Chapter 27

AFTER HIS THERAPYsession was finished, Laurel reflected on his conversation with Katharin. She'd warned him, gently, against the decision he'd made. Not that she thought it was a bad idea to confront Malory, but she'd urged him to be prepared for a reaction from the man that wouldn't bring him any peace or closure.

But he'd already known that. He would never have expected an apology or even an acknowledgment of his pain from someone like Malory. And as he'd talked to her, explained to her what his objective was from letting out his feelings, he'd realized why. Malory would never apologize to him, because he didn't feel as though he'd done anything wrong. As far as he was concerned, whoever was in the unlucky position of being his romantic companion belonged to him. Henceforth, he was entitled to use them in any way he liked, in any way that benefited him.

It was a realization Laurel had never pondered before, but it didn't shock him to put it together in his mind. Malory was a sociopath. Other people were merely objects to be used to for his own personal gain. Katharin's warnings had helped him to come to terms with that. The older male might have had an understanding of what was right and wrong, but a moral compass didn't factor into his decision-making for his life. All that mattered was serving his desires and agenda.

It was irrelevant, because Laurel's objective for the confrontation didn't revolve around any particular response. He knew from experience that Malory was most likely to dismiss his claims, or blame him for not being clearer on his boundaries. But he didn't care about that. An apology from Malory would mean less than nothing to him at this point in his life.

He understood now that he'd felt liberated with Ash in the carriage after Ingrid's concert, and with Ingrid today in his bedroom. Letting out the words, letting the acidic venom that congealed inside him drip out from his tongue, that was the only way to ease the pressure inside him. Nothing had externally changed in either of those situations when he'd been honest about his feelings, but something had changed inside him. He had reclaimed his voice, and his power. And he would have to do that again now to make it clear that he wouldn't tolerate any more threats or meddling in his life.

He'd used the social resources he'd been mostly neglecting the last few years to do a little digging of his own. As luck, or the fate Ash was so fond of would have it, Necia and Kauril were out of town, so he'd be free to confront Malory without reservation. Unlike his own home, Malory's family had staff that came on predetermined days and times for cleaning, cooking, and gardening. But if the schedule was the same as it'd been when they'd been dating, it would just be the two of them.

As Laurel made his way up the path to the door, he could feel his nerves growing and growing inside him, like eventually his body wouldn't be enough to contain them and they'd split him open. He tried to focus on something else, like recalling the last time he'd used the ability he was currently using to obscure his physical appearance. Thinking of that reminded him that he'd become sort of fond of March, despite their rocky beginnings, which did make him feel minimally better.

Before he could ponder it further, he heard the sounds of commotion from inside, as well as a very familiar voice that had his mouth dropping open, adrenaline rushing through him. The shock in his brain had him skipping past knocking, bursting through the lovely wood door with its beautiful glass glazing at the top, Laurel's eyes nearly popping out of his head at the scene before him.

He'd never seen his vatra react to anything with anger. There had been times he'd known Helio had been angry, but he'd never really seen the proof of that emotion in his actions or mannerisms. He wasn't the type to raise his voice. He certainly wasn't the type to raise his hand to strike anyone. Hysterics was often the word he used to refer to others' outbursts of emotion. And Helio von Isildor was not one to indulge in hysterics.

And yet despite that, Laurel couldn't deny what he was seeing with his own eyes. His coolheaded vatra, who had spent his entire life preaching to them the values of keeping your wits about you, and how violence was a method meant only for uneducated brutes, had Malory von Aurant, the son of two of his dearest friends, held up against a wall as if he weighed no more than a feather. Helio's large hands were fisted into the front of Malory's silken shirt, their faces so close that Laurel almost couldn't make out the space between them.

Feeling as though he was rooted to the floor, Laurel watched Malory's feet wriggle a bit, suspended in the air.

"What did he tell you?" Malory managed to bitterly spit out the words, though they were strained as he struggled against Helio's strong hold on him. "Did he come crying to you, saying I hurt him?"

"I trusted you with my son. I trusted that you would take care of him."

"Oh, I took care of him." Malory bared his teeth in a predatory grin, despite the precarious situation he was in. "And believe me, he loved it. Maybe if you hadn't given him all those self esteem issues he wouldn't have had to come crawling to me for attention."

