passionate, so full of life. Go back to your whore wolf! ”
“Victor,” my dad ground out.
It only spurred Victor on, “Ah, right, you can’t make another child with her, with anyone.
It was a one-time thing only, courtesy of Jaxon Silver.
Ah, and Cornelius’ Martel’s magic. They thought it would calm you, reel you in.
Twenty years back, you could’ve gone either way…
become much like Lucian Black in his Ravager days, but far worse with an army at your back.
My betrayal saw to that. Until that whore fell pregnant. ”
“It’s an oversimplification of the truth.
You have always been sacred to me, Lazriel,” my dad told me, as he eased me over to a chair by a gilded dresser.
He beamed down at me as he settled me onto it, earnestness emanating from him as he spoke, “Remember, you are my greatest creation. You will forever be.”
I saw a smile light his eyes.
And then he was gone, tearing toward Victor with blink-or-you’ll-miss-it speed.
I saw Victor swinging his fist, his speed very close to my dad’s.
But my dad came to a jarring stop just before crashing into him, then smashed his boot into the ground, creating one of his incredible shockwaves that tore the floor and the ground beneath into pieces and sent Victor hurtling into the ceiling above and even crashing through it.
The walls cracked in several places, the one already damaged actually even crumbling, the destruction so vast that I could see through it deeper into the mansion and view the damage my dad’s first propulsion of Victor had caused further in.
And I could see my mom bounding back and forth, whipping her tail at some magic-wielders, while ripping a vampire’s head off in her wolf teeth as she went, even crushing the hearts of two magic-wielders beneath her paws.
My breath caught in my throat as I saw Cassius surrounded by Dark Fae, like Ketheron had been that day. He was holding his hand to one ear, a silent scream forming, while he held a shield with his white power up with the other that was fading in and out.
They were trying to take control of his mind, and gold Celestial power melded with their own magic.
Sylas was battling two dozen off to the right, blasting some into the walls, even ripping through flesh in such violent ways that blood splattered everywhere, bodies literally exploding. I saw him register Cassius’ predicament.
“Teleport out now!” he bellowed over.
“I can’t just leave you to—”
“Do it! Do it or you’re lost to us! It could be hurting Velra too through the Soul Brand!”
Where was Velra? I was still expecting her to blast her way in here through a blaze of fucking glory with her purple magic, shadows, and frost all tearing through the place as one.
Cassius grimaced, then caught my eye through the wreckage.
I smiled and gave him a chin lift.
And then he did it, did what needed to be done, and teleported out.
The second he did, the Dark Fae lurched forward with no longer having a focus for the furious power they were unleashing.
And in that brief moment of vulnerability, my dad snagged hold of Victor in the ceiling who was struggling to break free, ripped him out, then literally tossed him like a battering ram at them all.
He careened into them with such force that his big body downed them all in one shot, cutting out both their magic and the threat they posed as they were knocked unconscious.
Victor snarled and somersaulted back to his feet and moved into a primed crouch, glaring at my dad in absolutely unchecked fury. “You never should have abandoned me! It’s all you do!”
“Deranged filth like you are exactly what has kept me from knowing my son all these years, forced me from so much of his life,” my dad seethed back at him.
Victor shrieked, utterly fucking unhinged now, and barreled toward my dad.
He tried to strike him, but my dad batted his arm away and I heard a sharp crack. His sheer power to break bones of somebody like Victor—he was steps beyond. And I was still trying to get used to it.
Victor caught sight of my mom as he came to a rolling stop on the ground.
He lunged at her.
My dad was there in the next second, grasping his throat and yanking him back.
But in the throes of it, Victor pulled something from his pocket—a stake.
He hurled it at my mom.
I bellowed across the distance.
My dad blurred forward, forced to release Victor, and slid in front of my mom like a shield—just as the stake plunged into his left shoulder, driving out the other side.
I saw him hiss.
“Holy water. Concentrated beyond belief,” Victor told him. “Mixed with a hefty does of silver as well. I thought I’d never harm her, but you’ve forced my hand. Can’t say I’m not always prepared, hmm?”
A chill rolled down my spine as my dad staggered back.
“Go,” he told my mom.
She swung her wolf head in refusal.
“Take your leave,” he insisted. “Get our son clear.”
Shit.
I saw Sylas register what was happening, but he was bogged down by so many Dark Fae, magic-wielders, and vampires.
Hold on.
All what Puritas would term purebloods.
No hybrids to speak of.
This wasn’t Victor’s army, the one he’d told me he’d been building through saving hybrids from extermination at Genexis.
When my dad and I had mind-linked earlier, he’d warned me not to freak out when he went in for the kill with Victor. Sylas had found a way to neutralize the death tether between my dad and Victor, meaning my dad would survive if Victor was killed.
But if my dad took his life now we’d never know where that army was holed up.
As my mom leapt toward me, barreling through the broken and half broken walls to get to me, I cursed as Victor ripped the stake from my dad’s shoulder, then kicked him into a column.
He jarred against it, but before he could recover, the holy water now in his system causing him trouble, Victor was there in his face, snarling.
Then he licked his cheek.
My dad hissed, gnashing his fangs, but Victor swept his wrist across them, cutting himself open.
