13. ~Talon~

13

~Talon~

“Here,” I called, holding a towel out as Orpheus staggered across the bathroom after I’d helped him to shower. “Stop. It’s right here,” I said, getting him to cease his walking that he could barely handle in his current state.

He stood there weakly, his eyes fluttering open and closed, allowing me to dry him off, before I then wrapped the towel around his hips and secured it.

I gave him my shoulder and helped him back into the bedroom of the spare room, one of tons in Alena’s family mansion.

“Thanks,” he said, as I helped him to settle on the bed, propping his pillows up so he could rest his head back, which he did with a heavy sigh.

I perched on the edge beside him, stroking his hair that was now free of all the blood, dirt, and glass that had been caught in it before.

I’d also had to take out several shards of glass from his flesh with a pair of tweezers.

It hadn’t been the easiest thing to do with him currently so weak and not as impervious to pain as he normally was.

“Your wounds are healed,” I told him. “Even X’s brutal bites.”

“I know,” he murmured. “I can feel it.”

“You had several broken bones too.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “A shitload of damage you took from him, Ore.”

And it was a good thing that Elliot, Abigail, and Professor Wilhelm hadn’t been here, the three of them off dealing with Exemplar matters and the attacks taking place instead.

“It needed to happen that way.”

“It was a dangerous strategy.”

“It was a calculated risk. And it paid off. You saw him afterward.”

“Yeah, I did. He had hope.” I smiled. “You did that for him. You gave that back to him.”

“I just wish we’d been here sooner, before he’d reached such a low point.”

“It’s okay. He’ll be okay now.”

“I will.”

Ore looked out weakly and I swung my head to see Xavier now standing there in the doorway.

I hadn’t even heard his approach and not just because I’d been so taken with Orpheus, but because X was employing the full effect of his vampiric stealth.

I smiled to myself. He was practicing.

More than that, he was embracing it.

“We’re glad to hear it,” I told him. “Fucking relieved beyond belief too, X. Shit.”

He walked to me and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry, brother. Really sorry I got so low.”

Ore reached out with one hand and then we were immersed in a brotherly hug.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re back now.”

“You can hold on now, yes?” Orpheus asked.

We eased apart and X nodded firmly. “I can. I promise.”

“Good,” Ore said, resting his head back against the pillows again. “Fucking good.”

X smiled and climbed onto the other side of the bed, settling beside Ore. He stroked his fingers carefully over his throat, where his bite mark had been—one of them. “How are you feeling?”

“On the mend.”

“I can’t believe you let me take it there. To not use your magic to defend yourself and take my punishment all the way, I can’t imagine what strength that took.”

“I made you a promise.” His lips quirked. “Had to keep it, didn’t I?”

X chuckled.

“Well, you certainly proved that you’re a man of your word,” I said.

It had a choked laugh escaping Ore. “I am that, for sure, baby bird.”

Xavier drew back a little, then opened his palm and a spark of his blue fire erupted.

“Whoa,” I gasped. “How the shit?”

“My blood. A lot of it,” Ore partially explained.

“You weren’t surprised that I’d be able to do this,” X told him.

“I also wasn’t sure it would actually work. At least not this soon after what Constantine did, and took from you.”

“How… how is this possible?”

“You’re a magically born being. It’s in your blood, coded into your DNA. Constantine might have taken your magic but nothing and no one can take away your ability to wield. You absorbed properties of it from my blood. Royal Dark Fae blood is very potent. It won’t work with all magic-wielders.” He grimaced. “And it will fade as my blood leaves your system.” He lifted a shoulder. “Of course, I can always top you off.”

“No. I don’t want to do that to you again. That was a one-off like you said. Knowing it can be done, feeling that again… it’s enough for me.” He smiled widely. “And experiencing that complete loss of control… you were right… it made a difference. It’s changed everything.”

“I’m glad,” Orpheus said, taking X’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“How long do you think it’ll be until you’re back to your full strength?” I asked Ore, hating seeing him in this state.

“Full strength? A couple of days. Able to shower and walk around alone? Halfway through the day tomorrow.”

“Thank fuck.”

“Already tired of doting on me, Tal?”

“Never. I just don’t like seeing you this way.”

“Right there with you on that. Weakness isn’t exactly my thing.”

“It’s not weakness,” X said. “What you took from me… most wouldn’t have survived it.”

“But I did, and everything is fine,” Ore assured him, patting his thigh.

X followed the sight of his hand on him and he actually blushed. “About what else happened aside from the biting and torture… I mean… it was—”

“It was a product of the intensity of the moment, yes. I’m well aware.”

A strained and awkward silence fell between them.

I cut through it, saying, “The demon wanted his cock really fucking bad, huh?”

It worked, the two of them busting out laughing.

“What would we do without you, firebird?” X said, laying his hand on my shoulder.

“Especially in dire times,” Ore added.

“Like losing Alena,” I murmured, the mention of bad times bringing it to the forefront for me.

The atmosphere shifted as my words rolled over us.

“She’s not lost,” Ore said. “She was taken by that madman.”

“She went with him,” I pointed out. “She made the choice to leave us for him.”

“Her choices are being compromised by him. When we walked into her chambers, Elliot and I felt intense black magic all over. That’s how much he’s dosing her with.”

“And the final push he used was me,” X said, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Hell.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ore told him. “What I said earlier was just to get a rise out of you, to make you snap and come at me so you could lose control. If it hadn’t been you, Constantine would have found something else to influence her.”

“For what purpose? Why is he doing this?”

“He wants angel magic to wield,” Ore stated.

“The question is for what,” X spoke.

Ore nodded. “The very worrying question. We need to get her out of there.”