The words seemed to affect Helio physically, one of his thick arms rearing back. Knowing exactly what was coming next, Laurel could only gasp out as he rushed forward.

"Stop! Stop!" Reaching his vatra just in time to grab at his arm, Laurel wrapped himself around it to keep it from plowing into Malory's body. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Laurel," Helio panted out, as if he hadn't noticed his presence until that very moment. His grasp on Malory loosened, and the sadistic aristocrat slid down the wall until his feet were solidly on the floor. "Laurel, I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am."

"Ash talked to you," he surmised, feeling numb as he put the pieces of the bizarre scene together. "I understand, but you shouldn't be here," he said, feeling pinned, his vatra's dark eyes searing into his soul. He'd never seen the depth of emotion in them that he saw now, in 21 years of being his son.

Grimacing, Helio let out a groan as Malory sent a bolt of power blasting into him, knocking him back several steps.

"I'll have you arrested for attacking me in my own home," he snarled out. When he raised his hand again to shoot out another wave of power, Laurel stepped in front of Helio, holding out his hands as well.

"Malory, stop it. You've done enough, he's leaving!" Turning to face his vatra, Laurel's eyes raked over him, hoping the blast he'd suffered hadn't given him any internal damage. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Helio grit out. "I… Laurel, I had no idea. I didn't…"

"Don't worry about that right now," Laurel pleaded. "Let's just go home. He isn't worth you getting in trouble for. What would Dad say?"

"Go home?" Malory's laugh stabbed into Laurel's ear like an icepick. "You think I'm going to let you go home after the two of you entered my home without my consent and accosted me?"

Whirling to face him, Laurel could feel rage swirling inside him. The thought of seeing Malory had always zapped him of strength, filling him with a potent combination of terror and dread, but seeing Helio wounded, knowing what Ash had done, and hearing the older man's uncaring disdain for all of it had him seeing red.

"You're not reporting this to anyone," Laurel warned him. "If you even think about it, then I'm going to be making some reports of my own."

"You think anyone's going to believe you when you waited so long to say anything?" Malory mused. "You're smarter than that, Laurel." The way his name sounded in the smoothly toxic voice made Laurel want to shiver.

"It doesn't matter if they actually charge you with anything," he retorted. He'd already considered that possibility and knew it was more likely than not. "Once the story's out, people are going to talk. My sister will back me up, and Avi," he lied, suddenly inspired. It was a risk to bring Malory's ex-fiancé up, but his instincts about it were strong. "We both know what you did to him." When one of Malory's brows twitched, Laurel could tell he'd succeeded in hitting a target.

"Maybe that would worry me, if you hadn't squandered your reputation letting anyone with a dick and a pulse crawl on top of you."

Those words had Helio making an enraged noise in his throat, muscles bunching as he moved toward Malory again. Laurel slapped a hand on his chest, urging him to stay back.

"Vatra." Staring into Helio's eyes, Laurel tried to inject the determination he could feel coursing through him into his words. "I need you to wait for me outside."

"I don't want to leave you alone with him."

"I'll be okay," Laurel promised softly. "Just wait for me, please. I need to do this by myself."

Helio looked unconvinced, but reminded himself that not trusting Laurel's ability to make decisions for himself was part of what had caused their issues in the first place. "I'll be right outside if you decide you need me."

Feeling a bit of the tension in his muscles seep out as Helio disappeared behind the door, Laurel turned back to Malory.

"You sure you don't want him to stay? Or maybe you wish you had your big, strong simpleton farmhand protecting you instead?"

"Don't talk about him." Laurel's response was sharp. "I don't need Ash or anyone else to defend me. You can't do anything to me."

"You didn't seem to feel that way last night."

"You're pathetic for spying on me. I'm through playing your stupid fucking games."

Somehow, and Laurel couldn't even begin to understand why, letting the statement out brought him a sudden sense of peace. It felt as though the familiar sensation of Ash's aura, from inside him, had instinctively burst out to smother his turmoil and pain. It made it easy for him to stay calm, and reminded him why he'd come here in the first place.

"Malory, you're nothing. You always have been."

"I'm nothing?" He repeated, amused. "I wouldn't be so quick to cast stones if I were you. Don't forget that you're an insecure, spoiled little brat who can't find a man to stay with him. One that isn't using you to move up from poverty and squalor, anyway."

