Chapter 27 #2
The plan had been that we needed to provoke the enemy into using the Celestial power infused with black magic, so we could access the energy signatures of each.
But it wasn’t supposed to be that concentrated.
Gregor had spent his time in hiding creating this cloaked in such heavy secrecy that none of us had known about it, not even The Shadowed or even Ambrose, those out on the fringes and clued into absolutely everything.
Kai called out to the Guardians, “Deploy!”
In the next moment, I watched as fifty Guardians among the three hundred here materialized Bastion Gauntlets with their power and slid them onto their right hands.
They’d been created by Arcanum Order. They were right-hand gauntlets made of bronze with reinforced knuckles and moving joints that had the ability to replicate Celestial power. Only fifty had been sanctioned because of the dangers of that sort of power existing should it fall into the wrong hands.
The members in their signature hooded robes teleported into the fray, past Gregor, battling against those two dozen assholes who’d hurt Cornelius wielding Celestial power.
Another forty Puritas members began firing Celestial magic, trying to overwhelm the Guardians.
Fuck, they were definitely outnumbering them.
As they closed in around them, Cassius made a move to intervene, but I snatched his wrist. “You need to obtain the energy signatures. If you’re hit… you can’t, Cassius.”
“She’s right,” Kai said. “The plan is working, they’re starting to use their power. Now the final push to provoke them all into using it.” He looked up at the sky and called out, “V! Now!”
In the next moment, Vorzyr dropped down from the sky, somehow shifting back in the midst of it.
As he hit the ground, he clothed himself in a pair of maroon leather pants and boots and left it at that.
Then a red glow began emanating from him.
He thrust his hands out either side and it swept into the Puritas members wielding Celestial power.
The power started petering out, struggling to maintain, streams being forced back or even cut into.
“Primal Celestial Resonance for the win,” Nyx exclaimed.
“Destroy them! Take them all!” Gregor roared.
The rest of his army then charged at the volunteers.
Two vampire-sorcerer hybrids gathered Cornelius and Warlow and burst them over to us, giving us chin lifts, before returning to formation.
Cassius moved in quickly and started to pour his white power into Cornelius.
“Hades,” he uttered when the wound didn’t heal.
“The black magic could be complicating it,” Kai said, skidding to his knees in the next second and running his glowing rose-gold hand over the wound as Cornelius lay on his side, spluttering and swallowing his pained groans.
Cassius moved back and transported us with his magic off to the side of the heart of battle as the two armies clashed brutally, while the Celestial battle and Vorzyr raged further forward. And Gregor stood there looking psychotically gleeful.
Kai started uttering an ancient incantation that drew my attention back to Cornelius. I stroked Warlow’s shoulder and he was frantic, his hands shaking as he fought to stop the bleeding on one side, while Kai healed from the other.
The wound started to close, but only a little.
Kai grunted and strained.
“It’s not enough,” Nyx told him.
Kai shot a look out at Vorzyr and grimaced. “I can’t pull him out. They’ll all die. Everyone here will die.” He rose to his feet, pressing his fingers to his temple. “We need Ari.”
Cornelius grasped his ankle. “She’s needed… being pulled here… set back the… siphoning. Will lose… our one… chance to… end this.”
“Cor,” Warlow eked out, stroking his hair.
“I can… hold on. Let it… be.”
Kai caught mine and Nyx’s eye… he couldn’t hold on.
“Your Aetherbound Scepter is tapped out,” Nyx spoke to Kai.
“I used it to fuel those last five gauntlets because we were in a rush.”
“Call in Ariana,” Cassius spoke.
A chill rolled down my spine. I grabbed his hand. “Cassius.”
Kai eyed him. “If I do that—”
“I will take her place.”
“You understand she’s not just there as support anymore? Her and Ketheron are buffers for the children to distribute the incoming Celestial power. Not just Immortal-level power.”
“I’m aware.”
