14. ~Alena~

14

~Alena~

“Spread those sexy thighs wide and take Talon’s tongue deep in your wet cunt while X sinks his fangs into your throat. Show me what I’m missing, little angel.”

Orpheus’ words via the IC Watch rang in my head from last night, as I stood under the running water of the shower. The cold water that I was using to calm myself down.

Sometimes our fucking sessions just stayed with me well into the next day or beyond.

They were often that intense.

And always mind-blowing.

Talon had experienced being fed from by Xavier for the first time and it had shocked him how overwhelming it had been and he’d come as soon as Xavier had begun the draw.

It wasn’t just the act of the feed when it came down to it, it was the sensual and incredibly sexy way that Xavier carried it out. There was just something about it that was all-consuming and left you utterly enraptured. I’d noticed the difference in it since the first time he’d drank from me. Now he was finally comfortable with his vampire side, he brought it in a different way. And last night had been incredible because of that element thrown into the mix with all the fucking.

Thinking about that had me worried with what Constantine’s new acolytes had offered him. He clearly believed it had just been a load of bullshit to try to get a hold of a bit of his magic for some reason. But what if it was real? What if Constantine had actually found a way to kill the vampire within? To leave Xavier as a sorcerer only, take him back to what he had been?

He'd wanted that for so long. But he’d become comfortable and at peace with the vampire lately. I’d seen it during our hunts, out front and center. He’d even admitted as much to me.

If it was taken away now somehow, I worried it would unsettle him all over again when it had taken so long for him to accept himself as he was.

Was it messing with his head and he just wasn’t speaking to it?

His therapist was coming here now to see him for a session every single day, so maybe she’d helped him with that.

It just made me sick that Constantine kept trying to fuck with our minds, that it was one of his chief tactics.

It wasn’t his power and experience that were only the most dangerous things about him—it was also that. The psychological impact. It was why he’d been able to turn a whole set of new recruits in those vampires, and many more according to their claims. Fuck, even without the aid of black magic like he’d used with me, he still had the ability to control these beings and have them do whatever he wanted. He still had such power over so many.

I mean, if Xavier’s theory was correct, he’d even managed it with Orpheus.

The formidable and indomitable Dark Fae royal who’d been all about not allowing fear to guide our actions, who’d believed in doing whatever was necessary to extinguish a threat.

“I need you to help me train with my new ability—extinguishing dark magic. It stands to reason that, with me being able to erase a dark magical stream, I should be able to do it entirely, maybe completely wipe out a dark being’s magic—Constantine’s. If I could do that, then he’ll just be a vampire, a lot easier to take down and no longer such a major threat. Even with the black magic now gone, the level of magic he wields is staggering. You know that, you went up against him.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

That conversation had been playing on my mind a lot lately.

When I’d considered forgoing all the secrecy with mine and Xavier’s hunting.

But the more I’d thought about it, the more it had cemented the notion of keeping it quiet and off his radar.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take in order to put him down.”

“I’m not.”

“What about your whole modus operandi of doing whatever it takes?”

“You eclipse that. Your safety and wellbeing does. Nothing compares to that. Nothing comes before that.”

It was my fault that he was this way now.

His worry for me wasn’t unfounded either.

In fact, it was all made worse by the fact that something bad had happened to me. I’d been taken and abused by Constantine.

And Orpheus was obviously worried about something like that happening again.

So worried that he couldn’t see past it.

Beyond that, so worried that it had changed him.

Changed how he saw things, how he did things.

It made me sick that it had come to that, that he was being impacted by it so profoundly.

He’d been so weighed down by everyone else’s suffering that he hadn’t been able to address his own. He’d been hurting and struggling in silence, just concerned with how the three of us were doing.

Was that why he’d actually gone to the DFR all of a sudden? Not just to spend some time with his father? Had it been to find a way to deal with what was haunting him? Maybe the fact that his mother was involved in all this too, something he hadn’t spoken about at all?

I wished he was here with us.

It hadn’t been long since we’d last seen him, last been in his presence, but I felt the loss of him as though it had been much longer.

His presence was such that it was so noticeable when he wasn’t around.

Even when he’d been visiting the compound while we’d been staying at my mom’s place, it had been jarring for the few hours he hadn’t been there with us.

I wanted all four of us together in the same space.

I definitely wanted us all falling asleep together in one another’s arms, wrapped up tightly in one another.

I was grateful we had been able to communicate with him via the IC Watch. At least it was something.

But even when Orpheus returned from the DFR, he still wouldn’t be here at Electi Academy with us because he was no longer enrolled.

