The First Age

Jay was rooted in place for fear the ferocity of Zacarias' silent interrogation would wash the feet from under him. He let the power sink into his soul like cement leadened heavy in his chest. It might crush his heart, but the power made no room for trivial things like terror. Zacarias knew who he was. If he didn't already, he would know Jay's name, identity, home, and family. The night he landed in his old house, a bare week after killing Amengual's brother, he stared out the window waiting for headlights to breech the horizon. Now, it was a matter of time before Amengual's revenge found the vulnerable. Jay wasn't naive. He knew the manner of revenge to expect. He took Zacarias' brother in the bloodiest way possible. Zacarias would want a sibling of Jay's in return. He must have contacts around the world. The Iowa countryside wouldn't protect mom, dad and Cayli any more than Jay could protect them from the other side of the planet.

It would be a matter of a phone call for Zacarias to find them. Luckily, morbid luck anyway, they were all holed up at the hospital. That would probably derail Zacarias' hounds a day or two. Maybe enough time for Jay to get there, get Cayli healed up, and move the family .. somewhere. Details to figure out later. Moscow wasn't even safe. Which brought up another disturbing question.

Why was he at this ball? Did Ascendancy know who this man was? Or did he care so long money flashed first? 

All these thoughts and more flashed like lightning in the seconds stretched between them until Natalie's stumble crushed thumbs into his forearm. He pivoted swiftly, catching her before she collapsed. Jensen was rightly confused, but agreed, thank God, to leave Amengual behind. If the shark scented blood, whether Jay's, Cayli's or Natalie's, he would hunt it down. Jay had absolutely no doubt as to what this man was capable.

However, this man had no idea of what Jay was capable either. 

He began to help Natalie walk away, but before they took more than a step, he paused. A daring smirk touched his lips, powered by the darkness roiling within. He looked the man dead in the eye as he said it: "I'm sorry for your loss."

Then he walked away, Natalie on his arm.

Once out of the ballroom, he helped deposit Natalie on a bench to ease the weight from her foot. For the first time in what felt like ten minutes, he exhaled, turned in a circle, and watched the door like Zacarias might come running out in some wild stampede.

When it was clear they weren't followed, he sank on the bench next to her, put his face in his hands and waited for Jensen to finish. They still had to tell the man they were going to Iowa rather than across town. They were racing against two clocks now.

Playing the damsel stung more than the wound she had been tolerating all night, but Natalie would use whatever tools were at her disposal -- however foolish it made her look. Jensen must have little idea what he'd stumbled into, but he was unwaveringly gracious in his concern. Only Jay's final words fanned the blood as they departed.

The darkness felt familiar.

"Life is seldom fair," she told Jensen once they'd moved away. His attempt at lifting the mood was earnest, and it sparked in her relief for the respite from darker manipulations. Enough that she offered him a small smile, though also spared a glance at Jay for the sting of her next words. "In fact sometimes it's foolhardly and goes on unnecessary detours. I'm Natalie."

Once they'd escaped the ballroom, Jay helped her down onto a bench. She wasn't quite such an invalid, but she didn't stop him either. The tension writ his face like stone before it eased out with a breath; she read the toll of hard lines in his jaw, and wondered how much more weight would be revealed to crush his shoulders before the night was through. His attention already spun round like he feared what might come bursting through, before he finally sank beside her. Buried his face in his hands. 

It sprung something loose in her chest, an instinct that offered to share the burden. She didn't know the details, and though eventually she would ask, she would also take silence for an answer. But the weight she would carry whether he agreed or not, whether he knew or not. Natalie had no platitudes, but something in her ached to smooth the line of his fingers, to kneel and break the shield across his face.

If they had been alone she probably would have.

Instead she turned her attention to Jensen, one palm raised from her lap to forestall him before both returned to a poise of elegance. "I wouldn't wish you to waste your gift on this. It'll heal on its own. I regret the ruse was necessary to part from unsavoury company. But we do need your help."

Cold flushed beneath the layers of tuxedo without time to process the warning.
Air rushed by. Wind punched from his lungs.  The crunch of glass splintered spiderwebs through the mirror. Burn slashed the back of his neck. Jaxen wasn't so easily swept from balance, though. Shiny shoes landed with soft thuds as he caught himself. 
Oriena dared him to retaliate.