“She’ll need to heal him, then also take all the Celestial signatures here. As each one is communicated, the power will hit—a lot of fucking power. Ketheron can take a lot, but it’s dangerous for him to do so alone. You’d have to endure until Ari returns there.”
“Again, I am well aware.” He turned to me and took my free hand that wasn’t stroking Warlow. “I will survive this. Power is not all when strength of will is a factor. I will not leave you, Lazriel or Sylas.” His eyes dropped to my belly. “Or him. That is my vow to you, little shadow.”
“Okay,” I croaked out.
I couldn’t stop him from doing this.
Cornelius needed Ariana here or he would die.
The siphoning needed to happen to end this.
Cassius was needed with Ketheron and the Celestial children.
“I love you.”
With the Soul Brand, we didn’t need to utter those words aloud, but in this moment… I just had to.
And he reciprocated, because of course he did.
“I love you so very dearly also,” he breathed as he nuzzled against me.
And then he stepped back and he was gone in a burst of teleportation, just as Kai mind-linked with Ariana.
Nyx came to me. “He’ll hold steady. This is the stubbornness of Cassius that we’re talking about.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, that’s definitely him.” I caught Warlow’s eye. “Much like Cornelius.”
He smiled and grasped my hand on his shoulder gratefully.
And then an eruption of silver light so much like Cornelius’ filled our immediate area, and his granddaughter teleported in.
She scanned the battlefield with wide eyes, gave a look of love to Kai and Nyx, and did the same to Vorzyr who felt her and winked out at her, before she then zeroed in on Cornelius.
“Holy fuck,” she exclaimed, studying the wound. “This is…” she caught Warlow’s state. “I mean… I’ll see to it.”
“Celestial wounds should respond to Celestial magic. Even if a True Celestial caused it, an Immortal should still be able to heal it,” Nyx stated. “Given that it happened to me directly thanks to Cassius in his less friendly days, I thought I knew what I was talking about.”
I winced and he did the same as he caught my eye.
“You’re just stating a fact that applies to the situation. Besides, Cassius has evolved.”
“Definitely,” Nyx agreed.
“Fucking majorly actually,” Kai spoke as he knelt down with Ariana, his black leather clad shoulder brushing her brown suede jacket and her gorgeous blonde waves. “Be careful with the black magic element,” he told her.
“You don’t need to worry. Ambrose was up at Haven Initiative. He imbued me with a temporary but very potent shield.”
“He used his magic on you?” Kai growled.
“The magic isn’t in me—it’s an external spell.
One that can’t be seen or felt. He’s very…
clandestine. About everything apparently.
” She wove her silver magic through the wound.
She breathed a heavy sigh. “And it’s coming in handy where this is concerned too—the black magic can’t interfere with my power at all. ”
Thank goodness. She was wielding True Celestial power, so without that interference being a factor, she’d close the wound for sure.
Warlow registered it too and rose to his feet with a huge sigh of relief.
But then that relief turned to something else.
Now he knew his husband was out of the woods, it opened up to rage.
Before any of us could blink, he was roaring out into the night, then using his wolf speed to tear over into the battlefield, ripping into several enemy combatants at a time.
I was on the verge of raging too.
Cornelius taking that hit.
Gregor and his biting and severely damaging rhetoric, the fucker still so determined to annihilate us.
Cassius now in danger.
None of my men being here right now.
But I knew it was necessary for this battle, that they’d be here soon, that Cassius had this.
And when I raged, it wasn’t only a metaphorical red haze that took me over.
It became black.
It took me to a dangerous place.
And I’d promised my men that I wouldn’t go there again.
I’d promised myself.
I stroked my belly—I’d promised him.
Also, I could feel Cassius’ determination through the Soul Brand, but his guilt as well threatening to cut into it, thinking he’d hurt me by taking off and agreeing to do that.
But he hadn’t. He was doing what was needed, he was being amazing.
So my rage could not be surging through the Brand.
Not to mention, it could send the same through the Nexus Band ring I’d configured for Sylas and through Lazriel’s bracelet. It would panic them all, distract them during battle.
