Page 4 of Mantle (IMMORTAL FLAME #3)

~Ariana~

“There you are, pretty thing.”

An unfamiliar voice rolled through me.

I opened my eyes slowly in a highly disorientated state.

And then I was sputtering and choking, blood flowing into my mouth.

Instinctively, I moved to pull away, but a wrist pressed to my lips was so tight and exerting so much determined pressure that I couldn’t turn away. And I was also backed against something… a tree, I thought I remembered. Remembering was all I could do, because I couldn’t turn to see to confirm.

An arm was banded around my waist, anchoring me upright, exerting not a painful grip, but a steadfast and resolute one.

All of it was forcing me to remain still and to ingest the coppery liquid.

“Stop! Don’t infect her!” a voice thundered.

Despite its harsh tone, the recognition of who it belonged to was like a tether of comfort through the confusion I’d just woken up to, and the chaos of what was happening.

Grandfather!

I tried to seek him out, but the being before me shifted his weight, blocking my view.

He was a mammoth beast of a man, all muscle and well-defined bulk, his broad hulk-like form and his towering height completely dwarfing me.

His gray-tinged skin pulsed with golden cracks, forming jagged patterns all over his exposed skin.

And there was a lot of that considering he was only wearing a rough, animal-hide wrap slung low on his hips, barely brushing his upper thighs.

Ketheron.

That was what he’d called himself.

Right before he’d attacked.

Cassius!

Where was he?

And how was Grandfather here?

What the hell was going on?

“You are better,” Ketheron spoke, his voice having no real force behind it, just hollow precision, like he knew well that he didn’t need to raise it to be heard.

I shuddered as his short, deep-brown hair, mussed tufts, really, brushed across my cheek as he breathed me in, scenting me deeply in a wholly unsettling way.

I reacted, now cognizant enough to do so, and slammed my hands into his chest.

He didn’t move.

Not a single inch.

His glowing black eyes narrowed at me—but not in anger that I’d struck him and tried to shove him off me, but in what appeared to be confusion.

He dropped his hand, drawing his gouged wrist away, and I watched it heal in a mere instant—faster than my healing ability.

And then his arm slipped from my waist and he stepped back on his own.

“I helped you,” he told me. “I crushed your throat earlier. Mistakenly. I’m not used to… touch. Not familiar with physical contact. I exerted too much pressure.”

Oh… what the… I didn’t know what to do with that.

“You didn’t mean to hurt me?”

He’d just stated as much, but it was obviously a little hard to believe.

He was the being that my shadow weaving had warned of. He was the perceived threat we’d been worried about, that the Celestial Plane had been worried about—enough to bind me as their Champion for fuck’s sakes.

Something about his presence—the steadiness, the strangeness—stopped me from reacting aggressively again or attacking. He didn’t feel like a monster. He felt like a question I needed to answer.

“Of course not.”

A firm statement with so much conviction and like it was a given. Like it just was, with there being absolutely no other alternative for him.

I fought to take in the bigger picture as the heavy disorientation I’d awoken with faded away bit by bit—still not fast enough considering the severity of the circumstances.

There was a golden ward surrounding the two of us, extending for about a hundred feet, a shimmering dome.

I shifted my weight and finally looked past him, and that was when I saw Grandfather firing his silver magic so similar to mine at the dome frantically, grunting and straining.

He must have been firing for a while because he was drenched in sweat.

And he hadn’t even made a dent?

He might not be a True Celestial anymore, but even as an Immortal, a Fallen, he still held colossal power. Him being unable to breach a ward… it was unheard of.

Ketheron was… beyond him.

He’d been beyond Cassius, too.

Shit.

I turned, a little unsteadily, feeling lightheaded despite the healing.

But I forced myself to scan the area, searching out Cassius.

There, in the distance, amid several downed trees, he was sprawled unconscious, bloodied, with a thick branch driven through his shoulder.

“Drop this ward,” I told Ketheron. “He needs help. And my grandfather is worried about me.”

“The angel will heal,” he responded, matter-of-fact, as he stared at me intently, looking me up and down studiously and with a whole lot of curiosity. “The Fallen need not fear for your wellbeing. I told you… I told you I healed you.”

“I don’t… how? I can feel your Celestial power… why didn’t you use that?”

