Winter? Nah, not happening.
Win didn’t do that.
He wouldn’t go after the vamps. And the idea of calling on Sylas or his Grandpa would’ve freaked Win out, because he’d worry about them murdering the whole clan. And Win couldn’t carry that. When it came to this sort of thing, it was either that for him or the Guardian Movement, not underground organizations that partially operated outside the law. But with Vaxan insisting on keeping the incident quiet, the Guardian Movement option had been off the table. So, he’d resorted to protection only. And he was definitely safeguarding Vaxan. I’d seen him monitoring that sexy fucking lord since the attack, basically pulling a whole bodyguard routine—but keeping to the shadows about it.
Sylas signaled me.
I reacted immediately, and called my power, my fuchsia flames sparking on my palms, a moment before I swept my hands around the area, forming the fiery containment that Sylas had asked for around the vampires.
He flicked his fingers and formed a translucent dome over the top that would block their escape if they tried it.
Yeah, if I’d done that part with my flames, because of the intensity, it would have burned them all within, the temperature rising and rising if I’d closed it with a roof of fire too.Hmm,I wondered how much practice and experience it took to think of everything like that, like he could.
As my flames stood freely, I brought my palms down, cut out the intensity blazing from my hands for a moment, then called just a defensive amount when I upturned them again and held them at the ready, prepared for whatever command Sylas gave me next.
I watched as my fuchsia flames raged around the vampires, containing them within and serving to light up the immediate area.
Sylas’ hand clasped my shoulder, and I looked to see him smiling at me.
“Well done. Perfectly controlled. Excellent.”
Pride swelled and I beamed up at him.
And then he stormed right toward the circle of flames as the vampires finally noticed our presence—or his. That was how worked up they’d been… they hadn’t even registered us until now. Talk about the worst time to drop their guard. Considering they’d been freaking out about being caught, then not paying attention…wowzers.
“Necromancer,” a bunch of them hissed at Sylas as he strode forward, a shitload of might and power radiating off him.
I saw him twist a gold ring on his thumb a moment before he hit the wall of flames, which had me tensing—until he passed right through completely unharmed and not breaking his stride for a second.
I was tensing again as twenty vampires came at him at once, bursting at him.
But with a flick of his fingers, he snapped their necks rapid-fire, and they all fell to the grass in unconscious heaps.
And then a dozen of them started firing magic at him.
Fuck.I’d heard of this. Vampires temporarily able to wield magic from ingesting it from magic-wielders. It also made them super high, so that explained why they hadn’t noticed our approach sooner.
But their magic—all colors of the rainbow, meaning they’d fed from a bunch of different magic-wielders—did Sylas no damage, some of it even bouncing off and ricocheting off the invisible shield protecting him, then slamming right back into them, ripping several off their feet.
Others ducked or evaded the hits and lunged at him, while Pierce and Andrew and a half dozen others frantically tried to leap over my wall, only to hit against what Sylas had put in place above.
Sylas thrust his hand out at the rest who were trying to be a tad more strategic against him, and they froze instantly. He raised his hand and levitated them off the ground where they were completely unmoving. It was Undead Domination, where he could freeze and puppet death-touched beings like vampires.
“Drop the wall!” he called out to me.
I did it instantly.
But then I saw a bunch of vampires darting away.
I had to resist the urge to react.
He’d told me to await orders.
“Wall to the left!” he commanded me then.
I smiled and threw up a wall of my fire, stopping four vampires from escaping.
In the next second, Sylas thrust his left fist into the ground, and a crimson shockwave radiated out and tore into the vamps using magic against him.
