17 Chapter 16:

Ivy's POV

"Leomaris is on his way, you said there weren't any survivors, right?" Elzrurron's voice spoke on the other end of the phone as I tried to keep my eyes off of the bodies of the innocent.

The scent of death had long ago taken over the room before we'd ever gotten here and it was hard to have to sit here with it.

Gods am I tired. I had stayed up all night changing certain parts of the bomb I'd gotten from the woman I'd taken it from. Even just using a bit of magic to search through every single room for any living person took a toll.

"I've put my magic in every single corner of this building, there isn't a single person here unless they can somehow hide from me. Look, we aren't planning on staying here long, we're going to save Nyx, and... I'll call you back"

It was the noise of the wind slowly picking up that caused me to hang up the phone as the feeling of impending doom seemed to enter the room. Growls came after the stench of death, enough warning for me to grab three pale green stones from my pocket. Just as I tossed them out around my body, disgusting sickly pink creatures came walking from around a corner.

They had small beady red eyes that seemed to instantly lock onto me, the texture of their skin seemed glossy with small dents in it as though someone had tried bitting it. It seemed like more continued to appear as they surrounded the shield being held up by the stones. These things were disgusting with that chaotic energy rumbling within them. Alive yet dead all the same, filled with dark magic that felt familiar.

"Well, well, well... to think the mighty witch of the Red River would be all alone, where's my fiance?" Dexter's voice echoed in the room as he was suddenly in the middle of the room, his speed causing chairs to go flying.

Dexter... one of Valentino's generals and perhaps the most unstable. Those red eyes watched me like prey as clear hatred poured off of him. This is the second time I've run into the man and the situation is just as bad as the first. He's had this strange hard-on to kill me and I think it's because the leech somehow thinks Nyx and I are the reasons why Viv refuses to return to his side.

Unfortunately, I'm running on a lack of sleep along with the magic within my body being extremely unbalanced... I am nothing but vulnerable. One wrong spell and I could accidentally kill myself along with this entire city. Honestly, I'm not sure how big the backlash of it all would even be. It could be more than I've been imagining.

I have to play this smart to buy myself more time to get out... if the teleportation spell I'm about to start doesn't work... I'm dead.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Dexter The Broken here without his master yet still taking a walk with his leash on. Your fiance? You know me, she could be halfway around the world now that I know you're here," I responded with a laugh at the end at the dangerous spark in his eyes as the vampire hissed at me. Those disgusting things of nature began attacking the barrier all at once, openings their mouths to reveal hundreds of rows of sharp teeth as they bit and clawed at it.

The old vampire glared at me, keeping both hands behind his back while slowly walking around me in a circle. It was hard to take my eyes off of these weird creatures as well as keep Dexter in my line of vision. I've been in plenty of situations where I worried about my life is at stake but... if he wins this, I don't know what will happen to me.

At least with the witches, I'll know how to stretch out my time to make an escape plan but if Dexter were to get his hands on me... he would either try to instantly kill me or bring me in. No way would I be able to survive as Valentino's prisoner without losing my entire being. I've never met this vampire in person before I have gone out of my way to make a few small changes to his life hundreds of years ago. A slow but effective curse that activated the moment Vivian had managed to get me a drop of blood. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet at the same time so she had to hide it and a month later, I was able to pick it up without causing any suspicion.

"Your refusal to work with Valentino will be your downfall... I don't understand why he would waste his time on someone who refuses to see reason," Dexter hissed out as he straightened his back like it would help him look down on me.

I couldn't help the crooked smile on my lips while thinking of all the reasons why that creep wouldn't want to kill me. There weren't any.

"I'm one in a billion, leech, you won't find another like me even if you somehow begged the gods. You hate me because Vivian loves me when you really should be trying to kill me because I've been the reason your mind has been going downhill for the last few hundred years," The giggle that escaped from me had no warmth to it.

Dexter faltered in his step as he looked at the floor, thinking about things with a furrow of his eyebrows.

"Your lies will get you nowhere, witch..." His voice might be filled with venom but I can still hear the uncertainty in it.

