Page 91 of Obsidian and Frost

He just stared at me…curiously?

What was—

I took him in, while not taking my eyes off the other two in my peripheral vision.

My hand around his throat had his three thick, gold chains digging into his skin. His fingers were also covered with more gold—so many chunky rings. And even his ears had hoops and dangling earrings.

“Do you really want to risk my wrath for Derek? The first three he put up to coming at me already faced a takedown and then arrest by the Guardian Movement. All because that little shit couldn’t shake off the humiliation of a well-deserved beatdown.”

“We’re not here on behalf of that purist,” one of the guys to my left spoke.

I looked from Gilded Guy to see the one with a very severe buzzcut had spoken.

“We mean you no harm. Your companion neither,” he went on.

“In fact, harm is the opposite of our intent,” the one with the long, peroxide-blond hair spoke.

“Perhaps you could allow cooler heads to prevail,” Gilded Guy strained to speak against my constricting hold.

“And advise your companion to do the same,” Buzzcut added.

I felt it then—something I would have noticed sooner if I hadn’t been focused on the three of them. When there was a threat in my midst, all my focus went right here, my instincts highly attuned to just that.

But now as he mentioned it, Velra’s magic nearing us rolled over me.

Peroxide swung his head just as her shadows began to spread through the area, essentially surrounding the two of them.

In the next moment, she materialized from the shadows and a puff of her purple Dark Fae magic.Wow.I loved it when she pulled from two different magical power sets at the same time. It was really fucking impressive. Sylas had told me that it was also hard to achieve so seamlessly, especially for somebody with only a few years’ worth of practice from having both abilities. She was much more powerful and capable than she knew.

The shadows closed in around them as she stood off to the side of her creation and gave me a chin lift—I’ve got your back.

I turned my attention to Gilded Guy, driving my claws into the bark right beside his head, taking out a massive chunk of it. “If you’re not with Derek, who the fuck are you?”

As he stared at me, I didn’t pick up on anger, or even actual ill intent.

Neither he nor the others were in a predatory state of mind.

They hadn’t even dropped their fangs.

Their vampiric features hadn’t been called either—they were still in their fully human visual state.

“Creswyn,”he spoke.

I started.

That word.

No.

It couldn’t—how?

“What?” I demanded, my voice coming out rougher than I’d intended due to the shock and the emotional punch that came along with that word.

“Creswyn,”he repeated.

I released him and took a couple of steps back.

“Lazriel?” Velra queried.