The jab about Ash should have hurt, but Laurel could only shake his head. He couldn't explain it, but he felt pity. Malory would never know, never be able to understand the depth of love and trust and loyalty that Laurel had with so many people in his life. They ran through his mind in flashes, bringing him strength in the face of his abuser. His parents' acceptance, Ingrid's unshakable loyalty, Nero's determination to help him get healthy, March's admiration of his strength, Cedar's selflessness, Ramor's forgiveness. And finally, Ash and their bond, a perfect shining string of fate connecting them, even when they were so far apart.

Malory would never have any of that, because people were only objects to him. And because the realization made him sad, even though he knew deep in his heart that Malory didn't deserve his sadness or pity, Laurel's voice was somber as he spoke.

"You know, you always told me you could see right through me. And it used to scare me, because I believed you. But you were wrong. I see through you, and you're empty, Malory. You're not even really a person, because you just become whatever you need to be to get ahead. But really, you're nothing. You don't mean anything to anyone." As he spoke, energy had begun flowing into him from all directions, as if his very core was pulling it in from the corners of the universe. "And you don't have power over me anymore."

With that statement, the trickle of magic seeping into him exploded in mass, obliterating that final knot inside him that neither he nor Ash had been able to figure out how to get rid of. With the lock limiting his immense reserve of power blasted away, a glow began to radiate from his skin and from his eyes.

The realization that he had control over Malory in that moment, something he'd never even come close to having, curled inside him like a seduction. It was no wonder Malory got off on exhibiting dominance over those weaker than him, he thought. A ferocious kind of thrill pulsed through him, intensifying when Malory's eyes widened to show his apprehension.

"I could kill you, you know." Laurel said it bluntly, less like a threat and more like a statement of fact.

"You don't have the guts," Malory hissed back at him, though Laurel knew him well enough to know his bravado was only a front.

"You're right," he admitted, though a small part of him ached to indulge the violent urge that had welled up inside him. He knew that if so much time hadn't passed, time he'd spent in therapy, and being treated by Ash, and working on himself, that it would probably be a different story. Malory should have been grateful, but Laurel knew there was no point in expecting anything like that. "I don't want to hurt you, but only because the thought of being anything like you makes me sick."

"You're a pathetic slut, and you aren't even good at being that."

"You'd be surprised," Laurel responded coolly. "Do you even understand why I came here today?"

"Because you drove your impoverished bastard boyfriend away, and you're already lonely?" It was the first remark Malory had made that had shocked Laurel. So he knew about Ash's genealogy, too. "Oh, you thought you were keeping that a secret? I know you're desperate, but the fact that you would let some half-breed farmer diddle you is really embarrassing."

"I don't care about keeping it a secret," Laurel replied honestly, though he knew Ash and his parents didn't share his nonchalance on the subject. "You really don't get it, do you?" Laurel asked, understanding now that his original plan to confront Malory had to change.

He'd planned on being honest about his feelings, that he no longer felt the shame he'd once had about everything that happened, and that he was willing to let the story out. He knew for someone like Malory, a tarnished reputation was as good a threat as any. But standing in the face of someone so cold and so cruel, even more so than he remembered, he couldn't help but think of Avi and whoever would inevitably come after him. Even if Malory never meddled in his life again, could he be content with that, knowing that someone was suffering under his tyranny?

"You just don't have any good in you," Laurel said. It felt like everything that had happened since the day he'd met Ash had been leading up to this moment, to this conclusion of the chapter of his life with Malory. "That's why I have to do this."

With a flick of his palm, Laurel sent him flying into a lovely little area at the foot of a gleaming, wooden staircase. He smashed into the console table, upending a slim vase of flowers and a crystal figurine, and then lay unconscious, crumpled there. Calmly walking over, Laurel barely spared the man a glance as he covered his fingers with his sleeve and snapped off a thin piece of the decor perched at the end of the staircase railing. He laid it down beside Malory, nudging it with his foot so it was wedged under the man's still hand.

"There," Laurel decided out loud, though there was no one to hear him. "He lost his footing and tripped coming down the stairs. What a tragic accident." Kneeling down, he spoke close to Malory's ear. "This is more than you deserve, you know. But if this works then maybe you'll eventually earn it."

