Chapter 5 Winter #2
“As much as I hate what you did—outing me to the supernatural world like that—it doesn’t change the fact that I’m an enemy to them now.
There’s no place up there for me anymore.
So I need to accept that and work toward preserving Sanctus, the one place where I can exist and live without persecution and being hunted or imprisoned.
Like you said, we’re the same where that’s concerned—both abominations who will never be accepted by them. ”
Yeah, we’d see about that.
With being forced into this Nihilumbra nightmare for so long it had actually given me an idea, one I could figure out the mechanics and details of once I was out of it and able to actually think straight and remain conscious for more than a few minutes at a time.
“All right,” Ruxnoth said, “I accept your truth regarding that. But what about Sylas and—”
“You won’t say his name to me. You won’t mention him. And you’ll make sure nobody down here does either.”
“So you intend to… compartmentalize that?”
“You want me functional and cooperative, then that’s how it needs to be.”
“Well, I can assure you that, in time, if you remain open like you’ve just begun to be now, we will become your family.”
“About that—not the family part, but this sexual stuff—that’s off the table as well.”
He frowned. “How will you live comfortably without that aspect of your needs fulfilled?”
“It needs time, and a lot of it.”
“Until you can fully let go of your bond to those you believe you loved?”
‘Believe’ I loved? What a dismissive motherfucker. There was no part of that with my loves that was up in the air. I did love them. All three of them. And that would never fucking change. He just needed to believe it would, that the bond would erode over time.
“Exactly. Throwing offers of sex—or this fucking scene in my face—is an insult to that, to me, and I don’t like it. I’ll make it known that I don’t like it. Do you understand me?”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Mmm. Perfectly, my deathborn darling.” His smile widened. “I am duly impressed with your fortitude, with all of this.”
“Then release me now.”
He held up a finger. “In a moment. Rex needs me.”
Rex? That was his name?
Rex Crowley?
What was—
“I told you earlier that this is not just gratification. He requires my assistance. My treatments to soothe his mind or it will return to its fractured state.” He ran a gentle hand down Rex’s back.
“This is the way he prefers to take it, the other way involves a great deal of pain and also undercuts the effectiveness due to the distress it causes.” He flicked his magic at me, and then I was free to look away.
I was about to do just that when he had me wincing as he started pounding into the poor bastard, albeit Rex was eagerly pushing back against him—that wasn’t really surprising considering Ruxnoth had stilled for some time, leaving his cock deep inside him like some kind of erotic torture.
But what had me still looking over was Ruxnoth at the same time shoving his fingers into Rex’s mouth, them glowing vibrantly with his midnight-blue power.
It radiated from his other hand that had now shifted to Rex’s hip, and encompassed him all over—inside and out.
That was how he was apparently healing his mind.
It wasn’t just any magic, not just any flood of power. It possessed very similar properties to what he did to me with that living warmth. Hmm.
As things picked up, I did then look away, trying to block out the screams of pleasure from Rex and the grunts of satisfaction from Ruxnoth.
When they finally stopped, along with the sounds of slapping flesh, I looked over in relief to see Rex sprawled out on his back on the bed with a cover draped over him, while Ruxnoth was clad in a robe.
Ruxnoth strode to me, calling his power as he went.
“So long as you remain good for me, you won’t be made to endure this again,” he vowed, just before he reached over me and deactivated the Nihilumbra with a flood of his magic.
It all disintegrated, my bare feet touching the floor, and an involuntary huge sigh of relief escaped me, as the pain finally left.
I went to push off the wall, but he slammed his hand to my chest, knocking me back.
“What now?” I demanded.
“Because you took so long, even delayed coming to me long before I finally brought you here, which forced my hand with outing you to the world, some damage control is required.”
“What kind of—”
I grunted as his power sparked on my chest, a different kind of pain erupting then—a painful pull that felt like it was sucking the life out of me.
No. “You can’t siphon me, you’ll die. I’m living death. That will infect you.”
“Calm yourself. If it had been possible for me to siphon all your magic, why would I have gone to such lengths to earn your cooperation?”
“Just checking. Gods like to play with the little people.”
“Ah, but you’re not one of them, are you?
” He stroked my hair. “You’re also a god.
Just of another nature than me.” He pulled harder, making me buck uncontrollably.
“I just need a little for this damage control situation I mentioned. It cannot wait any longer, and unfortunately, you cannot assist with it in the way I’d prefer because it will take you time to recover from the Nihilumbra. ”
He pulled back suddenly, and I choked when I saw a shimmering blue cube containing some of my amber magic levitating above his outstretched palm.
“Yes. This will suffice.” He eyed me suspiciously.
“And it will also serve as a test. Your reaction to what I intend to do with this will demonstrate whether your loyalty truly does lie with Sanctus now.”
“And what might that be?”
He dematerialized what he’d taken from me.
“Concentrate on your recovery.” He helped me off the wall and eased me down onto one of the fancy couches.
Then he strode toward a door that I could see led into a bathroom in the far corner.
He called to Rex as he passed by, “Escort Winter to his chamber. Explain the pool to him and collect his dietary preferences, then I will see to them.”
With that, he smiled at me, then disappeared into the bathroom, sealing the door behind him.
Rex told me as he sat up on the bed, “He has this thing about scrubbing himself clean after fucking. It’s some holdover from when he lived on the Celestial Plane, where they were all shamed for even having sexual thoughts, let alone actually fucking.”
He clothed himself with his magic, then walked to me, and I took him in properly. Now that he wasn’t in a compromised position.
That dark golden hair brushed the shoulders of his distressed brown military jacket with tons of pockets, the collar turned up and giving off a bit of a rebellious edge.
