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Irine let out a little whine. This was not going well.

Ryder began to move restlessly. Would Grayson be strong enough to hold Ryder if he decided to attack everyone?

And how long could he hold him? Was Daemon really just going to let this happen?

Why couldn’t Balthazar use his mind control or something?

“None of the Weryn were shouting and calling for the blood like the others were,” Grayson pointed out.

“Your point being?” Ryder asked. He was growing weary of this talk and he pressed harder against Grayson’s hand.

Grayson grimaced and his free hand fisted at his side. He hated talking about this kind of stuff. Dredging up the past. But it might help. It might explain. Maybe if the Ryder part of Weryn heard this he would stop and reflect.

“I know the look on their faces,” Grayson said and swallowed thickly. “Most of them hated Lawson. There is no love lost there and I am sure that few will mourn his passing.”

One woman from the night before lowered her head. Grayson didn’t know who had given Lawson the axe, but it hadn’t been her despite her grief. No one else showed any emotion other than alertness.

“Yet with all that hatred they were not standing in my corner,” Ryder said.

“Because they were scared. They couldn’t believe the person who hurt them for so long could be overthrown,” Grayson explained and grimaced.

He could see his mother and stepfather’s faces.

His stepfather’s filled with drunken fury.

His mother’s with fear and loathing. No matter what he’d done to them, she hadn’t fought back.

Even when people had tried to help them.

She’d said it was “fine”. She “fell down the stairs” or he “got hit with a baseball after school”.

She hadn’t even gone to the hospital when he’d beaten her so badly because she’d known that the doctors and nurses wouldn’t have believed her.

So the bone in her left wrist had healed wrong and she had trouble carrying things with it.

“And then you did it,” Grayson continued. “You stopped him. But they still are living with what he did to them for so long.”

And you said you were going to kill them.

Ryder pursed his lips. “He was not that strong. If they had simply bound together they could have ended him. They did not. And they abandoned the one person who would fight for them. Even when I ended him, there were no cheers.”

Grayson’s mother’s face flashed before his mind’s eye again.

Her look of horror turned to fear after he had freed them both of his stepfather’s abuse with his gift .

The first time he’d really used it. He could still see the starburst spatter of blood on the wall from where his stepfather’s head had struck it and exploded like a melon.

Bile rose up into his throat. But he swallowed it down. He needed to keep control.

“Yeah, I know.” Grayson’s shoulders slumped.

“They should have but all they know is fear and what you did…” Grayson licked his lips.

“They’re so used to being the victim that they assumed you’d turn that strength on them.

No matter that you’ve always been there for them.

No matter that what you did was to save them. And that it was earned .”

You said you were going to kill them. When Mom didn’t accept what I’d done… What did I say to her?

Ryder’s gaze was focused on him again. “This unworthy person that you saved, what did you do to them?”

Grayson let out a brief laugh and ran a hand through his hair. Ryder had guessed he was speaking from experience. “Nothing. I left. I never looked back.”

“You left your home, you left it all to them and you had nothing?” Ryder seemed to be dredging up some memories or simply putting two and two together.

“Staying didn’t seem to be an option. But maybe I was wrong.

Maybe I should have given my mother a chance to calm down, to recover, to--to see if we couldn’t go forward together.

” Grayson swallowed. “Instead, I was alone. And it wasn’t good.

” He looked at Ryder. “When you left me earlier tonight, you wanted to stop Lawson. You wanted a different path for your Bloodline.”

“And I will have it,” Ryder murmured, his gaze scanning them again.

They moved like bleating sheep in a pen. Grayson reached out and held all of them.

“Why can’t I move?” One cried.

“Be silent!” Demos shouted. More sweat dripped down his face.

Ryder gazed upon Grayson speculatively. “You’re doing something. You’re keeping them all in place?”

“No one is going to run so you can give chase,” Grayson said. “There is no prey here. Only family. Blood brothers. Blood sisters. Children. So if you kill them, you’ll have to see them that way.”

Ryder’s eyebrows rose. “You’d hold them for me? You wouldn’t let them go?”

“I hope you don’t ask that of me. I hope you stop,” Grayson said.

Ryder leaned in then and took a scent of his neck. His nose practically touched Grayson’s throat. “You’re human, but… you can’t be. The only one I knew who could do this… but he is gone and you cannot be… you cannot be...”

Grayson swallowed. “Ryder, please don’t do this.”

Ryder’s arms moved around him. Grayson found himself leaning into that strong body, wanting to feel the embrace, but then he felt the cold press of the axe against his back. It wasn’t the edge.

“I’ll let them live… for now, except for one,” Ryder murmured into his ear. “The one that gave him this .”

Grayson turned to look at Ryder’s face. “Do you know who did it? I didn’t see.”

Ryder brought around the axe until it was almost a third lover in their embrace. The blade glowed with witchfire. Grayson stared at it, almost mesmerized. Ryder brought the handle towards his nose.

