Chapter 28 #5
“Let me rephrase—you are done. You’ve served your purpose. I cannot have my special son killed. I need him to transcend, to rise higher still.”
In the next second, flash lightning sparked in the sky, he thrust streaming palms up toward it, then slammed them down, and the power ripped into every single Dark Fae there.
I choked, my gut twisting as it tore into them like a tidal wave, tearing their flesh apart, desiccating them, and decimating them to ash.
In seconds.
In seconds they were nothing but piles of ashes.
The result of a necromancer using Risen Reckoning on the living.
My dad cursed, then looked over at Sylas who collapsed onto his side, half lying, his magic snuffing out. He was soaked in sweat now, breathing irregularly, and blood was trickling from his nose. Shit.
As my dad tried to pick me up fully, intending clearly to gather Sylas as well out of the line of fire, he stumbled and his grip faltered.
And that was when I saw it—he was partially desiccated. One half of his hands, up his other arm which I could see up through his jacket at this angle, then along his neck too. Given his stumble, it was elsewhere as well.
Fuck, we were all compromised.
Morien made sure the vampires were out of the picture as he twisted his hand and snapped their necks. They’d be unconscious for hours now.
“Haven’t… won,” Sylas rasped, fighting to push back up. “My recovery time is—”
“Nowhere near fast enough to stop a threat that stands right before you this very instant.”
In the next second, it was clear he wasn’t just talking about himself, which was already bad enough, as I felt a wave of movement and magic rushing toward us—a massive fucking wave.
And then hundreds of vampires, wolves, and magic-wielders, Light Fae, and Dark Fae burst into the area, some with teleportation creating a magical lightshow effect, others speeding in through blurred movements.
They came from the tear in the fabric of the place ahead of us and all the way over to the right, the way we’d come in earlier.
Four hundred of them, I counted rapidly.
It was what was left of the thousand of Gregor’s army that The Shadowed had been tracking while we’d been in here. We’d been worried that Gregor would send them in alongside the two thousand he already had engaged in the battle where Velra was.
In the next second, vampires and wolves were forming a circle around Sylas, leaving a four-foot gap, though, where he was able to see out to us.
Then all those with magic swept a joint, highly-powered shield over him.
When he tried to get up, it shoved him down onto his front, his hands clawing at the ground either side of his head.
“Gregor went about breaking you in the wrong way,” Morien told Sylas. “Your body and your mind cannot be shattered. However, your heart most certainly can.” He called his power then, thrusting his hands up to the sky like he had before, flash lightning sparking.
He was invoking Risen Reckoning. Fucking again.
And he turned it toward my dad and me.
“No!” Sylas screamed. “No! Don’t fucking do this! Stop!”
My dad fought to move and actually managed to burst us from our current position—but only twenty feet away.
It wasn’t enough.
I felt my ribs beginning to heal, but it wasn’t enough either.
There was nothing we could do.
I looked out at Sylas and tears welled in his eyes.
He kept trying to get up, but was forced down again and again.
His magic sparked, but snuffed out.
My dad stroked my cheek. “I am sorry, Lazriel.”
“Not your fault.” I nuzzled against him. “None of it ever was.”
I grimaced as I heard Sylas roaring when Morien struck, thrusting that wave toward us.
The air shifted all of a sudden.
Cold wind rushed toward us.
And then I was gasping as a figure cut across my vision, then stood in front of us, their back to us.
Even from the back, he was recognizable.
That broad form, the perfectly styled long black hair, the thousand-dollar suit—and the might.
Lucian Black.
He staggered for a brief couple of moments as Risen Reckoning slammed into him.
But he held, just like my dad had when he’d taken it during the CRS facility battle.
“Fool,” Morien spoke. “Ryker will not be happy with you for endangering your life.” His lips twisted. “Although, just thinking about the utter collapse he will suffer when he discovers you have been taken from him will grant me immense pleasure.”
“The only thing on the agenda for you is agony, necromancer.”
Morien let out a wild laugh. “You cannot hold this brutal assault for long, so cease the posturing. My son is incapacitated so he cannot save you.”
“Hmm… about that…”
In the next moment, green lightning tore through the sky, followed by a violent explosion of power, a moment before Ryker Morgan materialized in his signature deep crouch, his lightning radiating out everywhere, tearing into the four hundred bastards keeping Sylas down.