Although I’d come into my power and I’d learned a great deal—a lot through awful means and the things that had been done to me, unfortunately—I’d come back here because it was the first place that had felt like home.

That was because of my men, though.

Because I was loved and accepted by them.

But with Orpheus missing from the Academy now, it just wasn’t the same.

It didn’t feel like it had.

It didn’t feel right.

I didn’t want to leave Xavier and Talon, though.

It was just a difficult situation with us currently split up.

Maybe once he returned from the DFR we could figure something better out.

No, scratch that, we had to.

I stepped out of the shower, heading back into my bedroom to get dressed for my first class of the day, Illusions and Coercion Ethics. It was usually taught by Dante Wilhelm, but they had a sub teaching the class now because Wilhelm had been called into Exemplar full-time with everything that was going on. It wasn’t a class I was looking forward to, especially because rumors had been going around that it was going to be used to warn about using illusions the way that Orpheus had concerning keeping his army a secret and whatnot. If that was really the case, I’d walk the hell out. I wasn’t going to sit and listen to him being admonished. If it hadn’t been for him, the whole Academy would have fallen and none of them would have lived to be able to talk shit about him anyway.

I shook my head to myself as I dressed and dried myself with my magic, too agitated to waste time doing it the mundane way.

I checked myself in the mirror, taking in my white lace off-the shoulder top and my blue flare jeans that gave way to a pair of jeweled silver pumps. They were new ones I’d conjured that matched the multicolored crystal necklace the guys had gifted me. I levitated that from the top of my dresser and put it on manually, savoring it and smiling to myself as I ran my fingers over it, taking in all its beauty and how much it meant to me that I had something from them that I could carry with me everywhere. I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and tied it in place with a silver hair tie that had little beads hanging off it. Done.

Then I snatched up my messenger bag and started for the door to my chambers.

I didn’t even make it to the knob when a bolt of red magic ripped right through the door, blasting it open and blowing me back.

My bag fell from my shoulder and I only just managed to catch my balance when another bolt slammed into my gut, the impact ripping me right off my feet.

I cursed as I landed hard on my back with a bone-jarring thud that had me choking.

A crimson robe came into view as the attacker stalked toward me.

He was unfamiliar. Long, black hair swept around him.

But it was his glowing red eyes that took most of my attention.

Not to mention, his magic.

Just like Constantine’s.

He sneered as he obviously saw me make the connection.

“Yes, we’re infused with his power. It provides an extra kick.”

How the hell had he done that? My mom had severely weakened him when she’d siphoned out the insane level of black magic he’d been operating with.

“What do you want?” I rasped, scrambling back and ending up right by the window as he continued to advance on me.

Instead of telling me, he said, “Constantine sends his regrets that he couldn’t be here with you in person.”

A shudder rolled through me.

“You didn’t breach the ward around the Academy.” If he had, the alarm would have gone off and an Onyx Alert would be sounding through the speakers. “How did you get in?”

“Your blood is supremely powerful.”

Oh my God , Constantine had saved a supply of my blood from when I’d been in captivity, maybe from when he’d had his vampires feed on me?

He went to fire at me again, but I caught it with a burst of my own power, as I pushed to my feet holding it steady.

“You’ve made a grave mistake,” I ground out.

How dare he think he could come at me?

How dare Constantine think it?

If anything, his hubris and obsession with me had him just playing right into my hands.

I shoved the asshole’s power back at him and it slammed into his chest, making him stumble back, one of his knees hitting the floor.

I stormed toward him and snagged his shoulder, then used my angelic strength to haul him up against the wall. With a flick of my fingers, I had him bound to it, arms and legs outstretched, unable to call his magic or do much of anything at all.

Then I was right there in his space, demanding, “Where is your master?”

He sneered. “You think I’m going to reveal that to you?”

“What I think is that you won’t have a choice.”

I went to make a move, but Xavier’s words blasted front and center in my memory.

“I don’t think you should be compromising who you are, or trading on the dark side to get it done.”

Damn him.

“I won’t change my tune on this. Nothing that leads you down a dark path, Alena.”

He was right.

Of course he was right.

And I could see it now for what it really was.

I was at a crossroads.

If I went down that dark path now, it could consume me.

And then Constantine would have won in a whole other way.

At the same time, I wouldn’t send this attacker to Exemplar. I just didn’t have faith in their ability to get this done, to react fast enough or without all their bureaucracy getting in the way of progress.

I could send him to my mom’s house, hold him there, then ask Orpheus to use his Dark Fae mind meddling on him. It was Orpheus, he’d have a way around the situation, a way around doing the guy harm and torturing him with it.

