Page 10 of Mantle (IMMORTAL FLAME #3)

~Ariana~

I startled as the door to my childhood bedroom flew open.

I lifted my head from my hands to see Kai and Nyx bursting in.

Well, Kai bursting in with Nyx following after and looking more hesitant to just barge right on in without any preamble.

Yeah, that was about right.

“We’re here,” Kai said, urgency spilling from him as he came to my bed and stood right in front of me, looking me over studiously and with a lot of worry.

“Talk to us, Halo. We’ve got you,” Nyx added, settling right beside me in a cross-legged position.

I frowned out at them. “I’m fine. Why do you look so concerned?”

“You wanted space but it’s been a couple of hours and you haven’t reached.” Nyx said. “And with what happened, we couldn’t just— damn , I can’t. I can’t just look past this.” He gestured at my clothing.

I looked down at myself in my pajamas—a full-length onesie, plush and puffy all in soft pink. I had the hood up, complete with round ears perched on top.

“What about it?”

“You look like you’ve been wrapped up in a pink cloud. Like a fluffy pink marshmallow,” Nyx said, chuckling.

“Battle-hardened-badass-turned-pink-cozy-princess vibe,” Kai spoke.

Nyx cocked an eyebrow at him. “And, yet, you don’t seem surprised, even though it’s far from her usual get-up.” He thought for a moment, then determined, “Ah, the holoscreen. You already saw.”

“Holoscreen?” I questioned Kai.

He held up his hands. “Just to ensure you were okay. I waited until you were out of the shower and—”

“What? When I could have given you a sexy, dripping wet show?”

Kai arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

I burst out laughing.

“She’s screwing around,” Nyx said.

He joined me with the laughter, and then Kai fell into it as well, once my giggling started up. I’d noticed that it always got him going.

When we finally came down and took a breath or two, I told Nyx, “Kai has already seen these pajamas. Back during our early Coven days.”

“Damn, I can’t believe I missed all that.”

I grasped his hand. “You’re here now and, believe me, count yourself lucky that you missed the early stuff.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” Kai said, winking at me.

“I wasn’t myself, though.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, a heavy moment passing between us. “You really weren’t.” He stroked the strands of my hair escaping my pajama hood, staring at me with reverence. “How times have changed of late, hmm, sweetheart?”

I turned into his touch, an involuntary moan of contentment escaping me.

Nyx nuzzled against me and asked softly, “How are you really doing, Halo? What happened back in that forest was a lot.”

Yeah, I hadn’t said much about it.

Anything, really.

I’d passed out for a couple of hours and then I’d woken up in my childhood bedroom surrounded by Kai, Nyx, and Vorzyr basically sitting vigil.

After what they’d seen—first a being like Ketheron showing up and the heaviness that came along with it, and then me being poisoned through his blood ingestion—they’d been reeling.

Angry, afraid for me, for us as a foursome.

And as soon as I’d woken up, they’d let loose so many questions, none of which I’d been in a state to answer.

So, I’d asked them for space and I’d taken a shower and some time to absorb it all, to try to begin processing it.

I’d been so desperate to do that and I’d neglected to realize what asking for that space might have come across as.

Me pulling away.

I had developed a track record of doing that.

I’d done it with Kai for a long time, pulling away when we were younger.

And I’d done it in the beginning of our foursome relationship.

But that was then.

No more.

Things were different now. I was different.

There wasn’t that need to shut down, or to really pull away.

I’d honestly just wanted to be able to get my head on straight, and that had been the extent of it.

Because now… now I wanted to share with my boys.

The highs and lows. My accomplishments and failures. My hopes and fears.

What troubled me.

And, in this case, what troubled me greatly.

There was only one exception to that—Sylas Morgrave’s warning.

I couldn’t tell my men right now, not after what had just happened with Ketheron, how his blood had been so incredibly dangerous and detrimental to me.

Not until I had an answer, until I’d found some way to ensure my death couldn’t actually come to pass. I couldn’t bear to put that on the guys after everything else we’d been through without having a solution first.

“It was intense,” I told them. “That a being like Ketheron exists is dire enough without the added aspect of him apparently existing just to kill me.” I sighed. “But you also saw and heard him. He didn’t want to be that. He doesn’t want to harm me.”

“He did already,” Kai pointed out, just as I’d been expecting. “He poisoned you.”

