Chapter Twenty Vasili

My hands are cold with terror.

But my vision is red with rage.

As I stand—spellbound and sidelined—in the blackness of the crypt, while my abominable father upstairs threatens to destroy everything I love, it occurs to me I've been waiting years for some obliging person to come along and kill him.

Now, with toxic fear for Lucius spreading through my paralyzed limbs like poison, I resolve on a bone-deep level that today will be everyone's lucky day.

No more waiting around for someone else to step up and do the deed.

It will be my absolute delight to kill my own father.

As soon as I manage to wrench free of this reprehensible Compulsion spell.

That spell of his froze me, like an insect in amber, at the foot of the crypt stairs the instant my wretched sire dropped a charmed amulet around my neck and whispered my full name in my ear.

Unable to move or speak, I watched the bastard slink silently up the stairs after an unsuspecting Lucius with his horrid stiletto in hand and black rage filling my murderous heart.

"Lucius." Zara's horrified voice drifts down the stairs where I stand, helpless and fuming in the dark.

Hearing the terror in my darling's voice, I clench my casting hand in a fist of rage. This much movement I can still barely manage—but to zero effect .

My powerful telekinesis lies dormant under the spell.

Why on earth did I allow myself to be distracted, even for a heartbeat, by the Shakespearean drama unfolding between Zara and Cleo up there?

A heartbeat was all the opportunity Nikolai Romanov needed to destroy all our lives.

"I'm afraid you oblige me to issue a warning, Mr. Romanov." Lucius' controlled tone echoes down the stairs. From this vantage, I can barely see him, standing with his back to me, with my father lurking behind him like the trained assassin he is.

Still, somehow, despite the knife pressed to his throat, my headmaster manages to sound like he's chiding a misbehaving student.

"Threatening a faculty member is a violation of the Academy Codex," Lucius warns my father sternly.

Despite the drumbeat of terror for my lover roaring in my ears and the adrenaline rush of violence pounding through every vein, I quiver with a sudden, wildly inappropriate urge to laugh.

Leave it to Lucius to cite the Academy Codex while someone's holding a damn knife to his throat.

"Well, mister, you certainly got my attention," Zara drawls, deceptively casual, at my odious parent. I can't see my little queen from down here, but lightning lurks in her voice. "And given the mood I'm in? My attention might not be what you want, Le Chiffre."

I need a moment to place the cultural reference. When the memory slots into place, a snort slips past my grimly set lips. Zara's just compared my vicious bloodthirsty prick of a father to the poker-playing James Bond villain in Casino Royale .

"What I want is actually quite simple," my father says calmly. (He never laughs, so humor is wasted on him.) "Release Ms. Ferrari now, and I'll let your wolf live. Threaten her life or mine and the wolf dies."

My brief flicker of levity is swept away and obliterated in a thundering avalanche of rage.

He's threatening my Lucius.

Triggering every alpha instinct I possess.

My casting hand trembles, but I can't summon. My heels rise from the floor, but I can't levitate.

Fuck .

"Well, here's the thing." Zara still sounds casual, and I can't read her telepathically, not with that wretched nullifying object obviously still in play.

But I know her.

I know seeing Lucius in danger makes her murderous. To protect any one of our warlocks or anyone else she loves, Zara Gemini is more than capable of manslaughter.

"I can't really trust you," she says to my father (quite accurately), "or anyone else in Messalina's gang. I mean, like, that ship sailed when that shit went down on the yacht, you feel me? The way I see it, you putting that knife away's gonna be your best shot—pretty much your only shot—at walking outta this joint in one piece."

Now the Aquarius bitch with her faux Eurotrash accent, whom I also can't see from down here, tosses in her two kopecks. "For pity's sake, Zara, don't be a fool! Threatening him of all men, it's the worst move you can make." She pauses. "Surely you must know who he is, yes?"

"Yeah, sure. He looks like the Goblin King. I'm guessing he's Nikolai Romanov, the AIB guy, right?" I visualize my sassy darling's delicious shrug. "Yay for you. Guess that puts the spy service in your corner."

