Page 48 of Mantle (IMMORTAL FLAME #3)

~Nyx~

“I love this place,” I told Kai as we made our way out onto the porch. I was nibbling one of my berry chocolate bars I’d conjured, while he sipped his strong coffee.

I breathed in the fresh countryside air and took in the sun rising in the distance, casting a stunning and soothing glow over the picturesque surroundings.

“She has more mugs,” Kai spoke, as he sank down onto the top porch step.

“What?” I asked, amused.

“Last time we were here, she just had one of everything. Now there’s not just a wider selection of mugs, but specifically four of everything—plates, cutlery.”

“Ah, I see. It’s like a physical marker of how far things have come and how far she’s come with this place. Going from intending to retreat from the world here all alone, to being front and center in the supernatural world and also immersed in our foursome.”

“Yeah, it really is,” he mused happily.

I wrapped my arm around him. “Not just the two of us anymore with you obsessing over Ariana being out of reach.”

He grasped my hand with his free one. “Thank you, Nyx.”

I arched an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For sticking by me all those years when I was emotionally distant and… difficult in too many ways to name. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed before. And the power imbalance between us back then…”

“Stop. You did what you could with what you had. You were suffering too, and you still opened up to me and let me in. You took me in. You took me under your wing. You protected me and loved me. Even in that largely shutdown state you were in back then. That says everything, Kai. And without you… I wouldn’t have made it.

I’ll never forget it. And I don’t want you discounting what you actually did for me either. ”

“Aww,” a familiar voice sounded, and we both craned our necks to see Vorzyr now leaning against the door, arms folded across his white henley and grinning out at us. “Look at the two of you, all wrapped up in one another.”

His crimson pants pulled taut across his mammoth thighs as he strode up to us and leaned against the porch railing. “Come on, let’s face it, things changed because Kai needed a kick in the ass and the ego—which he got in spades from me, right?”

I burst out laughing.

“You don’t buy that explanation?” Vorzyr questioned, humor sparking in his eyes.

“That you kicked my ass?” Kai said. “More like I tamed the dragon to my liking.”

“Oof,” I choked through my laughter.

Vorzyr growled and got up in Kai’s space, leaning over him on the porch steps, his hands slapping down on the wood, essentially caging him in.

Kai, of course, didn’t even flinch.

And then a smirk spread over his face as he stared up steadily at Vorzyr.

Vorzyr chuckled. “Love you too, sorcerer.” He kissed Kai’s forehead, then pushed off him and settled down on the steps at his other side.

“This is a nice sight to come out here to first thing in the morning,” Ariana’s voice rang out.

I turned to see her in just my button down navy shirt. She looked good in it—sexy and cute at the same time. Her wavy golden hair was a little mussed. Again, so much cuteness.

She padded toward us, her bare feet quiet on the porch, and Kai and I shifted so she could flop down between us. Vorzyr, on the other side of Kai, grasped her feet and draped her legs over Kai and him so she was on all three of us.

Without her even asking, Kai handed her his coffee.

“Do I look that wiped?” she asked with a smile, as she then took a couple of big gulps. Given her angelic physiology, it was more about the mental aspect of it, rather than it being able to give her any sort of real physical jolt.

“You do seem weary. Just not physically,” Kai told her.

She handed him back the coffee. “I really needed last night, so thank you.” She sank into us, then told us, “It helped to lighten the load, or at least cut through it for a while—it taking so long to locate Corvin, Ketheron still being immersed in the dreamscape and afraid to leave, the pressure of performing the severance spell soon…” She looked out at each of us.

“And I… what happened with Corvin that day is still nagging at me, I guess.”

“We’re here,” I said, stroking her arm. “If you’re ready to tell us, we’re here.”

She beamed out at us. “I know. I know you are.”

She sucked in a breath, readying herself to tell us, and I saw Kai and Vorzyr tense—definitely preparing to tamp down any explosive reactions.

Kai could barely hear that bastard’s name without it igniting his fury as it was—and that had been before we knew Corvin was involved in any of this, before he’d taken Ariana.

All we’d known was that Corvin had been Ariana’s first. But Kai wasn’t an insecure, toxic shithead about that kind of thing—no, he’d been upset because he knew that bastard’s reputation.

He’d recognized that Corvin had used Ariana, had preyed on how vulnerable she’d been back then, to get close to her power and try to control it through sexuality—and hell knew what else.