It ripped the wolves and vampires off their feet.
And it shorted out the magic of every single magic-wielder, his unique defensive magic doing its thing, and doing it well.
The dome containing Sylas disintegrated, and then Ryker rushed to his side, stepping on several of the shrieking, fallen, and incapacitated Puritas soldiers on his way, his lightning still leapfrogging out over every single one of them, both hands outstretched.
Sylas forced himself to his knees and Ryker offered him his shoulder.
Sylas clasped it, channeled his magical strength, then thrust a bolt of his crimson power toward Morien.
It shredded through Morien’s magic and cut out Risen Reckoning.
Lucian staggered back to us, sucking in a breath.
Morien swung his head, his gaze wild.
Then he called the black magic he was imbued with, black tendrils swirling around him in seconds, a moment before that blackness exploded and he teleported out in a really twisted way.
Before the relief could settle in, it hit me where he’d likely headed off to.
To the battle Gregor was waging on the hybrid volunteers.
To where Velra was!
Sylas eased from Ryker.
Then Ryker let out a wolf whistle toward the tear in the place.
In the next moment, hundreds of masked and hooded troops filtered through in rapid bursts of movement and teleportation.
I smiled to myself.
The Shadowed.
“Borrowed part of your army,” Ryker spoke to my dad, as we watched them swarm the Puritas bastards and begin slapping Inhibitor cuffs to them rapid-fire.
They didn’t have Celestial magic or black magic, unlike a select few that we’d been dealing with earlier, so those cuffs would hold the bastards.
“They temporarily deferred to my command because your life was on the line.”
Ryker pulled his power back and dropped his hands and helped Sylas over to us, supporting his weight with his shoulder. “That’s really something. A whole lot of loyalty and care among them toward you. Not fear and control like Gregor commands with.”
With a flick of his hands, he conjured some blood bags, then handed them over to me and my dad. “Filled with fresh and warm human blood that your soldiers assisted with on our way here. Drink up. The fight isn’t over yet.”
With that, he walked to Lucian and they fawned all over one another for a moment, before Ryker told him, “Jax and Mia are on the frontlines. There’s a shitload of Celestial magic in play. It almost took out Cornelius. If Ari hadn’t arrived in time…”
“We will see to it, my beloved,” Lucian told him, stroking his pecs over his silky white shirt. “Just as we always have.”
I wrapped my arm around Sylas as I gulped down the blood just like my dad was, our bodies healing faster as the warm liquid infused us. In moments I was able to properly support his weight.
My dad had his head turned away, because he’d had to take his mask off to drink, and his identity couldn’t be known to the Puritas army, to Lucian Black, and certainly not to the Head of the Guardian Movement.
To his credit, Ryker didn’t try to look.
He was so much wiser than that.
He came to Sylas and drew him off to the side a little.
Kind of pointless from an auditory perspective because he was surrounded by three beings with acute vampire hearing. It was probably so that he could focus through not touching me, or letting the emotion of almost seeing me die settle while we were still not done with this shitshow.
“My estimates have your recovery window marked as an hour,” Ryker spoke. “Is that accurate?”
“The fact you have estimates on me is a mixture of disturbing and flattering, Ry. But, yeah, within an hour I’ll be back to full power.”
“Then we’ll hold him off in the meantime, then you make your move.”
“I’ll take that motherfucker out and—” Sylas lurched and grabbed at his head.
“Get out! Get the fuck out!” he was yelling then, before his power sparked and then he was blinking and shaking his head.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Morien was just in my head,” he told me, his gaze only on me.
His really intense, fearful gaze.
“What is it?” I asked, grasping his arm. “What did he communicate to you?”
“When he had me weakened back there, it impacted something, one of my spells, one of the only longstanding ones that I couldn’t use Methuselah Root to maintain even if I fall or if I’m drained…
one not like the others. It’s back up now, but while it weakened, he felt it, Lazriel.
” He grasped my shoulders. “He felt it.”
“He—” The realization slammed into me. “No. No, he didn’t. He can’t. Sylas, no.”
Emotion welled in his eyes, as he forced himself to put it out there for both of us to hear, to make it a reality we didn’t want to be real, but fucking was. “He knows about our baby.”
Fuck.
Fucking shit.
No. No. No.