“Can you not smell him on it?” Ryder asked, his voice silky and low as he kept his arm around Grayson.

“No, I--”

“I can .”

Before Grayson knew what he was going to do, Ryder sent the axe flying end over end towards one of the men that had pounded Lawson’s back and crowed for him the loudest. It sank into his skull, splitting it in two, and he went down, fingers clawing at the air as he did so.

There weren’t screams as one would expect in a human crowd.

But they did react. The whole room went still.

And then it wasn’t just Irine or the Weryn that were starting to move.

Other Vampires were starting to bolt, thinking to run away.

Ryder lifted his head as if scenting the wind, a broad, wild look on his face.

The joy of the hunt . Grayson grabbed hold of them all.

Froze them. There were gasps all around.

He held every Vampire that was trying to flee, including the Wyvern.

Cold sweat poured down his face from the effort. Ryder’s lips curled back from his teeth in a snarl. Grayson shook, but he held on. No one else was going to die if he could help it. Ryder’s head snapped towards his.

“You are doing this! You…” Ryder cupped his face and stared into his eyes.

“Ryder, just be calm. I need you to--to be… calm,” Grayson got out.

There was one group though that was not trying to leave. There were only a handful of them. They had waved their pennants during the fight, but did not engage in the pure bloodlust. It was from this group that a woman stepped away. Again, she wasn’t trying to flee. She was coming towards them.

She was a stately Black woman somewhere between forty and sixty, it was hard to tell as her face and body seemed ageless.

She wore a long, black dress with a slit up to her thigh and more slits along the arms. She wore sandals that wrapped up her powerful legs to her knees.

Her hair was styled into a magnificent afro and silver flowers were threaded through it.

She moved with noble grace, but while Grayson got an impression that she often did not rush--or did not have to rush normally--he knew she was moving in this way so as not to excite Ryder. Her eyes though were fixed on Grayson.

“Dani,” Demos growled, “don’t come here. Stay back.”

She stopped about ten feet from them, but did not retreat.

“Can I be of assistance?” she asked, her voice low and melodious.

Grayson swore it was familiar too, but he couldn’t place it. He then realized she was speaking to him , not Ryder or Demos. Ryder didn’t even seem to notice her. He kept staring at Grayson.

“Ah, yeah, you seem like a person in charge,” Grayson said.

“I have tried to be,” she answered softly. “What can I do to assist you?”

Sweat drops pooled on Grayson’s chin and soaked his collar. “You’re an Ashyr, aren’t you?”

He must have seen her last night. She wasn’t the one who had noticed him during the parade, but she must have been there.

So much for Balthazar literally changing people’s memories. Cat out of bag.

“I am of the noble Ashyr Bloodline, yes,” she answered finally.

Ryder jerked when she said that.

“What can I do to assist you?” she repeated as if it were some kind of formal request.

“Okay, I need you to--to get everyone out of here,” Grayson told her, his voice catching slightly at the strain. “No one can run. It will be bad if anyone does. I’m… I’m holding them where they are. Do you understand?”

Her silver eyes flickered to Ryder, but he continued to ignore her. It was as if Grayson was the only one in the room.

“I do,” she said. “If you give me control--”

“I am not sure how to do that,” Grayson interrupted her. “I’ve never done this with anyone else.”

She regarded him with an unreadable expression. Or maybe it was shock. Or something. He had no idea.

She knows what I’m doing. She doesn’t seem angry that I can do what she does. Well, maybe she can help me get better at it.

“No matter. We will simply overlay our power on yours and you can let go,” Dani explained. “But I will not be able to do it alone. Hold one moment.”

Grayson shook, but he kept holding.

“Brothers and Sisters,” Dani called and four other Vampires approached.

Two women and two men came to her side. They were dressed similarly to her though one of the men wore billowy pants while the other had a short skirt much like an Egyptian of old times would wear.

They moved in that graceful, precise way.

They linked hands. Grayson felt the pressure on him ease as their power held everyone just as he did.

“We have them,” Dani said quietly. The strain on her and the others was immense. But they held on. Just barely. “You can let go.”

“Are you sure?” Grayson asked.

“We won’t fail you… again,” Dani answered.

Slowly, he did let go. The relief nearly had him sagging to the floor. Ryder’s hands on him kept him up.

With a sort of awe, Ryder whispered, “It’s you .”

And then instead of Ryder holding him up, the Weryn Vampire’s eyes rolled back into his head and he was crashing down. Demos grabbed him and, between the two of them, they laid him gently on the ground.

“Is he okay?” Grayson asked.

“I don’t know,” Demos answered, but then met Grayson’s eyes. “Thank you.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted to hurt them,” Grayson said. “That’s not who he is.”

Demos though looked grim as he said, “But is that who he was ?”