He hadn’t been prepared.
For any of this.
And he shouldn’t fucking have to be.
I didn’t want this!
I didn’t fucking want this for him!
I tugged at my hair as I paced my research lab, the one in our home,Glacialis Arx.
Things were supposed to be better for our son than they had been for us.
“I know what it’s like to be desperate to protect a supremely powerful child who you fear the world won’t take well to.”
“Yeah, Ariana went through a lot where that’s concerned.”
“You will do better for your child. Each new generation is granted that chance.”
When Ryker had spoken those words to me twenty-one years ago, I’d believed I could actually bring that about, that the four of us could as parents.
But we hadn’t.
We fucking hadn’t.
Today had been proof enough of that, hadn’t it?
Our son was in pieces.
Fuck.The way he’d looked at me, so fucking broken, when he’d choked out those words about the world not wanting him.
That wasn’t it. It wasn’t the actual truth. It was far more complex.
But that thing… that True Celestial nightmare who’d taken him had whispered a toxic version of that in his ear.
I ground my jaw. I couldn’t allow my rage whenever I thought about Ruxnoth to infect me right now. Winter’s loves would be here soon. People he cared about. The last thing I wanted to do was to scare them away. They were a comfort to him, and I wanted them here when he woke up.
Cassius had even sent Lazriel over to Loxley Academy to retrieve them. It had enabled Lazriel to use his vampire speed to expel some of his rage and upset on the way. Remnant was there watching over Evira and Zayn—and containing the volatile information of today’s events from being spoken about or revealed to anyone on that campus inadvertently. Something we absolutely could not have. Even though I’d recognized their care for Winter and their understanding of the situation, when people were upset and panicked, they didn’t always react in ways that were safeorquiet.
Vaxan had followed shortly after Lazriel. I’d needed him to act as a stabilizing force to my son’s other two loves before they arrived. It had become clear to me that it was one of his functions in their foursome.
Lazriel hadn’t really been needed to retrieve them at all. I knew that. He knew that. But when Ambrose, Ketheron, and I had reported what had happened earlier, I’d seen that dangerous rage inciting in him, something that was extremely trying for him to contain, especially when it came to our son being in any sort of distress. Yes, he’d done well with that during Torvek’sattack upon Winter days ago, but this was different. This wasn’t a youthful spat that could be so easily seen to. This was an exigent crisis point.
With Remnant being there, I knew he’d provide a powerful grounding, fatherly influence for Lazriel before he returned with them. It also antagonized Lazriel that he couldn’t assist from a magical standpoint, and this was predominantly a magical predicament. And when Lazriel felt powerless and unhelpful, combined with the panic for Winter… it could become destructive.
I scrubbed my hand over my face as I stared at the remainder of the substance that Ketheron had extracted—cleansed—from Winter now. Lazriel certainly wasn’t the only one who felt powerless.
“Motherfucker!” I roared in a burst of aggression, sweeping my arm at my beakers over on the other side of my worktable, glass shattering against my leather-clad arm, some crashing to the floor. “Argh!Argh!”
So much for maintaining calm. This wasn’t exactly a situation built for that.
“It’s not your fault.”
I jolted at Cassius’ smooth, poised voice.
Shoving a hand through my hair, I turned to see him leaning against the doorway to my home lab.
His blond hair brushed the shoulders of his dark shirt, the sleeves rolled up and revealing several dozen beaded bracelets he wore every single day without fail covering the expanse of either wrist and up to his lower forearm, gifts from those under his care at Haven Initiative when they’d only been children, not the grown adults they were now. It had gone by in a blink, just like with Winter.
