Chapter 12 Winter
~Winter~
The door to my chamber flew open with unadulterated fury.
Right on cue.
Ruxnoth scanned the room erratically, then found me lounging on the couch casually.
He was covered in dirt and dust, his bare chest and face bloodied, and his clothes torn.
So, yeah, I’d sort of had to… pull him through the earth with my shadows halfway through when my forced-teleportation yanking him back to Sanctus had cut out.
Because I was still healing and not at full strength, the rest had taken a lot out of me, so I’d gotten tapped out.
He burst toward me, eyes blazing, and wrenched me off the couch, then slammed me so hard into the nearest wall that it cracked in several places, and rattled my bones.
“You will suffer for that!” he roared in my face, as he wrapped his hand around my throat, making me gag. “Horrifically!” he bellowed, tightening his grip, and digging his nails into my skin painfully.
“Want me… healed. Not the… way to… go about it,” I rasped, battling to speak every word against his brutal grip.
“How dare you?” he snarled, still too amped up to let logic take the lead.
It was definitely interesting seeing him like this.
I narrowed my eyes, making my amber magic flame at him. It startled him enough that his grip around my throat loosened a little. Enough for me to seethe, “How. Dare. You?”
“Excuse me?” he growled.
“You almost fucked up everything.”
He yanked me off the wall, and slammed me back against it again.
Albeit, not as hard as last time, just enough to wind me.
Because he didn’t like the challenge, but he was also unsettled now by my words.
“What are you talking about? And I will give you due warning to mind yourself.”
“You dare to force me down here, get inside my head claiming we’re the same with our abomination status and promise me a safe and better life here with you, rip me from my other life in the name of this better fit existence… only to then turn around and do that?”
“What?”
“Latching onto the Dracoryn Realm and attempting a conquering wasn’t part of the deal.
Especially not at this stage, when I’m still healing—thanks to you, by the way.
But you got impatient, only had the power to pull off a partial latch.
And my magic you siphoned and fed to Tiberia and Matteo was bleeding into it.
That signature can be read by so many up there and on the mortal plane.
Not just my family, but so many of their allies, all who are no doubt trying to figure out a way to get to me.
If I hadn’t cut you off, they would have traced me here, and you by extension.
Like I said, it would have fucked up everything.
This has to be done all at once, securing the entirety of Sanctus onto the mortal plane and the adjoining realms—Dracoryn, Light Fae, Dark Fae.
A one-shot deal at full power for us both. ”
Yeah, not happening. But the tangled web I was weaving had enough truth and elements of irrefutable logic along for the ride that the believability was sound.
His hand slipped from my throat and he took a slow step back. “You did that to spare me?”
“And Sanctus.”
Like fuck I had.
“You are not angry with me for neglecting to tell you that I don’t only intend to provide Sanctus with a stable eternal fuel source through your unique nature?”
“How could you tell me when you know me as an advocate for peace and not harming others? It didn’t stop me from suspecting, though.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And knowing now, especially after the proof you ended up bearing witness to earlier, you would simply agree to assist with that additional goal of mine?”
“If I don’t agree to assist with your larger goal and instead only bond myself to Sanctus to perpetually fuel it—the initial goal you told me about—then with me bound to it, you’ll be free from being constantly drained by it from then on.
You’ll thereby have the power—and not just Ariana’s boost of power I can feel through your system right now that will wear off soon—to pursue your conquering plan on your own. ”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Well, with me involved, we can devise a method that will not harm others, that won’t destroy every fucking thing on the mortal plane just because you can.
After doing that earlier, seeing the way you did it, and me then being able to reverse it, I saw a way you can raise all of Sanctus without causing that sort of destruction and… terraforming.”
“Hmm.”
“If you just destroy, you’ll be throwing away so many resources that could benefit you and your desire of supreme rule over the mortal plane.
I can’t imagine somebody like you, who fancies themselves a god, would be satisfied ruling over a mess and a world of dried-up resources.
” I pushed off the wall. “You hide it, but there’s something else you want as well, isn’t there? ”
“What do you presume to know in regard to that?”