“How?” X asked. “ Exemplar can’t even get a lock on him. He’s cloaked.”

“Through my father.”

“You think you can establish a blood link to him and cut through the heavy cloaking? How?”

“Before we left Alena’s chambers, I secretly bottled some of Constantine’s black magic remnants. Once I’m back to full strength, I can combine that with the blood link and hopefully use it to cut a path through.”

“Shit, no!” I cried, vehemently.

“To do that, you’ll have to take the black magic into you,” Xavier warned him, his expansive knowledge similar to Ore’s coming into play.

“Briefly.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t go dark,” I reminded him. “Did you just tell me what I wanted to hear?”

“The promise was that I wouldn’t leave you, wouldn’t succumb to it. I’m a dark being, I wield darkness all the time, I can control it. With my father incapacitated and out of reach currently, I’m the only one who can. The other players involved are all Light beings. Just touching black magic risks instant corruption because they’re not familiar with anything like it.”

“Just like what’s happening to Alena right now,” I uttered, hating the reality of the words as they left me.

A distressed silence fell between us.

Pain for her.

For us being pulled from her.

We fucking needed her back here with us.

The three of us weren’t enough anymore. Nothing was enough without her.

“What if we find her and it’s too late?” I asked. “What if we can’t cast the black magic out?”

“Abigail has the means to do so if Alena can’t,” Orpheus reminded me.

“You heard what Elliot said, though. She could become corrupted. Exemplar aren’t gonna let her even try, are they? I mean, there’s no way they can risk a Fallen coming under the influence of black magic. It would be worse than the likes of Constantine.”

“We’re discounting Alena’s strength,” X said.

“It’s not about discounting it, it’s the fact that she’s long had issues recognizing it, how truly powerful she actually is,” Ore pointed out.

“It’s different now. She’s deeply connected to us, a part of us,” I told them. “And let’s not forget that she went to him in a bid to save you, X. It means she still feels for us, even with Constantine’s influence. She can hold on, I know it. I mean, I have to believe it.”

Ore reached out and stroked my cheek. “We’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back to us.”

“I know you’re including black magic in that, and you can’t. Please, Ore.”

“All right,” X said, holding up his hand. “Let’s keep the black magic route on the backburner. As a last resort. The last thing we need is you being lost to corruption too, Orpheus. We’ll focus on what you were working on when you were tracking your father. The magical map you were piecing together. While you’re down, me and Tal will continue working on it. You just rest up, because we’ll need you strong when we get a lead from it.”

“ When? Look at you being all optimistic,” I said.

“I can’t allow myself to be anything else right now. Especially when Alena is at stake.”

Even when we had Alena back with us and this whole situation was dealt with, he’d need a lot more help and treatment. He might be in good spirits now in the wake of what had gone down earlier, but sinking as low as he had… you didn’t just bounce back and simply walk away from that. Me, Ore, and Alena would make damn sure he received the necessary help, no matter what. I couldn’t stand the idea of losing him again. The four of us belonged together.

“The current Commander of the Dark Fae Army who has the remaining intel we need is unreachable. My own contacts and assets have given me everything they have. With war on the horizon, protecting the kingdom transcends all else, as is protocol. We need to bring in Marlowe. He knows more than he’s let on. The fact he’s been secretly still working with my father this entire time means he may very well have been aware of these new contacts of his whom he was reaching out to while he was outside the DFR and tracking Constantine’s cohorts before they ended up ambushing him instead. He may know exactly which ones of them betrayed him to the enemy and gave away his location.”

“He said the two of you would talk, but it never came to pass,” I remembered. “He used your punishment and confinement as an excuse.”

“Then he clearly doesn’t want you doing this, Orpheus,” X pointed out. “Bringing him here may just prove fruitless, he may give nothing away.”

“He will if he isn’t given a choice.”

X tensed. “You can’t torture Marlowe.”

“Is that seriously where your mind immediately jumped to?” He rolled his eyes. “He’s still part of my father and his rule. He answers to the Dark Fae Realm. If I ascend, he’ll have no choice but to transfer that onto me.”

I choked out a gasp. “Become King, you mean?”

“Temporarily. My father has been missing for a substantial amount of time without any leads as to his whereabouts. All they know for now is that he’s alive. If he wasn’t, key elements of the Kingdom would have begun to fall. I can invoke executive power as Prince to call for ascension.”

“Can’t you just take power as Prince?” I asked, not wanting him to go the King route, because he wouldn’t be able to come and go as he pleased, he’d be stuck there ruling. The Prince had a lot more free reign.

“As Prince, I can’t overpower the Dark Fae Commander’s authority or that of the Court.”

“Before we go ahead and create some massive political upheaval, let us reach out to Marlowe first,” X told him, recognizing what I was, that Orpheus was growing impatient with the entire thing, his worry for his father and now Alena starting to take the lead. Him being weakened and basically incapacitated would only be worsening that for him.

“Let’s also not forget that Alena and Saryan are both being held captive by Constantine,” I said.

“How could we forget that?” Orpheus bit back.

“I mean, he’s there with her. He can help her. He’s one of the few beings who’s delved deep into black magic and not only survived, but overcome its corruption.”

“To an extent only,” Orpheus said. “There was some permanent damage.”

“Anything right now will be a help to Alena, right?”

“He wanted Orpheus to attack her mind not long ago,” X reminded us.

“That’s over with now. Things are different,” I told him.

“He knows what she means to me,” Ore spoke. “He’ll try to save her for me. For us.”

“Then let that hold you over while you rest and Tal and I work on the map.”

“Yeah, okay. Okay,” he breathed.

“We’ll get her back,” I said, stroking his hair as his eyes started to flutter closed.

The truth was, it couldn’t possibly be any other way.