Then he spread his own blood across my dad’s lips, shoving his wrist against his mouth and making him splutter.
Urgh.
A burst of Sylas’s magic neared me and I looked to see my mom shifting back, Sylas clothing her in the next instant. Then she was there, grasping hold of me. “Let’s go.”
“Mom, I—”
I saw my dad zoning out from Victor’s depraved display as he continued playing with the blood and grinding against him—I mean, he wasn’t affected at all, not one little bit. Victor’s actions were merely an annoyance to him.
Because he was focused on something else.
I saw what in the next moment as he very craftily removed a stake from his pocket, while letting Victor distract himself with his twisted actions and mockery. Trying to degrade the likes of my dad—not fucking possible. He was just… detached from it.
My mom moved to drag me away.
I couldn’t… I couldn’t let this happen.
“He has an army!” I cried out across the space. “A hybrid army spared from Genexis!”
My dad stilled and swung his head toward me.
Victor registered the stake.
The one that could kill an Ancient.
He went to snatch it.
Sylas dropped and rolled from his surrounded position with the magic-wielders, then thrust his magic out, calling the stake to himself. He dematerialized it with his power for safe-keeping.
But in having to do that, it cost him big, and those dozens of magic-wielders drove him down to the ground.
Victor swung my dad to the side of them and hauled him out through the building.
“Keep him down!” Victor roared at his army.
Vampires swirled around Sylas, keeping him trapped. He kept firing but missing because of the transcending speed.
The magic-wielders fired their power at the hole in the wall my dad had been thrown through, and I saw him pushing against it, fighting to get back inside, while others started surrounding Sylas.
No!
In the next second, I burst forward, headed for Victor.
But I never made it.
A violent explosion of green lightning erupted a moment before a shockwave swept out, not harming Sylas, my mom, me, or my dad, but ripping Victor and his vampires off their feet, then snuffing out the power of all the magic-wielders.
And then, through the mammoth flare of power, Ryker Morgan came into view, positioned in the middle of the space in a deep crouch, his palm slapped to the ground, his magic radiating out and holding everyone at bay.
He swung his head toward my dad who had already re-applied his mask and flipped his hood back up.
He registered Sylas, then set his focus on Victor. “Word of advice: don’t call in a Puritas cell to back you up when it’s one we’re actively tracking.”
Victor hissed at him, even as he was now on his knees, trying to fight against Ryker’s power keeping him down.
He moved to speak, but shut his mouth again when Ryker twisted his hand at the Dark Fae and started siphoning the Celestial magic out of them, golden streams pulling from them and being absorbed into Ryker himself.
Holy. Shit.
“Ry—” Sylas started, when he was done.
“Use my card. Call me in a couple of days. We’re due a conversation.” He caught Sylas’ look. “You’re currently granted amnesty. Don’t make that order I’ve invoked to safeguard you to keep you active be in vain.”
He looked out at my mom. “Now your son is safe, Jaxon expects your answer regarding Vyrn Hollow. Don’t keep him waiting any longer.”
“I’ll see to it,” my mom told him.
In the midst of it all, I saw Sylas and my dad discreetly gesturing to one another.
Then Sylas stepped right in front of Ryker, somehow knowing that Ryker’s still leapfrogging magic wouldn’t harm him. “Sorry, Ry.”
In the next second, my dad swept across the area, snagged Victor and spirited away with him.
I listened and heard Cassius’ voice—he’d returned. It must have been in the midst of Ryker’s entrance which had masked his power eruption as an Immortal. I heard Cassius take Victor with him, a moment before my dad returned and stood in front of me and my mom.
Ryker grasped Sylas’ wrist, holding him with his magic. “Careful,” he warned. “The more lines you cross, the heavier the burden becomes.”
Sylas jerked his hand free. “He has an army. A hybrid army. He’s the only source we have to tracking them down.
Or we’ll have another Puritas on our hands.
But this one made of hybrids, which will reinforce Puritas rhetoric against hybrid kind that touts them as monstrous dangers.
We can’t allow this. It’s just the sort of twist that Victor would have thought long and hard about creating. ”
Ryker took his words in.
“Get the answers we need. But loop me in.” He looked out at me and I saw him taking in the chains, the bed, the whole disturbing setup.
Something flickered in his eyes, some sort of buried pain.
And then he addressed my dad, “Do what you must with Halrow. But keep that off my radar. Keep it in the shadows as you do best, Remnant.”
My dad gave a nod.
Then Ryker let out a whistle, twenty-odd Guardians teleporting in within the next moment and beginning to conduct a cleanup.
Sylas started over to us, calling his power as he went to teleport us out, and through all the organized chaos, I saw Ryker stumble.
He couldn’t hold that Celestial power for long, then.
He’d said he and Ketheron were working on something. Had he used this takedown of a Puritas cell toward making that happen, needing that Celestial magic he’d siphoned?
Damn, that was another level.
I looked away as Sylas reached us and reached out tentatively for my hand, not sure if I could handle it right now.
I smiled and threw my arms around him instead, holding him to me.
Even as he teleported us out.
Of course I could handle touch.
I could handle it all.
That bastard, Victor, hadn’t impacted me like he’d hoped he could.
I was fine.
Just fucking fine.