Chapter 17 Sylas
~Sylas~
I stood back observing as Remnant embraced Lazriel, stroking his hair, the scars on his face, and generally offering him the fatherly tenderness that Lazriel had long desired.
Remnant had insisted on coming here to a concealed area of campus glamored by his magic-wielders to check in on his son before we saw to Victor Halrow once and for all.
Initially, Remnant had promised Lazriel that the two of them would end Victor together.
But that had been before he’d gotten to know his son properly. He’d come to see just like Velra, Cassius and I did, that Lazriel didn’t find comfort or closure in punishment and death. He found it in peace.
And he was already well on the way to doing that where Victor was concerned.
Cassius had told Velra and me about the breakthrough Lazriel had experienced when Cassius had urged him to unleash on him, where Lazriel had been so brave and claimed who he was, stuck to his wants and needs sexually, despite what Victor had tried to warp for him.
Last night he’d also been his usual sexually voracious and fierce self, so that had been a fantastic sign.
And most importantly, he was looking to his future—and doing that based off what he’d learned, how incredibly he’d evolved and grown lately.
He was meeting with his mom today to set out on a path to change the nature of the systematic setup for hybrid shifters across the supernatural world.
This would be beyond his work with Crossborn—a whole other level.
I smiled. He was a true force of nature. I’d known it the moment I’d encountered him.
He just hadn’t recognized that in himself back then.
And now… he’d fully accepted his vampire side and reconciled it with his wolf in such a powerful and poignant way. He’d fought through his abandonment fears and formed this familial unit with us. And he was building a strong relationship with his father.
With a burst of speed, Arthur, one of Remnant’s top lieutenants arrived with a feeder in tow for Lazriel.
Although Lazriel would be escorted by Cassius to Rhyza, who was at the headquarters of the Shifter Stabilization Unit under heavy wards, before our Immortal then headed out with Velra, Remnant and I weren’t taking any chances.
He needed to feed properly, to be at his strongest. Although the Victor threat had been nullified, there was still Puritas who wanted Lazriel buried.
Him being taken once was fucking bad enough—never again.
I watched Remnant say goodbye. Lazriel waved over at me.
And then Remnant burst over to me. “Let’s make haste.”
My eyes narrowed at what was coming—dealing with that demented motherfucker.
“Yes. Let’s,” I ground out, before sweeping us up in a cloud of crimson teleportation.
Bound and broken.
More mess than monster now.
And the most darkly delectable part of it was that we hadn’t even truly started yet.
There Victor Halrow was, his head in his cuffed hands as he sat on the dirtied, damp floor of the cell that had once been home to Sorin—before Cassius had done the world a favor and ripped that twisted fucker’s life away.
The creak of the cell door as Remnant and I stepped inside and I sealed it closed behind us, had his head jerking up.
He’d been drowning so deeply in his thoughts that he hadn’t even registered our approach, something decidedly shocking for an Ancient.
Good. He was damaged. And clearly feeling that damage painfully.
His gaze flicked between us, then went to the door, trying to see into the corridor. Heavy disappointment played on his features when he realized nobody was there.
I gritted my teeth when it became immediately apparent to me that he’d been expecting Lazriel.
That fury was given further breath when he actually dared to fucking voice it.
“You didn’t bring him?” He ran a shaking hand through his mussed up shock of ebony hair, his chains rattling.
The shaking was a result of us drying him out. He hadn’t fed for days, but that wasn’t enough to weaken an Ancient so I’d sped up the process with magic. Right now he would be feeling like he hadn’t ingested a drop of blood for decades.
The chains were essentially for degradation’s sake. Fucking payback for what he’d done to Lazriel—chaining him up like a possession, one he’d wanted to warp to his liking.
Sick piece of—
“My pretty thing.”
My eyes flamed with my power at the broken emotional plea spilling from him for Lazriel.
Remnant stepped in front of me and strode toward Victor.
He crouched down before him and then snagged his jaw in a vise-grip—flipping one of Victor’s signature moves against him. “He was never yours, could never be, and will never be.”
“Because he’s your son,” Victor struggled to utter against Remnant’s brutal grip.
“No. Lazriel is not my possession. He has agency, his own wants and needs, hopes and dreams, his own will. He doesn’t exist to serve.
He belongs only to himself.” He hissed. “He is not a doll, not a plaything. Not a mind to warp into a version that pleases you down to every minute detail. That is not love. It’s projection and empty, dangerous obsession.
