The Alpha Kings And Their Stripper Mate

Chapter 280: Chapter 280: What Lives In The Throne

Eve looked at Damian.

Damian looked at Silas.

"Come to the estate," Eve said. "Today if you can."

"I’ll leave within the hour," Vessa said.

She hung up.

Eve set the phone down on the desk.

The pull in her chest was there. Steady and Insistent.

Like something that had been waiting a very long time and had finally decided it was done waiting.

"She knows what it is," Silas said.

"Yes," Eve said. freewёbnoνel.com

"And she’s been hoping she was wrong," Damian said.

"Yes," Eve said.

She stood up.

Looked at both of them.

"Find Damon," she said. "I don’t want him hearing this secondhand."

They assembled in the sitting room at four.

All four of them, Waiting for Vessa.

Damon had taken the news with his characteristic straightforwardness, she’d told him in the corridor, simple and direct, and he’d listened and said "okay" and followed her to the sitting room without drama.

That was Damon.

He saved the feelings for after the facts.

They didn’t have to wait long.

Vessa arrived at half past four. She came in still in her coat, hair slightly windswept from traveling, and she looked at the four of them assembled in the sitting room and something in her face confirmed what Eve already suspected.

She knew exactly what was coming.

She had known for a long time.

"Sit down," Eve said.

Vessa sat.

Looked at her hands.

Then looked at Eve.

"I need to tell you about the throne," she said. "What it actually is. What was built into it." She paused. "And what has been waiting for a complete Seraphim heir to wake it up."

The sitting room was completely quiet.

"Tell us," Eve said.

Vessa took a breath.

And started talking.

*****

Vessa talked for a long time.

Eve listened to all of it.

The throne had been built six hundred years ago by the first Seraphim heir, a woman named Avara who had understood something that most supernatural creatures didn’t. That power left alone eventually corrupted. That it needed anchoring. Something to hold it in place and keep it from bleeding out into the world uncontrolled.

So she built a binding into the throne itself.

Ancient witch work, the kind that took years and cost something real to construct. A containment. Every time a Seraphim heir ascended they fed the binding. Renewed it. Which kept it strong.

For six hundred years it had held.

Then Eve’s parents died before they could ascend.

And the binding had been starving ever since.

"Starving," Damon said.

"Weakening," Vessa said. "Every year without a completed ascension the binding loses strength. The power it was containing starts to leak." She looked at her hands. "And when power leaks it attracts things."

"What kind of things," Damian said.

Vessa looked at Eve.

"There is an entity," she said. "Old. Older than the Conclave. Older than most of the structures we use to organize the supernatural world." She paused. "It feeds on bound power. Has been doing it for centuries, finding places where ancient bindings have weakened and moving in before the binding can be renewed." She paused again. "It has been waiting for the Seraphim throne for twenty years."

"Since my parents died," Eve said.

"Since the binding started weakening," Vessa said. "Yes."

"And when I ascend," Eve said.

"The moment you sit on that throne the binding completes," Vessa said. "Six hundred years of contained power releases and renews all at once." She held Eve’s gaze. "That release lasts approximately sixty seconds."

"And during those sixty seconds," Silas said.

"The binding is open," Vessa said. "Not broken. Just....open. In the process of completing." She paused. "That’s when it will move. It’s been patient for twenty years waiting for exactly that window."

The sitting room was quiet.

Eve looked at the fire.

Sixty seconds.

Twenty years of patience for sixty seconds.

"What’s its name," Damon said.

"Varek," Vessa said.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"Can it be stopped," Damian said.

"Not the way you’re thinking," Vessa said.

"It’s not something you fight with strength or strategy. It doesn’t have a physical form you can attack." She paused. "The only thing that stops Varek is completing the binding faster than it can move through the window."

"How fast can it move," Silas said.

"Fast," Vessa said. "But not instant. It still has to travel. It still has to find the open window and push through." She paused. "If the ascension completes cleanly....if the binding renews in full before Varek reaches the window, it closes before anything gets through."

"And if it doesn’t complete cleanly," Eve said.

Vessa looked at her.

"Then Varek gets through the window," she said. "And six hundred years of contained power goes with it."

Damon stood up.

Walked to the window.

Stood there with his back to the room.

Eve watched him.

She could see the tension in his shoulders. The way he was holding himself very still. Processing. She had learned to read him well enough to know he wasn’t shutting down. He was thinking hard and needed a moment to do it.

"So we’re saying," he said without turning around. "That the only way to stop this thing is to complete the ascension. But completing the ascension is exactly what gives it the window it needs to attack."

"Yes," Vessa said.

"That’s a terrible situation," he said.

"Yes," Vessa said.

He turned around.

Looked at Eve.

"Can you complete it fast enough," he said.

"I don’t know," Eve said honestly.

"What would make it faster," Damian said. He was looking at Vessa. "The binding completion. What affects the speed of it."

Vessa was quiet for a moment.

"The strength of the heir," she said. "How fully they’ve come into their power. A complete heir....bonds intact, bloodline active, nothing suppressed or held back....completes the binding faster than one who is still coming into themselves."

"Eve’s bonds are complete," Silas said.

"Yes," Vessa said.

"Her bloodline is active," he said.

"Yes," Vessa said.

"So she’s as complete as she’s going to be," Damian said.

"There’s one more thing," Vessa said.

She looked at the floor.

Then at Eve.

"The original binding was constructed by Avara alone," she said. "But every Seraphim heir since has ascended with their bonded mate present. It’s not a requirement. But it changes the completion time." She paused. "Significantly."

"How significantly," Eve said.

"Avara’s ascension took forty seconds," Vessa said. "Every heir who ascended with their bonded mate present completed in under twenty." She paused. "The fastest recorded completion was eleven seconds."