"Months before, your supposed fiance left me a drop of your blood as a gift during my training days. I believe it was the night of what Vivian called the Harvest Fest, that you started getting those nightmares... right?" I asked him while doing my best to concentrate on the teleportation spell that was currently taking all of my energy. Moving an arm right now isn't even an option as I felt the strength within me slowly begin to drain.

Dexter's upper lip lifted a bit as he glared down at me as I carefully sat down on the floor and folded my legs. There isn't any reason to let this psycho know that if he wanted to, he could kill me right now. What he doesn't know is that I've got my secrets and death has always been right by my side since I was born.

He opened his mouth to say something before a thought must've gone through his mind because he faltered in his steps. The leech's eyebrows furrowed in confusion before, slowly, they rose with the realization that I could be telling the truth.

Which I am.

Nyx had seen the day we would be going against Valentino when we'd been little girls and one of the many obstacles we would have in our way was Dexter. I'd decided not to sit around waiting for thousands of years for the moment he would try to kill us. At a young age, I'd experimented with curses, doing my best to learn from anyone willing to teach me.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of people willing to teach me things only a monster should know. Back then people prioritized power and skill above all and during those days, evil had been at its highest peak. It had been an easy time to do horrible things.

Even to this day, I'm forced to live with the things I'd previously done as these days aren't like how they used to be. Though this current generation of the world seems ignorant, soft, and undisciplined... it's been a long time since we've been forced to face the truth. While we continue to suffer from the past, they are trying to learn to heal from the things their parents projected onto them.

"You... you're the one who made me see Velorina? Impossible... you, you shouldn't even know who she is," Dexter whispered to himself but I heard him despite the growls surrounding me. As the vampire tried to make sense of it, the images of what I'd done to this creature pushed to the forefront of my mind.

Unfortunately, to attach the spiritual energy of the woman who'd once been engaged to Dexter, I had to dig up her burial site. The lucky part is that the vampiress hadn't been crazy like everyone had thought she was. It was her death that seemed to have brought Dexter where he is.

The moment he realizes what I had to do to even start the curse, he'll be even more mentally unstable. Not that it mattered as this sp

"The bones of the dead tend to speak loudly, you can't imagine what I had to go through just to get them," It was that manic look in those red eyes as they widened to look at me.

Silence took over the room around us as his chest began to slowly rise higher just to fall with each breath. Each second that passed felt as though more pieces of Dexter were falling off. You could see it in his eyes. The man was losing a grip on his sanity.

And after everything, he's put Viv through... I still didn't feel satisfied. What I want to see is his complete fall. With no turning back.

"Do you think that I wouldn't cross that line? When I spent over a thousand years executing plans to get Vivian away from you and Valentino? Vivian Daphne was never yours from the beginning and neither was your dead wife," The cold chuckle with a roll of my eyes seemed to be exactly what was needed.

Something in him snapped after I added fuel to his fire.

I was about to end up in a worse position than the bloodbath earlier that had been filled with the bodies of men, women, and children. No one had been spared.

My eyes widened when Dexter moved faster than I could see but with the force of his punch, I flew backward. Pain burst through the side of my body while I struggled to catch my breath. Magic instinctively flew around, throwing the old vampire several feet away from me.

Just as Dexter was about to charge at me again, the glass ceiling to the room crashed in front of me the same instant a large familiar man fell from the sky. He landed gracefully on a bent knee with large leathery, dark blue wings spread wide. Unfortunately, the T-shirt covered the muscles of his back but the cords in his arms were enough to satisfy me.

Leonardo.

I couldn't help but look at this man's wide back as he shoved forward, easily dodging Dexter's fist before they engaged in a battle too fast for my eyes. Do I want to stay here? Fuck no... but there isn't much choice when there's no way Cole doesn't know the important details now.

Hell, there hasn't even been enough time for Vivian to talk about her feelings and it hurts me to know this. It's taken a lot of time to get that woman to open up so I've got this feeling that if I let too much time pass, she'll close herself off from us. What I want to do versus what I have to do is the only thing keeping me here.

I don't want to be face to face with the man who seems to have been able to make me feel things I haven't felt in a long time. The wish to be able to rely on someone outside of the only three people I've ever trusted.

If I leave now, it could throw more suspicion toward Vivian.

So... leaving isn't an option.