Page 168 of Rose and Shadows
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.
28
~Lazriel~
I didn’t like being away from Velra, Cassius, and our baby.
But me being out on that battlefield where it was mostly a nightmare of high-level magic usage wasn’t exactly something I was equipped to excel in given that I wasn’t a magic-wielder. Velra and Cassius were, both of them powerhouses in that way.
Nah, I knew logically I was better off here on this mission.
With my dad.
And with Sylas, dealing with death magic that meshed with my vampire side.
Besides, the plan called for rapid-fire movement because we would be facing off with Dark Fae imbued with Morien’s necromantic abilities that were then souped up with Celestial power and black magic.
My dad had brought along fifteen vampires in the twenty-being unit of The Shadowed for this mission. Only five were magic-wielders because he knew that they wouldn’t stand a chance against that sort of power. These five were here solely as backup if it came to evacuation.
I knew all that, but it still hung heavy being separated from Velra and Cassius.
Ketheron was on my mind too, that absolute sweetheart. I knew he’d be okay because he was an ultimate powerhouse, but I didn’t like him having to be, or being caught up in this. He’d been through so much as it was and he deserved peace. So did those poor Celestial children, but now they were pulled into this as well.
By these power hungry maniacs, these twisted narcissists with god complexes up their asses dialed to purist rhetoric.
Urgh.Soon. Soon it would all be done with.
I sucked in a centering breath and focused up as we carefully and covertly approached the veil up ahead. From the outside—our vantage point and current positioning—it appeared to be more of the same forest we’d been trekking through.
But once we passed through with the small portion of Ketheron’s magic that had been given to Sylas as the key to enter, the sanctuary area that was really beyond the fake forest would come into view. It was a lakeside mansion that was housing and protecting five hundred hybrid beings.
We’d been doing recon as we’d approached from a distance.
The issue was that we had no idea when Morien and his Dark Fae acolytes would arrive.
An alarm hadn’t been tripped from within and there were several of them—they sent a direct alert to the Guardian Movement when activated.
So the sanctuary hadn’t been hit yet.
Just like the hybrid volunteers were doing where Velra and Cassius were right now to lure Gregor out, we were doing the same thing, keeping close, yet not too close to the sanctuary entrance. We weren’t cloaked or moving with vampiric stealth.
We wanted Morien to come.