“You want them to love you, don’t you?”
It wasn’t actually love. It was worship—in a twisted way, because that was him.
But he thought that was love.
He swallowed, then even averted his eyes, as he said, “It has always been denied me because of the way I was framed by the Celestial Plane for my unique abilities, my special nature. There was fear when there should have been exaltation. There was punishment when there should have been reverence.”
“They only saw the threat, not the opportunity in what you are.”
His gaze flicked to mine again. “Something you understand all too well.”
“I do.”
Except with him, it hadn’t just been his outlier nature and abilities, it had been his actions—him wanting to conquer, his addiction to power, his obsession of obtaining more and more.
It wasn’t unchecked ambition, because that wasn’t always unhealthy in the way some painted it.
With him it was the way he was willing to go about it, turning it from evolving and progressing to severe danger and ruin.
He saw himself as a true god. And with that mentality, everything and everyone was expendable. There was no line for him.
He was determined to remake the world in his image.
And if everyone had to fall to make it so, that was acceptable to him.
Until now. With what I was trying to plant here.
He stared at me for several moments, studying me, clearly analyzing all that I’d claimed.
And then, he burst back right in front of me, startling me.
He had me flinching as he cupped my face.
Instinctively, I went to pull away, but he grasped my arm, stilling me.
“Shh,” he crooned, stroking my cheek. “My dissatisfaction with you has waned.”
Dissatisfaction? Sure, we’d tone it down exponentially and call it that. Unbelievable. Well, no, believable it most certainly was with him. Disturbing, though? Without a fucking doubt.
His eyes shone at me with reverence. “In its place is the fruit that has been borne from this enlightening conversation. Hmm, it is not only your nature that is miraculous. Your mind is duly impressive. Problem-solving such complex spellwork and magical intricacies is highly uncommon for most, let alone one so young.” He shifted his grip to my jaw, stroking his thumb over the coarse stubble, as he ruminated, “You have a gift.”
I grasped his wrist and drew his hand away from my face. “Then we’ll strategize this new approach I’ve put to you.”
“We certainly shall.” He went to reach for me again, but I stepped back.
“I need another session of the curative immersion after what it took to pull you back from that ill-advised assault on the Dracoryn Realm.”
“I see. Of course. We need you at full strength as soon as possible.”
“Good,” I said, walking over to the sunken pool in the middle of the room, and thankfully putting some relieving physical distance between us.
Jeez. The creep factor was off the chain with him.
Using touch to try to anchor me to his point of view, his will.
It wasn’t sexual, but it was definitely coercive, him trying to reach down into me beyond skin deep.
“Then our strategy session will accompany your healing session,” he spoke.
I ground my jaw, then turned around. “What?”
“I will stay here, we will further our discussion, and you will heal in the pool at the same time.”
“You need to get cleaned up,” I reminded him, gesturing the length of him.
He waved his hand. “That matters not. I am already healed anyway.”
“It matters to me to have privacy with the curative immersion.”
He frowned. “Privacy? You have already been presented in vulnerable states before my very eyes. Bare, even. Bound. Weakened. Shattered emotionally. You need not feel at ease with this now.”
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
I walked back to him, my eyes drilling into his. “Later.”
“Denied. I have used the last vestiges of my patience as it is, Winter. First, waiting twenty years before I could reach out to you, due to your stubbornness and fear regarding your use of Necromancy. Secondly, waiting on you to actually come here with me after finally making contact, you continuing to waste yet more time. Thirdly, your uncooperative state when you were brought here.”
“Your patience issues aren’t my problem.
” I shoved my hand to his chest, digging my nails in, my amber magic flaming and managing to penetrate his skin, even with him being True Celestial.
He hissed and tried to back away, but with my other hand, I enveloped him in Undead Domination—something normally only meant for death-touched beings. ”
“How are you achieving this?” he asked, unable to do anything but move his mouth.
When I’d pulled him from the Dracoryn Realm, I’d interacted with his magic. It would leave my system soon, and there was just a tiny bit there. Yet, enough to warp Undead Domination to impact the likes of him.