Midnight City (boyxboy)

|Twenty One: Wicked Games|

Celeste's apartment was filled with nothing but tension as the group sat in her sitting room. Her settee was velvet and cushioned, and Cassius had the blanket draped across his lap as he casually lay there, as though this was his second home. Lingering by the brick fireplace was Theo, warming his hands on the orange flames flickering in the hearth, aware of the vampire who seemed far more relaxed than the rest of them.

From across the room, Sam was looking out of a large, arched window, his face peeking between the lace curtains to look out at the bright street lights. A black sheet blanketed the city, stars twinkling in the oblivion above as though they were watching over him, over everyone. Watching them make mistake after mistake, watching them argue and shatter, love and falter. Watching them figure each other out, learn who their friends and enemies were, and whether battles were really worth fighting.

The angel's wings had been long put away, but his skin still had that magical glow that lit up the entire room, brighter than any flame in a fire. A word uttered earlier still hung in the air- soulmates. It was being dangled over his head tauntingly, waiting for him to grab it and hold onto it, before it was suddenly ripped away from him. However, he didn't want his grasp on that word, that concept to be too tight, because it still didn't feel real. None of this did. This whole other world felt foreign and made him uneasy. Not even the reassuring smile he received from Cassius as he finally turned away from the view of Midnight City calmed a single nerve.

His stomach was churning, perhaps some bubbling rage from earlier was still boiling in there and threatening to blow them to smithereens. His wings had fluttered behind him frantically, his eyes had turned a deeper shade of blue, as though he had sunk to the bottom of the ocean and anchored himself there. However Cassius pulled him out, he heaved him out of the dark depths of his mind with the sound of his voice.

It had soothed him then, but now he felt sick. Perhaps the news of having a soulmate should have made him feel overjoyed, not riddled with anxiety and fear under the pressure of it all. Learning the news that his own father had killed Cassius' mother had hit him hard, and though it seemed the vampire had moved past it and given Sam the benefit of the doubt, the angel was unable to climb the obstacle that seemed to stand in his way. It was impenetrable, a solid mound of guilt, anger and sadness molded into one gigantic boulder, threatening to roll down the steep hill he had made his own, personal exhibition.

Finally, Celeste broke the silence that had fallen over them in the past few hours. Herself and Theo had begun to read over the book again, but the male wizard had taken a break, fearing his eyes would pop out of his head if he didn't stop scanning the same pieces of information over and over again. "This book is a whole lot of nonsense," She told them, a hint of frustration in her tone. "It's going to take days, weeks to decode this."

"Do we have that long?" Theo asked, seeing Cassius sit up from his lounging position, throwing the knitted blanket to the side. Glancing at the angel who was once again staring out the window, the vampire let out a deep sigh that he'd been holding in for the hours of silence. In the time that had passed, it seemed he had forgotten everything Sam had been through in the past few days. Finding the book in the library, facing a vampire attack in his own home where he should have felt safe, where he'd lived his entire life, and then finding out more about his father's character. His father, the vampire hunter, vampire killer- Mother Killer. Cassius' mother. The Queen of the magic realm.

Frowning, Cassius turned to Theo and said, "I don't know how long we have." His honesty was evident in his golden eyes as he tore them away from Sam. "If we have a time limit at all. My Father is an ancient, sneaky man. A King who is probably scheming this very second, considering the now more frequent supernatural attacks that have taken place recently. However he doesn't know of Sam's whereabouts, if that's who he's after-"