He lifted a shoulder. “It was instinct to use my blood instead.”

I jolted in surprise as he suddenly dropped his fangs.

Fangs?

“You’re a… Celestial-Vampire hybrid?” How was that possible?

He took my interest the wrong way, his eyes lighting up, and making him step right up to me again, invading my personal space.

I instinctively put my hand up.

He groaned as my palm pressed against his bare chest.

His very cold chest.

Despite those molten cracks, there was no heat to speak of.

“No,” he answered, making me suck in a breath as he laid his hand on mine, holding it to his torso. He leaned in again and scented me. “You smell good. Different than them.”

“Them?”

“Agents of the Celestial Plane. You… you smell… fresh. Liberating. So much true Light… not their falsity.”

I went to pull my hand away as I tried to make sense of his words, of his… everything.

But he held fast.

Then those black eyes narrowed again. “Why do you keep trying to pull from me? I told you repeatedly that I have no intention of hurting you. That first time was an accident.”

“It’s not that. You can’t just push yourself onto people, into their space.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a violation.” I locked eyes with him. “Especially if you take it any further than this.”

He frowned. “Further?”

Did he really not know what I meant?

He gazed down at our joined hands. “You’re warm. They kept me in cold. You’re the only one warm for me, Kindred.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

He flinched and swung his head.

In the next moment, an eruption of red magic and that familiar gold tinted with blue shot toward the dome, just as my dad and mom arrived on the scene, flanking either side of my grandfather.

“Release her, creature!” Dad boomed in that deadly authoritative way he only employed when those he loved where under threat.

Ketheron grunted, then looked into my eyes. “They are your family, yes?”

“You can sense that?”

“I can smell their blood connection to you.” His lips lifted. “Not just because I’m vampire. I’m many things. A Polygenus Entity is what they called me when they cut into me. When I came out wrong, they whispered, ‘Broken God.’ ”

“You were experimented on.” I choked on the words as they came out. “I’m sorry.”

He cocked his head. “Sorry? You didn’t perform any of it.”

“No, of course not. But… I’m sorry you had to suffer through that.”

“This is… compassion? It’s a real thing?”

“Yes.”

He released my hand suddenly, then took a step back. “Then I will do that for you . You didn’t like me holding your hand like that, yes?”

I nodded. “Thank you.” I shifted my weight, and signaled to my family to tone down the aggressive attack they were firing upon the dome.

They didn’t.

Perhaps, Grandfather thought I’d been unduly influenced by Ketheron from the blood ingestion, that my assurance wasn’t real.

I hadn’t been.

I felt a little sick and I was lightheaded, but my mind wasn’t compromised. I wasn’t being coerced or anything along those lines.

Their magic kept hammering at the dome, erratic and furious. Not because they didn’t trust me—but because they loved me too much to wait. To risk it. They were reacting to the image of their daughter covered in blood and seemingly being held captive by something they couldn’t understand.

“Why was this done to you?” I asked Ketheron.

“Why did they make me, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“To kill you.”

I jolted.

Before I could speak more to it, vibrant-green lightning lit up the sky, and then Pops was swooping in, landing in one of his primed crouches, his defensive magic leapfrogging out and tearing into the root of the dome.

I choked when it didn’t impact it at all.

And so did Pops.

As he tried to push harder, Kai and Vorzyr teleported in.

They took in the situation quickly and went on the offensive immediately, each calling their power.

“He’s not hurting me! Stay your hand!” I called out.

They hesitated.

But then Grandfather boomed, “He fed her his blood. He’s part vampire with Celestial power beyond hers.”

Ketheron looked out at all of them. “Cease. I don’t mean her any harm.”

“Then let her go,” Kai demanded. “Drop the ward.”

“Drop it fucking now,” Vorzyr seethed, stepping forward threateningly.

“Dragon,” Ketheron uttered, registering the aggression in the move. He stared at him intently. “No… special dragon.”

Vorzyr snarled at him. “Get away from her.”

“You claim my Kindred?” Ketheron asked.

“Without a motherfucking doubt.” He grasped Kai’s hand. “We do.”

Ketheron’s eyes flared dangerously.

And then he opened his mouth and shocked the shit out of us all as he breathed dragon fire.

It passed through the barrier without impacting its structural integrity at all and shot toward Vorzyr.

