Page 14 of Vayn

Chapter Five

Vayn

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I teleported into the hallway outside my condo in purgatory.

“Done guarding for the day?” a deep voice asked from behind me.

General Stryx. Turning to face him, I took in his haggard appearance. I saluted the higher-ranking officer before addressing him.

“Damn. You look worse than I feel,” I told him.

He sighed. “This guardian shit is driving me crazy. I’d rather go to war than guard my charge with her smart-ass mouth.”

Seeing the former general of Lucifer’s army like this made me feel a little less frustrated.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one suffering.”

His brow raised. “Your dud giving you problems too?”

“She’s not a dud,” I growled, eyes heating, letting me know they were turning red.

Stryx examined me. “You okay, Vayn?”

Fuck! “Yeah,” I said, running my hand through my hair for what seemed like the hundredth time today. If I kept this up, I’d be bald soon. “Just stressed, like you are.”

“So, your charge isn’t a dud, huh?”

“She has powers. Strong powers. Something is blocking them.”

And I intended to find out what, just as I intended to find out why the hell I was able to absorb her wounds.

“Did you hear me?” Stryx asked.

Shit. I hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “Nah. I was thinking about the shit I needed to do tomorrow.”

“I said, it would help if you knew who your du... charge’s parents were. Sometimes Fallens block their descendants’ powers, so their offspring can’t be hunted and killed. That’s what happened to the little murderer Ryver is hunting down. Her Fallen parent blocked her powers. But now, they’re unblocked, and she can’t control them.”

“About that, has he put her in prison yet?”

“He’s having trouble catching her. He caught her once, but she escaped.”

My eyes widened. “She escaped Ryver? Damn. He’s one of the best at tracking. Well, after Sabyn.”

Stryx nodded. “Yeah, she escaped Ryver.”

Damn, no one escaped Ryver. And if they did happen to get past Ryver, they’d never get past his hellhound. The cursed one he was hunting must truly be feral.

“That’s also what happened to my dud,” Stryx continued. “Except, it was her mother who paid witches to block her powers. Not her Fallen father.”

“Alyk doesn’t know who my charge’s parents are.”

Stryx’s jaw clenched. “Alyk is a bullshitter. Trust me.”

“What has he done now?”

“Let’s just say there was more to my charge than he’d told me. The fucker is lucky I didn’t kill him when I found out. I’m still pissed at him. He wants us to guard these descendants but doesn’t want to tell us all the information we need. It would’ve been helpful to know that my fucking charge’s mother was a...” Stryx went silent.