Of course, my queen sounds completely unimpressed. I bare my teeth in a malicious grin I'm certain must look homicidal.

Too bad there's no one else down here in the dungeon with me to appreciate the effect.

Cleo Ferrari might be a household name. But, clearly, she doesn't know how to read the room.

" Cavolo! You still don't see it, do you, bella ?" the bitch exclaims. "I am the AIB. He's my mentor—"

"Yeah, that's enough outta you, Sunshine. No one asked you to talk." Whatever Zara does next wrings a yelp out of that Aquarius bitch.

Sounds like a hair pull to me.

The sound of that brief violent scuffle makes me tense. I strain against the spell that holds me until I nearly burst a blood vessel.

But it's useless.

I can move enough to breathe, but I can't cast or levitate. Clearly, this amulet is bespelled against all forms of Mogadon magic.

Above me on the stairs, watching the encounter unfold, Lucius and my father both go rigid. But Nikolai Romanov is famous (or infamous) for having nerves of steel and a cool head in a crisis.

"Shift and I'll slit your throat," my father mutters in Lucius' ear, so quiet I can barely hear. "I'm already tempted, Professor Aries. Of all the students in your care, how dare you seduce my son ?"

Oh, for fuck's sake. I barely swallow a groan of disgust. I'm the one who seduced Lucius, you homophobic idiot.

Lucius, of course, feels responsible for ruining me. Even with his back to me, I've seen the expression so often I can visualize the guilt written all over his agonized face.

"I won't shift unless you threaten her," Lucius says roughly, with a wolfish growl he can't subdue. "Or Vasili."

Clearly, he's realized I've been taken (momentarily) off the board. Still, I don't like that knife pressed to his throat.

Truly, I won't abide the danger to him much longer. The alpha in me won't tolerate it. My father might have temporarily contained my Mogadon witchcraft, but there's at least one magical card I still have to play.

Another cry from Cleo rings out.

Zephyr's dragon, who was previously silent (for a dragon), rumbles out a brassy warning.

Dear fuck, I'll just have to trust that Dark Fae (eight words I never thought I'd say) to hold that feral beast of his in check until Lucius is free.

My father twitches at the rumble and Lucius gasps. The faint metallic tang of spilled blood hits my enhanced senses like a freight train.

Sweet fuck. My father's infamously steady hand must have slipped.

Only the fact that Lucius is still standing, and not in visible physical distress, keeps me from losing my homicidal shit.

But I swear to myself Nikolai Romanov will regret every drop of precious blood he's just spilled.

Even if he spilled it by accident.

"Okay." Zara sounds a bit breathless from whatever futile struggle she's clearly just subdued. But bless her witchy heart, she's hard as nails when she needs to be. "Sorry about the hair loss there, Sunshine. Now we got that outta the way, here's how this is gonna go down. You listening, Le Chiffre?"

"If you're referring to me , Ms. Gemini," my father says, sounding testy, because he seems to feel protective over that Aquarius bitch and besides, Zara can get under anyone's skin, "I'm addressed as Director Romanov. Now I'd advise you to release Ms. Ferrari, before you do something we'll all regret—starting with Professor Aries. This is my final warning. You yourself are in no position to issue orders."

Another rumble from that green monstrosity of Zephyr's is followed by the heavy slither of scales over stone.

"Oh, but I am," the silver trickle of a different voice croons. "In fact, I was born to give orders."

Oh, lovely. Apparently, that fucking Fae has decided to join the fun.

Now Zephyr's tone turns to stone. "Go ahead and slay the wolf if it pleases you. For me, he's nothing more than a rival suitor. Gladly shall I add his head to my collection."

An electric current of shock makes me hiss.

"Whoa." That's my Zara, finally losing her cool. "Zephyr, what the fuck? This isn't helping. It's literally the opposite of helping. You and Xhev both need to back off and let me handle this shit."

