Page 174 of Obsidian and Frost
I wouldn’t let anything hurt my boys and what we were building.
28
~Sylas~
I pushed into the apartment belonging to Cassius and Ketheron as the former dropped the ward for me.
“Ketheron?” I asked.
“With Ariana and her loves for the night,” Cassius informed me. “Nyx will be teaching him to parkour.”
“All right, we have an hour. That should be just enough to see to business before they arrive.”
“Business?” he queried, following after me as I strode into the living room, then perched on the arm of his muted gray couch, unable to actually relax onto the cushioned seat itself. I was far too on edge for that.
“Yes. Of course. It’s why I arrived early.”
“You said in our message chat that it was to assist me with making dinner.”
I stared at him. “Yes, Immortal wunderkind, I came here to roll dough with you and do fucking vegetable prep. Becausethat’sthe most important thing going on now.”
He glared back at me. “I don’t possess the emotional literacy—yet—to read between lines like that, necromancer.”
I blew out a breath. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I didn’t mean to—”
“You are in an awful state. Is this a…trauma responsefrom what happened at that bar several nights ago? Did it… what is the word…triggeryou… and bring memories of Glasswake Massacre to the forefront?”
I jolted at his words. Bringing it up was bad enough, but uttering the name I’d given it, which he’d seen when he’d read me that night, was like a bolt of shock right through the heart of me. Or what was left of the fucking soul of me.
“That… doesn’t matter.”
“I believe it does. Very much so.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. “This isn’t aboutthat.This is about the fact that the protection on Lazriel still hasn’t been lifted, which means the threat is still active. Lazriel has informed me that his mother has gone to ground now too—on private business. She’s in the shadows, where I believe this protection is coming from.”
“Shadows… are you referring to the vampire underground? The Shadowed?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“She has connections among them? A wolf?”
“She’s not just a wolf. She’s an influential Alpha who had a child with an Ancient Vampire.”
“I see. You believe he is the key to this—the commander behind these vampires protecting Lazriel.”
“Given everything I’ve come to know, I believe he’s the key to the fucking underworld itself. The fact these vampires were sent when nobody knewPuritashad been trying to return is another level. But not for The Shadowed. They exist in whispers, they are able to obtain intel long before anybody else.”
“My goodness.”
“I need to perform a Blood Trace on Lazriel.”
“To prove your theory correct.”
“And to get to this Ancient.”
“Thisisjust theoretical at this point. You could perform the Blood Trace and we could discover that Lazriel’s father is actually dead. That will not sit well with him. It will hurt him.”
“We need to know either way. As for hurting him, both him and Velra stand to be hurt greatly if we can’t quietly erasePuritasentirely before they truly rise again and the infection that they are spreads. You saw what their intention is. Lazriel is one of their chief targets. I can’t allow this. Iwon’t.”I pushed off the couch and began pacing. “If the Blood Trace does fail, there is also another avenue. Regardless, I will do the trace and pursue this at the same time.”