He put a hand to his hairline, only to wince at the scratches there. Nothing as fatal as what Oriena inflicted upon herself. But still, it hurt. "You have a thing for broken glass." He glanced at the enormous mirror. The ornate frame would be impossible to relieve of its place. Except with a wrench of the Ancient Power.

Jaxen smiled, dare accepted.

Coils of the ancient power snaked around the gilded frame, sending it to crash to the floor. He danced from its path at the last second, twirled and waited for security to run in. Meanwhile, he smeared his own blood a little more around the back of his neck and laid himself out on the floor like a sacrifice upon a sparkling altar.

He didn't snap, though she'd wanted it. He was capable of the maliciousness; she'd seen it spark in his gaze before like arcs of lightning until he swallowed it down. But nothing sparked now beyond the wince of impact. Her gaze rose to watch the mirror wrench and fall in glittery shards, leaning back on the sink for the show. "And you have a thing for drama, sweetheart."

Glass crunched beneath her heels as she approached, the hem of her dress whispering across the carnage. The release of a few pins tumbled raven locks down her shoulders, her dress still skewed where she had inspected her shoulder. Though it was only for first impression. She could not see cameras, but she doubted Brandon's security would be so lax as to assume they weren't somehow watched. Either way, she waited for the game to unravel.

The lights flickered wildly as she knelt beside him, casting wispy shadows across his closed lids. Time leaked away quickly, but if he'd opened his eyes he'd have found her smirking blood-stained lips. Her fingers curved as though to search for a pulse, caressing her thumb across his bared throat. Power rippled playful and cold, ropes of it sinking against his skin like she poured something in. "You want me to make it convincing, Jaxen?"

The world filled with raven hair and the eyes of honed daggers. The weight of bonds unseen pressed low, pushing spikes into his back. "You didn't tie me up last time you were on top of me." Accusation writ disappointment on his face. "But you could channel then. So either you didn't know how or you sucked at it. If so, you've learned to control it a little." 

He wriggled slightly, testing the location of bonds unseen. Hardly the first time he was blindfolded and tied. "I could channel too then. Luckily, I've had a teacher since then." His grin split as silvery threads razored the air. 

Arm freed, it flashed and grabbed her wrist from his throat. She wasn't easy to overpower. He knew all too well the wicked strength behind those spindly arms. While his fingers squeezed her bones, he didn't want to hurt her. Well maybe a little. But in the most fun way possible. 

No. He wanted to see how far she'd take it. "Give it your best try, dear." 

She laughed.

He wrenched her hand away, grip pinching, but it was hardly retaliation; the dig of his fingers into her hips on the kitchen counter had been crueller. Still, the sharpness of the insult delighted her; that and the delicious reminder. Heat sprung her gaze, which dipped for a moment to take him in, but it had been an age ago. He'd taken her to a shit party that night too.

"You seemed too delicate for that kind of play. You still do," she purred. The pressure of those threads deepened, sinking him incrementally, while the lights still flickered about them arrhythmically. She smirked, leaned lower, resting more weight into the grip that kept her at bay. Wilfully reckless. Though if he let her fall, it was going to fucking hurt. "You think I'm in control?"

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Fury ripped at the seams of his soul.  

When the call bearing news of his brother's execution arrived, Zacarias fell into a momentary stasis. To this day he could recall the paralysis that took over. Such shock as he'd never known in his life. Their mother and father lived long, healthy lives. He had every reason to suspect him and his brother to do likewise, despite the nature of their family's empire.

Family was everything. 

When they buried Andres, Zacarias laid a flower on his brother's chest, leaned close to the casket and whispered the words of promise upon the veil hiding his face. 

"I will find the one that did this to us. I will make him beg to be shot in the head. Rest, my brother. We will have revenge."

When he looked the last time upon his elder sibling's corpse, there was no room for doubt. The promise was signed in the blood of their family's soul. 

Tonight, of all places in the world to find an American special forces operator, the promise was coming to fruition. 

He saw the wings of death hovering behind the eyes of Jay Carpenter. Whatever he had, whoever he loved, he would lose it all. Finally, when the pain of that loss could be born no longer, and Zacarias believed in his heart that his brother was avenged, he would put a bullet in Jay's brain and ground the meat of his chest with a machete. And Andres would be at peace.

Ryker came to stand alongside in the group's departure. Zacarias could hardly speak through the savagary of his own thoughts. "The girl too," his voice prowled with the scent of a hunt. "Who is she?"