He let his lashes flutter down over his eyes as he concentrated intensely on separating the two very distinct strands of magic inside him. His, which had heat and weight and pulsed like flowing magma. And Ash's, which felt floaty and dreamy and cool to the touch, like a cluster of clouds. Urging Ash's unfamiliar magic to rise to the surface of his soul, he recalled the warning the healer had given him about ever trying to breach someone's subconscious mind without taking the proper channels and earning their admission.

I could erase your memories, or erase your personality traits. I could destroy parts of your mind that make you who you are.

"Let's hope it's that easy," Laurel muttered, placing his fingers on Malory's temples the way he'd felt Ash do to him so many times before. Knowing he didn't need any particular amount of finesse or understanding of technique, he pushed out as much of Ash's cool magic as he could, directing it into Malory's mind. Once the link between them was established, behind his eyelids it was as though he was floating in a dimension that only existed for that moment, only between the two of them.

It was an eerie feeling, as though he were digging around in a bowl that contained every aspect of Malory's very being. He had a sudden thought of the silly decorations his father would make for the Samhain holiday, bowls of peeled grapes and cold spaghetti noodles and gelatin that he would claim to be eyeballs and monster guts. He would have given anything to be back at home with his excitable, loving father, and away from this horrible person.

Wincing against the violent, nauseating sensation, Laurel grasped at the solid fragments that floated in his vision, instinctively understanding that these were segments of Malory's make-up, the pieces that every sentient being possessed that made them unique. He crushed them in his hands, savagely, letting the dust flow out of his fingers like sand in an hourglass.

He didn't know if time in the cerebral realm passed the same as it would in the real world, but there was no rushing. He prayed the flow of time wasn't the same, as it seemed he roamed for hours, finding every stray slice of the older sorcerer's attributes that he could.

It made him feel sick, brutalizing another human being in this way, even one as irredeemable and sadistic as Malory, but bringing to mind the things that Malory had done to him, Avi's broken fingers, and everything else he was capable of helped steel him a bit. Still, after so long he could feel his consciousness, his connection with the mental realm wavering. What would happen if he lost it before he was finished? Would he be trapped there forever? It would be a fate worse than death. As the horror of that sank in, panic rising up to seize him, his mouth dropped open in shock as a feeling that he knew he couldn't actually be experiencing enveloped him.

You can do this, sunshine. You're almost done.

The feeling of Ash's powerful arms hugging him from behind was so cathartic, so intensely soothing, that it nearly brought him to tears. For just a moment, the painful ache in his soul at the healer's absence was lifted, filling him with an intense relief.

"Are you really here, or am I just crazy now?" Laurel wondered. He could feel the grip around his waist, but when he looked down he couldn't see any visual evidence of it.

You have to finish what you started, or you'll end up damaging yourself, Ash's voice warned him. I'll help you, but you have to do it now.

The weak part of himself, the part he was more familiar with, wanted to refuse. But the part of himself that Ash had helped reawaken, the determined part that persevered no matter how the odds were stacked against him wouldn't allow it.

So he wandered even more, no longer feeling as though he were blindly roaming a silent, empty, endless landscape. Ash's presence guided him like a lantern, keeping his energy from draining as he finished. It was easier now, as Ash's innate sense of direction led him directly to each remaining scrap of Malory's psyche.

He knew the moment he was finished, the final piece crumbling through his fingers like all the others. And he knew without asking that Ash's presence was gone, too. Had the healer ever even really been there, or had he imagined it?

Returning back to his physical form with a shudder, his eyes fluttered open to see Helio knelt before him, peering deeply into his eyes, concern etched onto his strong features. He gasped a little as his vatra's arms surrounded him, pulling him into a strong chest for a moment.

"How long was I out?"

"A half hour, at least," Helio answered him. "I was waiting for you outside but it was quiet for so long, and when I came in you were so still… You really scared me."

"I'm sorry," Laurel said, feeling slightly dazed from the energy he'd expended.

"What did you do to him?" Helio asked apprehensively, eyeing the unconscious man on the floor before them.

"He tripped coming down the stairs," he responded flatly. His instincts told him that he wouldn't be blamed for what looked like a complete accident, but there was no point in implicating anyone else. "Let's get out of here now. There's nothing we can do for him."