“When he came to me that day outside Maven Academy,” she began, voice steady but soft, “it was all polished charm and carefully rehearsed manipulation. He said he needed my help to take down Chimera Circle, said he’d infiltrated them, and I was the only one who could sever their network.

” She exhaled slowly. “He tried to frame it like it would be weak of me not to act.”

Kai’s jaw ticked, his fingers tightening around the mug he now held again.

Ariana continued, “But the subtext was clear. He was testing whether he could still control me. He even called me a ‘foolish girl’ when I pushed back. Said I was squandering my power. That I needed to be… tamed.”

“That’s textbook coercive misogyny,” Kai bit out, low and sharp. “He didn’t see you as a person—just a force he thought he could leash.”

I felt her tremble just slightly, and I pulled her in tighter.

“Even worse,” she said, “he was furious that I didn’t fall for it.

He didn’t just want my power. He wanted to punish me for denying him.

Like it was some kind of betrayal. And when he kidnapped me to that lab with Ketheron, he delighted in telling me he’d taken my power without my permission, that he’d been able to use it without me, the way he’d wanted to.

He’d even taken it while I was unconscious to fuse with Draco’s sword, which he then used against Ketheron right in front of me, while I was bound by a circle of Hellfire and those suppression cuffs that he’d outfitted with timed releases of trace amounts of Ketheron’s blood into my system in order to keep me weak.

He kept calling me na?ve. Weak. Said I used to be pliable, and now I was inconvenient.

He didn’t just want my power—he wanted me subservient .

And when he couldn’t get that… he took everything he could instead. ”

“More than that, he tried to undercut you in any way that he could,” I told her.

“That was him flailing, Halo. He was fucking scared of what you’ve become—majorly.

And those words to you, his actions, that’s just how he dressed it up to try to save face, and likely to even shove the reality down for himself.

” I cupped her cheek gently, my thumb brushing beneath her eye.

“And it was all wrapped up in your history with him. That’s what made it worse for you—and he knew it.

He used what you gave him—your trust, your vulnerability—against you.

That kind of manipulation cuts deeper than most people understand. ”

“Yeah,” she murmured.

“That wasn’t just about power,” I went on.

“It was about violating your agency. Making you doubt yourself, your safety in your own skin. And, Ariana, you weren’t wrong to want to connect back then.

You weren’t broken. He was just the wrong person.

And now? You’re not that girl anymore. You’re everything he’ll never be. ”

“You’re a fucking goddess. In every sense of the word,” Vorzyr growled.

“He couldn’t stand that you didn’t need him,” Kai said. “That you got stronger. That you didn’t crumble when he pulled out every manipulation tactic in the book. He tried to rewrite your history together to shame you, then punish you for growing beyond it.”

Vorzyr growled, “Classic fragile ego bullshit from a man who thinks a powerful woman should be grateful for his attention.”

I brought it home, “And the second he couldn’t play puppet master, he threw a tantrum and turned violent. You were never the threat. He was. Always was. Power doesn’t unnerve men like that—women wielding it does.”

“Piece of fucking shit,” Kai rumbled dangerously.

“He hurt you, violated you, tried to undermine you and fuck with your head,” Vorzyr snarled. “He won’t just die, I’ll raze him with my dragon fire, piece by piece as he screams and begs for mercy.”

“And he’ll only be granted it in death,” Kai finished for him.

“Yes,” Vorzyr seethed.

I winced. Jeez.

“No,” Ariana spoke.

“What?” Vorzyr asked, failing to hold back the edge in his response entirely because he was so worked up.

“I broke free of the Hellfire he had encircling me from Valkrith. I actually destroyed it entirely, then struck him. Brutally.”

Kai blinked. “Hold on. You’re telling us that you extinguished pure Hellfire while not only confined by Celestial Suppression Manacles, but also while weakened with Ketheron’s toxic blood running through your veins?”

“Yeah,” she said, perking up now, as it obviously sank in for her just how amazing a feat that had been.

“You know what this means, yes? Beyond the Corvin of it? You have the means to destroy the Hellfire element within Valkrith. I kept it because it’s such a dangerous weapon that can even be used against you.

But now, with this, you can nullify it, and it will be reduced only to a sword.

With V’s Primal Celestial Resonance, he could also eliminate the Celestial element so that if anyone is struck with it, it won’t inflict a Celestial wound. ”