A scream tore from my throat.

Thankfully, Kai and Grandfather reacted fast and threw up a barrier just before it hit him.

Then Vorzyr intervened, shifting right there into full mammoth dragon form, sweeping above the barrier, then raining down dragon fire upon Ketheron.

It didn’t even impact the dome at all.

Not one iota of damage.

Holy. Shit.

Kai met my gaze through it all, and I saw actual terror from him.

Something like this was his worst nightmare, and with me caught up in it, that made it beyond unbearable.

I saw the moment he lost his cool and strategic approach.

And then he was raising his palms live with his magic flaming violently, storming toward the barrier and uttering the ancient incantation he’d used on Cassius before.

The dome was impacted then, shuddering under the weight of what he was invoking.

A flash of white light caught my eye, and then Cassius teleported right beside Kai.

He grabbed his hand, said hand glowing vibrantly as he gave Kai his power, boosting the spell.

Ketheron roared as the dome shook violently.

“Stop!” I cried at the needless escalation. I burst forward and grasped Ketheron’s arm and he swung back to me, snarling.

The moment his gaze connected with mine, he stilled.

“This is what they want. Them. The Celestial Plane.”

“What do you mean?”

“War.” He cupped my face, and I heard cries and snarling from my men and my family. Ketheron ignored it as he told me, “Destruction upon us all… it’s their will.” He hung his head. “It’s already started.”

“They’re just afraid for me.”

“You are strong. You didn’t want to leave.”

“I wanted to know what you are, who you are.”

“You know now what I am. But who I am… nothing. I’m nothing beyond my physiology.”

My gut twisted at his awful words.

“I was finally free. But just for a moment.” He stared in that invasive way again, full of so much searching. “They won’t allow me more. Now this plane will hunt me, too. Because it’s the truth, Ariana Martel… they made me to erase you.”

I didn’t get the chance to utter another word, as a violent explosion of white light ripped through the area—white light that didn’t actually belong to Cassius.

Blue hair caught my eye, just a moment before a white shimmering wall shot up from the grass beneath my feet and then surrounded me in a magical cube.

Ketheron slammed his fist against it, but it didn’t breach.

“Leave her now,” a familiar voice spoke, and I spun inside the protective cube to see Nyx standing there, his palms fired our way, him being the one who’d erected a ward—a ward within another.

He winked at me. “Found a loophole.” His gaze flicked to a stunned, yet highly impressed Kai. “Learned from the best.”

Ketheron pulled up short as he took Nyx in. “Hybrid. I know you.”

Nyx frowned. “What? Never seen you before.”

“You were asleep.”

“What are you—”

“I have no quarrel with you. I feel your love for her, like the others. Lay down your claim and I will not retaliate for this interference. You will be spared.”

I saw Nyx about to tell him that wasn’t going to happen, even as he started forward to strengthen the spell, but a pained cry from Ketheron had the battlefield stunned into silence.

He staggered back and pulled at his hair.

“I don’t want it!” he screamed out into the night.

“What’s happening?” I asked, pushing against the cube to draw closer.

He grimaced, digging his fingers into his scalp and making himself bleed because of it. “It’s not mine… it’s his. They’re making me… they’re making me take it.”

“Take—”

In a flash of golden light, he teleported away, the dome collapsing immediately afterward.

I scanned the area, searching every which way.

There was no sign of him.

In the next moment, I was enveloped by my men and my family wrapping themselves around me, savoring the fact that I was all right.

I would have been, though.

I would have also had answers if they’d listened to me.

If they hadn’t thought I’d been coerced.

And now the very being I needed to learn more about was gone.

In the ozone.

“Death circles you…”

He was the threat, he’d come here to kill me.

But he hadn’t. Why?

I needed that answer and many more, but getting them had been compromised by this interference.

I knew they cared for me, that it had come from a good place, and I could feel their love surrounding me, the fact that they’d fought for me.

But the upsetting truth was that the stakes were too high to continue operating this way.

I wasn’t a being who required protection of this magnitude.

And I couldn’t be.

Not with what we were up against.

I wasn’t just talking about the emergence of Ketheron.

The things he’d said, and what Cassius had even alluded to beforehand, had made it clear that it was beyond even that.

Our true enemy was the Celestial Plane.