Page 128 of Amethyst and Iron
I couldn’t suppress a grimace as Victor scraped his talons down the cracked door frame—both fucking sides.
I had no doubt he was specifically doing it to hurt me.
It was bad enough my pulse was racing like fucking mad, which he’d be able to both hearandfeel with his highly-attuned senses, but now he’d made me show a reaction in my expression too.
A dark chuckle sounded from Sylas, thankfully redirecting some of my sensory focus.
“You think you can kill someone like me, vampire?”
“You mean a necromancer without a single flicker of power at his disposal?”
Shit.He knew. He knew Sylas’ magic was bound.
Sylas moved to step in front of me, but I threw my arm out holding him back.
It was instinct, I figured, for him to take the brunt of things, the heat of any battle or dangerous and dire situation, because of his power set.
A power set he didn’t currently have access to.
Halrow’s lips lifted at the interaction, my protective move basically reinforcing what he’d just said.
Better that than Sylas putting himself in a position he couldn’t handle right now.
“Careful with holding to such a simplistic thought process. Power doesn’t just come from supernatural might. That mentality is how many believing themselves almighty actually fall,” Sylas spoke. He tapped his chin. “Come to think of it, isn’t that what happened to you? Say, three centuries ago, when yoursireput you down?”
Victor hissed and ripped off a chunk of the door frame.
Wow.
That had gotten under his skin majorly. Sylas and his pointed retorts for the win.
Last time I’d faced Victor, he’d done a similar thing to me, seemingly seen into me, and had a biting answer for everything, talked down to me, and unnerved me in so many ways with it. Talk about getting a taste of his own medicine. His reaction showed that he most definitely wasn’t used to that.
It was also clear that Sylas had been investigating Halrow.
What he’d just thrown at him wasn’t public knowledge or anything close to that.
I wasn’t surprised he’d been looking into the behemoth bastard. Sylas had marked him as a threat. Delving into his background would only have been the start of it. Something we’d need to get into once this immediate fuckfest was over with.
“I lied earlier,” Halrow spat at Sylas. “For dramatic effect, of course. You’ll survive the night. Just not painlessly. My only instruction was to ensure you remain breathing. That leaves the way open to a great deal of fun to be had. In fact, I’ll start by having you watch me defile your hybrid love. I do enjoy breaking the mind before the body. It’s a much sweeter victory.” His gazeflicked to me, and I fought to suppress a shudder as he looked me up and down. “Precious, our time together was cut far too short last time. I will enjoy remedying that. If you’re good for me, I’ll allow you some enjoyment too, before I employ the full force of my sadism that I’ve been fantasizing about unleashing all over that pretty body of yours.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sylas growled. “You aren’t touching him. You aren’t carrying out yourinstructionson behalf of your master.”
“I serve no master.”
“If you’re being instructed, yes, you very much do. Let me hazard a guess… Morien Morgrave? My formerly deceased-since-resurrected egomaniacal father?”
“Hmm, impressive. You are steps ahead to where we anticipated you would be.”
“Stop posturing. Get gone. And tell the motherfucker I know. His time is limited. Very limited.”
Victor sneered. “Posturing? Is that what you believe I’m doing?”
“You enjoy playing psychological games. You’ve made that clear. You mistakenly believed you’d found a victim in Lazriel. But you misread him through your arrogance, as well as your twisted relationship with his father.”
I jolted. Sylas knew about that as well?
A perverse grin spread over Victor’s face. “Did you know that Morien has been obsessed since Ryker Morgan put him down? So much so that he’s studied every little detail of his history, especially his gift for magical workarounds?”
