A tremble went through me and I whispered back, “Fuck, Vax.” I sucked in a steadying breath. “Yeah… shit… all right. Got you.” I looked out to see Ketheron’s cheeks tinged pink and him awkwardly averting his eyes. I grinned at Vax and whispered in his ear again, “You really are worked up, because you forgotthat Ketheron has the most attuned senses in the whole fucking world and just heard every word of that.”
“Hades,” Vax muttered, shaking his head to himself.
I laughed and ruffled his hair, then sprung to my feet. I went to gather my things off the other end of the couch, when a familiar roll of power pulled me up short.
My breath caught in my throat as the front door flew open in the next second, and Evira strode on in, her cozy gray coat sweeping behind her.
She jolted when she caught sight of Ambrose and Ketheron in our living room.
But before she got a word out about that, her nostrils flared and I grinned to myself, knowing she’d sensed Vax.
In the next second she was bounding toward him and throwing her arms around him.
I chuckled. So much for him calming down.
As they clutched at each other, I saw Ketheron and Ambrose exchanging some tender touches.
When Evira finally eased back from Vax a little, albeit him clutching at her wrist, not wanting her to break contact all the way, she eyed the power couple over her shoulder. “What brings you to our home? Has something happened?”
Ketheron told her excitedly, “We’re here to bring you to the Shadow Tunnels.”
Evira’s eyes shot wide and she looked between all four of us for a few moments before uttering, “Wow, okay. I’m gonna need you to fill me in.”
Yeah, it was a lot.
Who was I kidding? All of this was.
But as I settled myself between her and Vax, my eyes flicking to the gemstone, which was basically Win to me right now until we had him back with us, I focused on that having this… havingthem… made even the heaviest and most insane shit seem lighter.
And conquerable.
14
~Vaxan~
There were obvious similarities between the Basilisk Dominion and the Shadow Tunnels.
They were both underground entities.
Both were self-contained systems.
Both housed a large populace.
And both consisted of an intricate connected series of tunnels.
However, where the Basilisk Dominion was concerned, said tunnels had to be referred to as passageways. And unlike Norla and Syde, Remnant and The Shadowed didn’t particularly deal in performative semantics.
Also, while the Basilisk Dominion was “giant, polished, and super aristocratic”—as Zayn had aptly put it—the Shadow Tunnels stronghold was a covert underground fortress. It did possess its own luxuries certainly, however, it wasn’t delivered in an overt, ostentatious display.
The three of us had been given a brief tour of the structure by Remnant when we’d first arrived.
Black stone walls glimmered with the magical protections imbued in the subterranean network. The paths, archwaysand alcoves were lit with strategically placed sconces—more for the magic-wielders than the vampires obviously. The tunnels branched off with each hallway leading to a different aspect of The Shadowed’s operations—the Command Center, Medical Bay, Vermillion Chamber which was a feeding space, Combat Area, Residential Wing, and also a magical forensics research facility referred to as Investigative Sanctum. As you delved deeper into the tunnels, they dropped in stages, stairs meandering downward.
Currently, we were convened in a room a few hallways down from Combat Area, this being a space for strategizing and preparing tactical operations. Once finalized, with all moving parts pieced together, it would then move from theory into practical application via the Command Center, an operation then launched.
The Shadowed organization was highly-efficient, detailed-oriented, and extremely careful. Its members moved like whispers on the wind, but said moves had deep impacts upon the supernatural world.
The room was sparsely furnished with a long twenty-seater black metallic boardroom table that melded well with the walls surrounding it and also the monochrome seating areas around the edges of the room—black and charcoal leather sofas and armchairs. To the right of the boardroom table along the wall was a refreshments area, which consisted of food items that met my unfortunately very strict Basilisk dietary specifications, along with a generous selection for everyone else, and even fresh blood in decanters for Remnant and Lazriel.
