The fact that he was confident enough to laugh in Lafayette’s face should’ve scared me more for his fate. But I knew that Van would never do anything without a plan in place. I just had to grin and bear it, to get through this moment.
To think that just an hour or two ago, I was contemplating wanting to talk to Van about my feelings for him. About how I’dbeen lying to myself, thinking that all that existed between us was just the amazing connection and the even more stellar sex.
I’d heard that stressful situations really made you reflect on your life, and brought the truth to the surface. Nothing could have been more clear. I knew exactly how I felt about Van. And I needed to survive this so that I could tell him.
Pushing me backward with him, Lafayette kept the gun aimed for my temple as he slowly assessed that, though Van wasn’t armed, he believed what he was saying about being able to inflict pain on him without one. Lafayette was crazy, but he wasn’t naive. Somehow he’d believed that Van was capable of something if he was backing away from him, using me as collateral.
“And how exactly do you manage to make that happen?” Lafayette’s words were a lot braver than his actions, still backing away from Van as my bodyguard started slowly walking after us.
Van started to unbutton his suit jacket, slowly, turning it into a display of power. Once unbuttoned, he tossed it over to where his gun had been discarded and then began to unbutton the white shirt that he was wearing underneath. Lafayette kept making us move backward, every so often his head turning to make sure that we weren’t about to knock ourselves into something. We didn’t have a whole hell of a lot more room before we would be in the kitchen.
Now shirtless, Van discarded the white shirt on the floor as well, showing off his muscles and the hairy chest that I was obsessed with. I probably would have gawked at him longer if I hadn’t remembered that I was being held at gunpoint by my apparent half-brother in my own fucking house.
“You’re about to experience a rare privilege, Lafayette.” With a smirk, Van stopped walking toward us, which enabled Lafayette to do the same. Once we weren’t mobile anymore, Vangestured toward us with the tilt of his chin. “Not that you’ll ever be able to prove it or spread the word to anyone.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He questioned, irritation available in every syllable as he spoke.
Van simply smirked as his eyes flashed that neon purple I’d missed so much. It was the same sheen that his eyes had displayed when he’d first shapeshifted in front of me on the plane. I realized now what was about to happen, my pulse zigzagging and my breath a little too quick.
“What was that?” Lafayette’s confidence was leaving his voice. He was clearly rattled, because he stopped pointing the gun at me and instead aimed it right at Van. “Who are you?” His voice was trembling. “Whatare you?”
Snickering, Van’s eyes flashed purple again. “My name is Vanguard.” His skin started to turn right before my eyes, the tan pigment that usual sang back to me changing into what looked like some sort of silver, metallic skin. “And I’m an olatsma.”
Van roared as his body started to morph into something else. I stared in frozen bewilderment as Van grew at least an entire foot, his pants beginning to tighten as he filled them out more, gaining more mass to his muscles than he had before.
His face remained mostly the same, except his face was a little longer like this, his mouth still twisted in a roar as his body adjusted to its more natural state. His eyes were a vibrant purple, shining the neon color like halos embedded in his skull. It also looked sort of like instead of sleek metallic skin that he was actually covered in tiny feathers the size of fingernails, a plume of silver alloy. His hands ended in points, like his nails were made out of finger sized knives, adding to his deadly arsenal. Even his hair was metallic now, though still looking like the same waves he’d worn before.
Van’s ears became pointed, ending in three different but equally proportioned points. Out of his shoulders, horns the sizeof my hand erupted, several sharp decorations lining his broad frame. The horns adorned down the side of his arms as well, lining up perfectly from how they’d formed on his shoulders. His feet had burst out of the dress shoes he’d been wearing, revealing that they weren’t like human feet, but rather like that of a tiger or lion, with the same sharp claws, but made of the same cool grey metal as the rest of him.
From behind his frame, three different tails emerged. One resembled that of a scorpion, covered in the same tiny feathers that the rest of his skin was made of. The second one looked like a devil’s tail, ending in one sharp spade and was considerably shorter than the scorpion tail. The middle tail looked like it was a moving chain, a link of absolute power that moved like it had a mind of its own. It coiled around him, like it was comforting him after being gone so long from his natural state.