It would also make me super ineffective and unable to wield my power proficiently.
And so, I kept control and wove my shadows through the heart of the battle, felling dozens as they came into contact with them, clearing the way for our people.
I pressed my hand to the grass and my frost radiated out.
I pushed harder and sent it traveling off in branches along the ground, targeting only the Puritas members, making them slip and slide, lose their balance, making them vulnerable to the volunteers who were able to take them out easier.
I then thrust my palms forward and had the frost erupt from the ground, smashing into opponents too.
“Impressive shit,” Nyx breathed.
In the next moment, he ruffled my hair, then used his shadow travel to weave through the battlefield inconspicuously, then called on his sorcerer side and fired at the enemy with his blue power as he popped up every couple of seconds.
Kai erected a shield over Ariana and Cornelius.
Then he teleported into the fray where the Celestial aspect of the battle was raging, Guardians firing back at the enemy with Bastion Gauntlets as all the existing stolen Celestial magic was being deployed now by the enemy—five fucking hundred of them in total using it.
Three quarters of that was being streamed at Vorzyr, who was holding it at bay and then gradually pushing it back with his special ability.
I could see from the way the hits were being taken and absorbed by the Bastion Gauntlets that not all the power being used was as potent as what had hit Cornelius. Thank goodness for small mercies.
I watched as Kai smashed his hands together and sent out a shockwave of his power that targeted the enemy Celestial-wielders and ripped them off their feet.
From across the battlefield, the Guardian members who were vampires sped over and knocked them out with several rapid-fire bursts.
I spun into an attack from two sorcerers, ducking as they fired at me, then sweeping my shadows at them to destabilize them, before I then knocked them out with two quick shots of my purple power.
Notice had been taken of my power cutting through the battlefield so profoundly, and two dozen others started encircling me.
Gregor was roaring, then firing into the battlefield with his staff that had the peach orb atop that Sylas had told us had Celestial power imbued in it too.
While Kai, Vorzyr, and the Guardians with the Bastion Gauntlets were busy dealing with the other Celestial-wielders of Puritas, they couldn’t block Gregor’s assault as well, and it cut a path through the volunteers, Nyx, and Warlow, having everyone diving out of the way.
I took some hits from those surrounding me, blasting me back. Even as I conjured a shield, the hits pounded on it painfully.
Hell.
A rush of power tore through the area.
In the next second, wind whipped around me, and then I was snagged and rushed out of the circle surrounding me.
When it came to a stop, I looked to see Rhyza Thaine there along with Jaxon Silver and Mia Snow, one of Ariana’s fathers and her mom.
And Lazriel’s mom.
“Your loves contacted us,” Rhyza told me.
Oh my God.
Cassius had obviously reached out to Sylas and Lazriel and told them of the situation, and Lazriel had communicated with his mom who had got word to Jaxon and he’d brought Mia, one hell of a powerful sorceress and a Celestial being herself.
I had to blink away the sweet emotion threatening to take me over.
“Are you well?” Mia asked me kindly.
“Yeah. Just some superficial hits that are already healing.”
“Let’s keep it that way, yes?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Ryker and Lucian are moving out to assist Lazriel and Sylas,” Jaxon told me.
“And the badass love of my life and bane of my existence in equal measure is also keeping them well,” Rhyza said, getting that a reminder through all of this was exactly what was needed right now.
“Thank you,” I told her.
Jaxon whispered something to Mia, which she nodded along to, and then he was leaping through the air toward Gregor and raining down magical missiles upon him, forcing him back, and to stop using his staff and firing at the volunteers.
Mia then went to Ariana and Cornelius off to the side.
“He’s good now, Mom,” Ariana told her.
Mia embraced her father, then they both helped him to his feet.
I saw him draw in a centering breath, and then his power started sparking.
He was rejoining the fight.
And it was fucking amazing.
This entire thing was.
Rhyza slap-shook with me, then we headed back into battle together.