"Oh, but why should I, my bride?" the Dark Fae bastard murmurs, in that voice that's like silk sliding over stone. "My sole interest lies in removing every obstacle that stands between me and your presence, seated in your throne at my side, at the Faerie Ball. The wolf is my rival and the girl is yours. Why should I not command Xhevith's breath to boil the flesh from both their bones?"

"Because Lucius is my mate and I'm fucking telling you not to, that's why!" A crash of thunder rattles the church windows, but Zara's lightning voice is built to carry. "You stay outta this, Your Radiance. I mean it."

Lucius, despite having a knife pressed to his throat and an acid-breathing dragon towering over him, tries to intervene. "Let's all take a deep breath—er, except for you, Xhevith."

"Alas." Zephyr sighs like the high-functioning sociopath he clearly is. In fact, he's so over-the-top sociopathic I dare to hope he might be bluffing. Whoever says alas in this day and age, for Christ's sake?

Besides, he gave his slippery but binding Dark Fae word to Zara.

Didn't he?

"Xhevith follows no man's orders except mine," the twisted fuck murmurs now. "Is that not so, my dear?"

A massive clawed foreleg, sheathed in scales of emerald green, descends heavily into my limited vantage. Now that damn dragon is looming directly over the stairs.

Even my father, peering up at the beast, wavers on his feet. He sways as though he'd really like to retreat down here.

Of course Nikolai Romanov is smart enough to grasp that he won't be able to clear the death trap of these stairs tunneling down through stone, whether he frees Lucius first or not, before Xhevith exhales and showers all of us (myself included, given where I'm standing, assuming the Fae's not bluffing) with a spray of flesh-eating acid.

"Zephyr, what the actual fuck ?" Zara cries. This time, the accompanying crash of thunder makes the stone tremble under my combat boots. "You swore not to hurt him—or any of my guys. You gave me your fucking word ."

"I swore not to harm any under your roof, my bride," that slinking sly fox of a Fae says softly. "That is an oath I kept, to the last syllable, while we remained within your domus . As you can see, we no longer reside there."

A violent shaft of realization spears through my chest like a cocktail skewer through an olive.

Of course, I never for a moment made the mistake of trusting that twisty bastard. But I did rather assume he'd mind his Ps and Qs until he could entice Zara back to Avalon.

Apparently, my belief in his patience was misplaced.

"You shall have my eternal gratitude for your sacrifice, Lucius Aries," Zephyr says in a formal tone. "You may be my rival, but I'm not unaware of my bride's… affection for you. Or, for that matter, her lingering affection for the girl. Even Director Romanov here shall benefit from my royal benevolence. Xhevith will ensure any anguish the three of you experience will be… mercifully brief."

He's barely finished speaking before the frozen silence fills with the coughing rumble of that green monster, who's getting ready to spray his flesh-eating acid.

So, clearly, he's not bluffing.

Needless to say, his little plan is simply not happening.

Trembling with the need for violence, I fling my head back as far as this accused amulet will permit and summon the only witchcraft I possess that isn't Mogadon .

I have shifter recessives on my mother's side, a distant genetic legacy held in contempt by my father, that I'm betting the xenophobic bastard didn't care to acknowledge when he bespelled this amulet.

Under the force of my witchcraft, a blinding blaze of light obliterates the darkness. My spine lengthens and my jaw elongates. My neck thickens and the chain of the amulet snaps. My hands sweep up and wings sprout from my arms.

I explode from my human skin into the coiling serpentine form of my shifted shape.

All around me, the stone chute of the staircase cracks and splinters under my rapidly expanding mass. I catch a crooked glimpse of Lucius breaking free from my father, both of them sprinting left and right out of my path. Lucius is bellowing for Zara and anyone else who's up there to clear the commons before the floor caves in.

In mid-command, his voice unravels and stretches into the deep-throated howl of his wolf.

As the crypt walls shatter around me, I erupt from the stairs into the commons in the twining form of my wrathful dragon, with a teakettle hiss that screams rage .