He frowned. “You aren’t in contact with them?”
I looked away. “Not much. A few texts every couple of months.”
“Since when? They didn’t mention that to me.”
“The last couple of years. They’re still recluses, as you must know if you contacted them. But now that’s kind of extended to me. The embarrassment of being caught in Cursed Servitude isn’t something they’ve been able to shake off.”
Another thing that had been perpetrated by a vampire clan. In that case, five years ago, when I’d been sixteen, it had been Clan Sceptrum, something that didn’t exist anymore after I’d found Requital and gotten them involved when my parents had been taken by the clan.
Some Ifrits were biologically predisposed to being trapped in Cursed Servitude, their magic at the command of others, and my parents had fit that bill. Due to our species’ emotional volatility, many years ago, Ifrits were believed to have needed containment, to have our powers controlled by others. So that Cursed Servitude shit had been forced on us centuries ago by the Celestial Plane. But over time, Ifrits had evolved where they were now producing kids who weren’t afflicted with that curse. Like me.
When I’d found Sylas through Requital, he hadn’t just freed my parents, he’d broken the curse permanently with Necromancy by resetting their magical biology through sending them into the Valley of the Dead while tethering them, then bringing them back.
It had taken time to locate them after they’d been taken, though, and during the whole thing—and in the immediate aftermath when my parents had been in a real state—Sylas hadtaken me into his home. And that was when I’d met and grown close to Win. Just as friends for many years—until he’d turned eighteen about two years ago. Around that time, he’d finally been allowed out into the world for a few days here and there, and one of those times, we’d hooked up, things becoming more than friendship from then on out.
“I’m sorry,” Sylas spoke, jarring me.
I lifted a shoulder. “It is what it is. Some people just remain broken, I guess.”
And I’d tried a fuck of a lot to help them, but nothing had worked. They’d just gotten worse and worse.
“Not always.”
“What?”
His eyes softened. “Some merely take longer to heal. Don’t give up hope. We are immortal beings, it’s never truly over when that’s a factor, is it?”
I choked at his words. “I guess not.”
“Besides, you’re only a year older than my son, that sort of bleak resignation shouldn’t set in this young.”
He was making a joke. With me. After the recent Winter stuff, he was giving that to me.
Although, did that mean he now thought I was compromised? Like, that I couldn’t do this mission with him?
No.
I wanted to. I needed to.
“This isn’t fresh pain to me,” I assured him. “I can separate the vampire clan thing as well. These are two different situations.”
“I know.”
“You… do?”
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “Now, come on.”
He held a hand out to me.
Thrilling anticipation surged through me.
Then I grabbed his hand and his crimson power wrapped around us, teleporting us out.
We rematerializedon a hill overlooking a clearing in Averiaz Woods with forty vampires gathered around about a hundred feet away just like Sylas had described.
I saw Pierce and Andrew there amongst them.
There was a shitload of tension I was noticing, a bunch freaking out about needing to relocate, talking about Basilisk reprisal, even reprisal from Winter and me.