Van smiled, showing off that his teeth were white and menacing, his incisors sharp and elongated from the rest of his teeth. He was fearsome, powerful, and overwhelming to take in. I could understand why humans might have a hard time understanding what they were looking at if they were to witness the true form of an olatsma.
While he was overwhelming to look at, I thought he was just as devastatingly beautiful. He looked like the sort of thing that belonged back home, back in Phoebe. If the other “abrasive” looking Orbs could see other olatsma around them, living their lives in their most authentic skin, I think they’d feel even more comfortable than they already did in a safe haven like Phoebe.
He was an amalgamation of different creatures, at least that’s how it seemed to me. In my opinion, olatsma were the true celebration of Orbs. And they deserved to be treated as such instead of being reduced to wearing human illusions simply because humans couldn’t get their heads out of their asses and accept creatures without hesitation or ignorance.
True fear dripped out of Lafayette’s pores, eyes wider than saucers as he seemed to be trembling from taking in Van’s true form. Without thinking, Lafayette fired another shot right at Van, but the bullet bounced off his skin like it was a fly being swatted out of the air. The bullet ricocheted into the wall a couple times, making me duck in fear of being struck, but the bullet hit the front door, that was still slightly ajar, and it didn’t start bouncing back at us anymore.
Van swept the empty space between him and Lafayette, making sure that he couldn’t shoot it again. Lafayette’s screams sounded as Van took his knife-like fingernails and shoved the first two through his fucking hand. He dropped the gun instantly, and Van kicked it out of reach just as it hit the floor.
Blood seeped between the flesh of Lafayette’s hand and Van’s metal fingernails, a gruesome scene that was beginning to showcase why you shouldn’t fuck with olatsma if you valued any sort of appendage.
“Let’s make sure you never have the opportunity to speak of what you see,” Van’s voice was slightly mechanical sounding now, his tone a mixture of his usual timbre mixed with a slight robotic quality. My dick pulsed in my pants, because it was actually kind of hot. “That the olatsma’s marvelous nature isn’t wasted on the tongue of someone as vile and disgusting as you.”
My eyes widened in surprise as Van took one of his nails and reached into Lafayette’s mouth, taking one quick slash and then retracting the blade as the man trembling before him began to scream and thrash against him. Van still had two of them in Lafayette’s hand, and the latter wasn’t able to pull his hand back and free himself of being sliced by Van’s nails. Something thudded to the ground, flopping on the floor without concern and my eyes bulged in my skull as I realized that it was Lafayette’s tongue.
Van had just cut out hisfuckingtongue.
Chapter 29
Lafayette continued to scream,blood pouring out of his mouth from the laceration. Lafayette yelped again when Van retracted his nails from his hand. Van used his free hand to toss Lafayette against the nearest wall, lifting him off his feet like he weighed nothing more than a plastic cup. Once Lafayette smashed into the wall, his yelps were silenced, and he slid down the wall and crumpled to the floor without so much as a whisper. I wondered if Van had just killed him, and Van must have thought similarly, because he walked over and knelt down beside Lafayette’s unmoving frame, lifting the man’s good hand and checking his pulse.
“He’s alive.” Van nodded, dropping Lafayette’s hand with abandon, turning back to look at me. “Which is far more than he deserves.” He wiped the disgusted sentiment from his face as his eyes turned into kind hues of violet. “Are you okay?”
I just nodded, unable to find my words. The sound of rustling behind me caused me to turn, seeing that Xoah had shed the other bullets from his body, no longer bleeding from the attempted assault as the wasted bullets embellished the marble floor. Groaning, Xoah lifted himself off the floor once more as I turned back to see Van.
“Wow.” I heard Xoah say, Van slowly making his way over to me. “I’ve never seen an olatsma’s true form but I never would have guessed thatthat’swhat you guys look like.” He scoffed, but his lips were upturned, clearly entertained. “You look like a metallic chimera of different beasts. Fucking awesome.” Xoah smirked.