A fitted chocolate-brown henley underneath that stretched over his strong and tall frame was half tucked into a pair of dark jeans.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties or so—appearance-wise anyway.
“Sorry you had to see that, kiddo.”
“Sorry you had to endure that.”
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s not so bad.”
“I guess you have to ask yourself whether you’d be thinking that if the ‘treatment’ aspect wasn’t a factor.”
He stared at me.
Yeah, he’d clearly internalized a lot… Ruxnoth’s manipulations and emotional rewiring of people.
Although, at the same time, Rex had still tried to help me. So how did that play with the rest?
I got my answer in the next moment as he tried to clothe me with his magic too—I couldn’t even summon a spark of mine right now—and he clad me in a black leather hooded coat.
Just like my dad’s signature item of clothing.
A choked sound escaped me, and my gut twisted.
“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said, fumbling, before he altered it to a simple black bathrobe.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then managed to get a hold of myself, and ask what I needed, “So you are Rex Crowley, then? You knew him?”
“I did, yeah.”
“Is that why you tried to help me?” I frowned. “I’m missing something, if so, because the way I’ve heard it, you considered him a rival of yours.”
“Partly why, because he still had my respect, big time. But also because we need you. Those of us down here who aren’t exactly over the moon about being here, others of us who don’t want Sanctus brought onto the mortal plane.
” He gestured at the bathroom door. “That room is soundproofed because he likes the calmness and privacy of it, but he doesn’t take that long, so we don’t have time to get into a whole thing.
Just know that the lesson he subjected me to there was because I’ve been trying to help you since you got here.
” When I went to ask more, he shook his head, then snapped his right palm up, his coral-colored magic flaming.
“Later for all the rest. For now, this is what I believe you need from me. A boost so you can deliver a certain something to a certain someone. You try to do that while you’re in that pool or even afterward, and he’ll sense it. This is your only chance.”
“Deliver what?” I asked, forcing myself not to openly tense or react to what he was suggesting.
He rolled his eyes. “Ruxnoth required additional power to lock in that dreamscape he pulled you into involving that supernatural bath locale. He’d missed a restorative session to reach out to you because he was worried and wouldn’t wait. That power boost came from me. So I felt what you did.”
“What I did? I didn’t use my Necromancy on him.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Nice use of semantics there. Very carefully worded. That’s definitely something you inherited from Cassius.”
“What? You know Father?”
“Ruxnoth talks about him a lot. They used to be friends and—let’s focus on the immediate. You used your Wraith abilities in that dreamscape.”
Fuck. “I did?”
Another roll of his eyes. “Look, I used to be with a Shadowmancer. The similarity to Wraith magic is… a lot. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
That was… okay, then.
“You want to get that topside, you’ll need a boost to spark those abilities. He’s kept you in that poisonous shit for a really long time, so you’re gonna be tapped out for a while.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Do it.”
He nodded, then held his hand out to me. “This is gonna be a bit of a rush, and then kind of uncomfortable because I’m pure necromancer using only Necromancy to boost your Wraith side. At least the twilight resonance between both will actually make it possible at all.”
I swallowed and grasped his hand.
In the next second, his coral magic surged where we were joined, then its glow shot along my arm, sparks erupting everywhere.
Sharp, painful sparks.
With my free hand, I turned my palm up very shakily, and pulled a little on his power to direct it there.
Then I was able to call my Wraith frost to the surface—and what I’d taken that day.
A sphere of frost with a sliver of midnight-blue and amber magic within—the magical manifestation of the warmth Ruxnoth used on me.
A living equation to a fuck of a lot where he was concerned.
Where defeating him and leveling Sanctus was concerned.
“Subitis,” I uttered, my frost flaring, before it then dematerialized as I sent it away.
To the one person who could receive it well.
We pulled away, Rex calling his power back.
“Good,” he said.
“You doing this… what about the ‘treatments’ you need?”
“Greater good and all that.”
Wow.
“Just so you know, what that contained might also be able to help you.”
“What? You’re serious?”
“Yeah. There’s a really good chance.”
“Why would you even think about that with all the rest of this going on? I’m no one to you. And I told you I only helped you because we need you.”
“I don’t think that’s the only reason. But, either way, if we have the power, isn’t it our responsibility to help anyone we can, to take away the suffering of others when we have the means to do that? It’s cruelty otherwise.”
“That’s… incredibly noble.”
“You just told me you’d give up your mind for the greater good.”
“Yeah, for the glory of all that. A war is coming now Ruxnoth has done this. I want to be remembered as a hero, not the guy with the fractured mind who helped a tyrant. The time to change that is now.”
I smiled as I stared out at him and registered how he'd just rattled off all that as though it was a script he’d been practicing for himself.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s okay for people to see that you care.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Down here?”
“Not just that. It’s what got my wife killed.”
Wife? “The Shadowmancer?”
He nodded.
But before I could ask more, he gestured at the door. “I’ve gotta get you to your space now. He wants you healing. If he comes out and sees us standing around talking it won’t exactly go over well.”
“Okay,” I said, letting him lead me out of what was clearly Ruxnoth’s chamber.
A lot of information had been conveyed. A lot to digest before more was gathered.
I sucked in a breath.
I was free from those binds.
I’d heal and recover.
I’d found an ally here.
I now also knew not all the necromancers here were true enemies.
I’d sent that shard off—and that would be a hell of a thing once it was opened and they discovered what else I’d buried inside.
Things were shifting.
I was taking back control.
More than that—I was readying myself.
Because the truth was, it would take an abomination to destroy an abomination.