Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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"I'll more than happily level the mage complex to retrieve Father," Helia said, her voice devoid of emotion, something she only did when she was so pissed that something was about to be incinerated. Rage lit her amber eyes with a near crimson lethal craze as she leaned over her father's desk, both hands gripping the wooden edges. With how her thick layers of curls fell over her face and shaded near all light from it, she was quite reminiscent of many of the northern vampire leaders before they ripped their lessers apart.
Rodney was doing his best to give her space, especially with how they'd returned Stone worse than they had last time. Straight up fear of the powerful woman had stopped Horus with him before they'd returned to the mage complex to see if they could fix Stone. Reluctantly, Rodney had opened a vein in his wrist and dumped more blood than he cared for down Stone's throat. It was his only guess as to how he could help considering the broken vampire threw up human blood. It had improved Stone's state none, and then they'd had to rinse out Stone's mouth with water so he didn't wake up and retch all over everything again. So, cut up and unconscious was how they'd returned Stone to Helia, but his state was eclipsed by the news of Pyre's capture.
The mages had sent word via communique requesting Horus and Helia's presence to stand with Pyre for trial, and that was never going to happen. Someone was framing their entire lineage and putting them all in one place was just asking the assassin to snuff them out. No, they would remain in the Cinder complex, in the back office away from prying eyes until they figured this out. Rodney hadn't been in this precarious of a situation since he'd stood broken on the battlefield of his people's death.
"While that might free Father, it would make him a fugitive with both the mages and vampires coming after all of us, Helia," Horus cautioned his sister, but his intentions with the mages would be no more civil if they did not return his father. Horus' crossed arms had him gripping his mage sleeves and tearing at them in the same Cinder rage. "We need to prove his innocence, not murder anyone who insists otherwise."
"How do you suppose we do that?" Helia asked though not with any real question in mind. It was more of a, 'that's not possible'. That much was true, to an effect.
"While mages might not possess the means, the alliance has the means to peer into a vampire's mind through a stronger relative of the same bloodline," Rodney put forth, drawing both fuming Cinders' attention at him like bullets.
Among the two, Horus saw that he was making Rodney uncomfortable and tried to tone down his rage with a slow exhale. Helia remained a still statue of demise if anyone so much as bumped her. The woman was just like her father, brutal and ruthless where their family was concerned. While not a bad trait, it was dangerous.
"That still only leaves two people able to prove my father's innocence, and we can't give them either." Horus grumbled as he looked to where Stone was curled up on the bed, unconscious but sleeping peacefully despite all that had just occurred. Stone had passed out in the middle of the conflict like someone had flipped a light switch. That wasn't normal. Even fledglings could remain awake long enough to stuff themselves in a safe corner before they passed out if danger was present.