Ryker supplied a name. "Natalie Grey."

Ivan's departure left a moment of doubt in his wake. He worked with the boy for more than a year, training and teaching him. Never once did young Ivan indicate the propensity for violence, training though he possessed. 

He would be safe in the Facility.  Whether the incident with the broken glass was accident bred by power uncontrolled or manipulated with malicious intent, Nikolai could investigate later. In the meantime, he could wait. 

Meantime, Nikolai called the guests to attention. His voice carried over all, sped by the wings of his powers. 

"Join me and welcome Jacques Danjou," he summoned the Frenchman to the stairs leading to the throne of the tsars and guided him to the first step. Nikolai remained positioned just to the side, one step higher. 

While clapping in honor of the man, Nik witnessed two more of the Rods of Dominion take their leave. Power ebbed in the distance, but he paid it no heed. For now.

Marcus watched as she seemed to unconsciously move closer to him. In the cool, he could feel the heat coming off of her. Her deep brown eyes grew larger, filled his field of vision. So big, so beautiful framed by exquisite lashes. She spoke and he only half paid attention to the words, entranced by the crinkle of her nose when when she smiled, those full red lips so biteable. Without realizing, he wet his lips with his tongue, eyes lidding slightly. 

The force, his slave forever, fed him a river of sensation: the slight perspiration in her heady scent; the ethereal glow of her ivory skin in the silvery moonlight; shadows carving the side of her neck; a pulsing thread of her carotid where he might nuzzle, or more fun, nibble and tease; the entrancing plunge of cleavage pebbled and inviting; the husky girlish laughter in her voice.

Her hand rested lightly on his wrist, silky skin soft to the touch, eyes looking up at him with a hint of inquiry. A slight smile touched his lips. His eyes were locked on hers and his lips parted, to lean down, to kiss her, to taste her. It would be so easy, lost in the infinite space, just of the two of them. No two people in the world understood the power as they did, he knew. Completely aside from her physical beauty, there was that. Adrift, he began to lean in.

And then paused...he paused, casting his mind back. He replayed the what she had said to him, frozen.

For the first time, uncertainty held him. This was a moment, an experience he did not want to miss. But anger and resentment in Malik welled up, though not overwhelmingly so.

He cracked the wall a bit.

He placed his hand on hers and his lips quirking up at the corners. Quietly, "Heh. Highland Park?" His lips pressed together, though still a smile. "No, I grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes projects. Bounced around foster homes since I was three until I went away to University on a scholarship." It was public record, of course. Anyone could look it up.

But still he never spoke of it. Public record was one thing. His childhood was something else. He wasn't aware that a look of sadness had washed over his face. Just saying it out loud conjured up too many images. He embraced the pain. 

He debated saying more when threads of power brought Ascendancy's voice to them. He wasn't sure if he resented the intrusion or not. He turned his head to the balcony entrance and then back to her....

"We'd better go. Ascendancy likes an audience."

Cruz brushed Nox's arm off his shoulders and he gave Nox a look that said your drunk. But he wasn't. He'd had a bit too much but he wasn't drunk by any means. And dancing had helped push the alcohol through his system. Same with the power which he held close at hand. There was too much of it around. Female and male alike and Nox didn't like the cold he'd felt before. He didn't like knowing where the danger was.

He was here to protect Cruz and it was time he started acting like it. But he was still himself.

Nox watched as the rods carried Ivan away. He was such a puppy, he had nothing to do with it. The woman on the other hand, she'd been toying with the guy at the bar. They had been playing a nasty game, one Nox was thankful to have survived, but that was a long time ago, or so it felt. Months, a year at most. It hadn't been that long since he came here to become offcial with the Atharim. To get the tattoo that now itched on his arm. Too many people might know what it meant. Nox wondered how many of Ascendancy's guards knew what the tattoo he wore meant, because Ascendancy had been one of them once. Once...

Ascendancy called the audience to him. Nox tried not to roll his eyes as he stepped closer to Cruz. "Does this mean we get to eat soon?"

A small smile slide across Cruz's lips even as he shushed Nox, but he nodded. Nox's stomach rumbled in response. He wondered when the last time he ate was. What had they been doing before party preparations. Fortifying the house. Keeping Ana, Christian and Sage safe while the power was away. They really shouldn't have left with Dorian missing. This was a really bad idea!