” He tightened his hold and I heard a crack of bone as Victor grunted.
“What you did was beyond control, beyond being a supposed apex predator as you have been so unduly fixated on for too many years. You did what filth does. You proved that is truly what you are now, how very far you have fallen.” Remnant’s fangs dropped and he jerked Victor to him, just shy of driving them into his throat.
Victor trembled under the authority of his sire up so close and personal as Remnant seethed, “You took away his choice.”
He released him abruptly, but remained crouched in front of him. He had such a powerful physical presence, that even not standing or looming, he served as a mammoth threat and dominating force. “In this life, without choice we are nothing. We have nothing.”
“I wanted him to be mine. It wasn’t just—”
“You wanted him to be me.”
“I—”
“He is not.”
“I know that. He’s not cold and biting. He wouldn’t abandon.”
“To this day, you still paint it that way.”
Victor slammed his hands forward, the chains clanging violently, as he flipped on a dime as warped minds were want to do. “How else should I see it? You left me! Disowned me! A sire forsaking his sireling! His first sireling at that!”
Remnant didn’t flinch even with the violence of Victor’s explosion of temper right up close to him.
“The megalomaniacal mindset that you delved so very deep into is what fractured our relationship. Your refusal to entertain restraint and any consideration of the broader picture. Many a time I attempted to reach you, but you proved yourself beyond redemption and severely undeserving of my forgiveness, let alone my trust. Your fixation on being the ultimate apex predator fueled your every action. And it is that which turned even the love once between us to ash.”
“No! The love between us was destroyed by that wolf whore of yours!”
Remnant fisted his hand in Victor’s hair and ripped his head back, making him hiss. “Watch your tongue.”
“I call her that because the moment you laid eyes on her she had you under her spell. An Alpha wolf for an Ancient Vampire… I understand the infatuation. But you let it become more than that. And it ruined everything!”
Remnant jerked him closer. “If you recall for one truly lucid moment, our relationship had ended for centuries before my beloved was even birthed unto this world.”
Victor frowned. “That isn’t… centuries?”
“Yes.”
I saw a brief moment of clarity and recognition flit across his face. “Fine, maybe that’s… maybe it’s right… but if she hadn’t remained, you and I could have—”
“Nothing. We could have nothing.”
“You loved me, Rhodric. I know it. My memory of that is clear unlike… unlike… some other things.”
Rhodric.
Remnant caught my eye. Victor had just revealed the true name of the Commander of The Shadowed in front of me.
Well, for many reasons, it would stay only with me. I saw Remnant recognize that unspoken promise in my expression, and he gave a nod, then focused back on Victor.
“I turned you as my first because I loved you. Deeply so. We were together for two centuries.”
I started at that revelation and leaned against the cell wall, watching on as Victor’s eyes shone at Remnant’s confession.
He reached out with his cuffed hands and clutched at Remnant’s shirt, holding him to him desperately. “Yes. Yes. You remember. I remember it every single day.”
“Do you, Vic?”
“Vic… you haven’t called me that in so long.”
Remnant grasped his hands on him, then leaned in close, hissing then and making Victor tense up. “Do you also remember betraying me for Vincenzo Daza?”
Vincenzo Daza? The Ancient vampire who had been a longtime enemy to Lucian Black? He’d been reviled by Ryker, almost destroyed his connection with Lucian twenty years ago, almost destroyed Lucian, and then he’d been killed by Mia Snow, Ariana Martel’s mother.
Victor shuddered.
Remnant pulled away. “He promised you power and you knelt before him. Until he left you in the dust for his true obsession with Luc.”
“No… no… that was… you forgave me.”
“I’m sure that’s how you’ve had to remember it in order to absolve yourself.
Just as I’m sure you’ve also neglected to remember how you continued to come at me after that, threatened those under my charge, those vulnerable who I took to protecting with my creation of The Shadowed also.
How you came for everything I built and attempted to destroy all. ”
He suddenly shot out his hand and wrapped it around Victor’s throat, ripping him from the heavy duty chains that could hold back most Ancients, then hauled Victor up against the wall, cracking it in several places. “And now you’ve come for my son!”
“I’m sorry. Please! Once more… forgive me once more. That’s all…”
“Sylas,” Remnant spoke, gesturing for me. “Please proceed.”