“In a misguided attempt to heal me when he crushed my throat accidentally. He wasn’t used to his own strength. It sounds like he’s been isolated and kept from physical touch.”

“Intentions are just a small part of it, sweetheart. He still did it. He still harmed you. Twice in the space of a few moments, actually. And he was still sent here to kill you.”

“And yet, we have the means to rise above our natures.”

“This is different. What he is, Ari… he’s a killing machine. One essentially programmed to kill you. We can’t overlook something that monumentally horrifying just because he might not want to fulfil said programming.”

“He’s not a robot. He’s fully sentient. You saw for yourself.”

“We don’t know that for certain. He did demonstrate that to some degree, but he was also screaming out about not wanting to do something that they were clearly ordering him to, and then he lost the battle and took off on whatever that disturbing mission from on high was.”

“He was experimented on, Kai,” Nyx murmured. “Brutally, from what he mentioned.”

“I know. I know he was. And I agree that it is brutal that happened to him. But none of that negates the threat that he poses to Ari and the entire supernatural world. The Guardian Movement is so concerned that your Underveil Shield is being erected immediately. They’re in a frenzy, snapping into action, taking immediate steps because he’s such a formidable threat. ”

“And as such a formidable threat, perhaps the way to approach it, to approach him , isn’t through aggression or fighting threat with threat, fire with fire,” I told Kai.

Nyx shifted on the bed and regarded me curiously. “You want to try to reach him?”

“He already feels a connection to me. That was made abundantly clear.”

“To reach him would involve drawing close to him, likely even being in physical proximity,” Kai warned.

“Something I’m capable of withstanding if things did go a bad way.”

“That’s just it, we don’t actually know if you’re capable of withstanding it.”

When I went to respond back, the door flew open and Vorzyr strode on in, kicking it shut behind him. “But together we could be,” he spoke, coming over with his wide, confident strides. He winked at Kai. “Better, huh? Something you can get behind?”

“It is better, but we can’t do anything without strategy or without more research. That research is taking place as we speak. So we need to wait until we have the results.”

“My Primal Celestial Resonance was able to draw out and destroy Ketheron’s blood and the magic infused within it.

And don’t let it escape your notice that when it was in Ariana’s system, it didn’t actually take her down entirely.

It weakened her. And her body was able to reject a lot of it as well, hence the vomiting. ”

“All good points. But not foolproof. We don’t know enough. And until we do, action can’t be taken. The risk is too high. You’re overconfident and bold as fuck as usual, and I get it.” Kai looked at me. “And, Ari, Ketheron got under your skin. You feel sorry for him.”

Nyx nodded. “There’s a certain kinship. They were both manipulated by the Celestial Plane, forced into things they didn’t want, pushed toward being what they didn’t choose or desire to be. Right, Halo?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “That’s undeniable. But I’m also no fool.”

“I know you’re not,” Kai assured me. “However, you did ingest his blood. And, although the toxic aspect is out of your system, it could be possible that a blood bond was formed. Especially with the two of you already making an empathetic connection to one another.”

A growl rumbled from Vorzyr.

“I’m not drawn to Ketheron. I just… it’s a tragic situation.

And if there’s a way not to worsen that for him, I want that path explored before it becomes all about eradicating a threat.

And let’s not forget that it is the Celestial Plane’s will for him and I to destroy one another.

Do any of us—my family included—really want to give those manipulative shits what they actually want? ”

Kai scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s your choice on how you want to approach this.

It’s technically your battle, your fate they’ve encroached upon, so you deserve to be the one to make this call.

However, we also need a backup. And, that needs to be much more aggressive, a definite fighting-fire-with-fire approach. ”

“The nuclear option, basically,” Vorzyr said.

“It won’t be easy to get your family to agree to the empathetic approach,” Kai warned.

And then he reached out and stroked my cheek.

“But I’ll do everything in my power to push for it if that’s what you want.

Just… take some more time in order to be sure.

You might be healed physically, but what happened definitely took an emotional toll, so let all of that settle first. Fortunately, we do have time, because the research into Ketheron to obtain actual actionable intel will take a while, given that he’s a creature who has never existed before and who there’s no precedent for. ”

I beamed out at Kai. “That sounds more than reasonable. Okay, baby.”

He leaned in and kissed my cheek.

“Incredibly reasonable for you, Kai,” Vorzyr teased. “Shit, you all right there?”