I was about to do just that when red teleportation smoke caught my eye a moment before two more robed assholes materialized in my chambers.

Two blasts from each of them ripped me off my target.

Before I could get my bearings, they continued firing, red magic just like the first guy, and then I was blown through the window, glass exploding all around me in a thunderous crash as I hurtled toward the ground.

I managed to unfurl my wings just in time, a couple of feet before hitting the ground, hovering there.

In the next second, puffs of red smoke surrounded me on all sides as two dozen sorcerers wielding dark magic courtesy of Constantine took position against me.

The commotion from the fight in my chambers must’ve drawn attention, because students and faculty burst out of the rear doors at the start of the forest to see what was going on.

A moment later, the arm went off, signaling an attack.

It was too late then as the sorcerers fired upon me all at once.

I went to soar up high to evade it, but I was shot back down to the ground by a fusillade of magic raining down on me in the next moment, until I was on my knees being burned from their power hitting me everywhere all at once.

I had to put my wings away to protect them from the assault.

Fuck.

Through it all, I caught sight of some of the students and the faculty trying to stop it, two vampires blurring toward them only to be blasted back and knocked unconscious from the sheer power of the blows, and then Isabella and her boyfriend using their Light Fae magic against them, just to be blasted into the trees and put down for the count in the next moment.

The power being used was so great it was as though Constantine was here himself. No two-bit sorcerers could pull this off. They had to be channeling him through themselves or something along those lines.

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, managing to call my power.

I got off two blasts, taking out two of them with my magic, before being forced back down again, suffering under the insane onslaught.

“Alena!” I heard Xavier bellow, and I looked out to see him and Talon rushing from the main building toward the battle taking place.

Xavier called his magic and Talon did the same with his phoenix fire.

But before they could even make a move, the building erupted in a ball of flames, windows blowing out, glass shattering and raining down everywhere, debris flying into the fray.

Holy shit.

“Save them!” I called out to my men.

“Alena!” Talon cried, not wanting to leave me, as Xavier hesitated too.

“I’ve got this!” I gritted out. “Go!”

In the next moment, Xavier grabbed hold of Talon and sped him into the building, and in seconds I saw the out of control raging flames calm a little as Talon obviously took control of them. And then Xavier, joined by other vampires, was bursting in and out, bringing out the wounded.

The dean arrived, conjuring a pink shield around the wounded, protecting them and talking rapidly on her phone, likely calling Exemplar.

Other members of the faculty and the unharmed students tried to take out the sorcerers around me, but they just rebounded off them when they got too close, the assholes obviously having thrown shields up.

I dug my nails into the ground as the painful assault wracked my body, making me grunt and writhe.

The most optimal options would be to either create a shockwave of my power that would take them all out, or to conjure one hell of a storm of my magic, something along the lines of a funnel cloud.

But it would harm too much around me, likely even taking out the entire Academy given the level of power I’d have to use in order to overpower the enemy.

No. There was no other way.

There was only one thing to be done.

Grinding my jaw, I forced myself to my feet, albeit unsteadily.

I called my power, my palms glowing with my gold magic, and then I caught each stream in turn, staggering around until I had every single one drawn to and locked onto my palms.

With no longer being fired upon, I felt my healing abilities kicking in rapid-fire, my strength and wellbeing improving by the moment.

It enabled me to keep hold of the sorcerers’ magical streams even when they panicked and tried to pull their magic back.

Not happening.

I pushed harder, my power flaring, sparks then traveling along the streams.

Cries from the enemy and gasps from student onlookers erupted as they watched me extinguishing the dark magic right before their eyes, my golden glow forcing its way forward and not only driving back all the red streams, but disintegrating them upon contact.

Indigo magic erupted and I saw Elliot Sabre teleport in and pull up short when he saw what I was doing.

What I was capable of.

With a final push, I knocked out the sorcerers, their magic extinguishing and the force I’d used having them collapsing all around me, out cold.

I sucked in several breaths and called my magic back.

And then I became disturbingly aware of the eerie silence and all eyes on me, staring my way.

Some in awe.

Some in disbelief.

Some in fear.

I saw Xavier blur from the building again, this time with Talon beside him, both of them covered in soot. Talon was half-turned in his phoenix form and he was dragging another red robed sorcerer with his claws, the guy unconscious, while Xavier staggered in his step, clutching his chest. His shirt was charred and I could see a shimmering red mark on his chest.

What had happened?

I moved to go to him, to them, when smoke filtered all around me.

I heard people asking where I’d gone, and that was when I realized that the smoke couldn’t be seen by them.

For my part, it was all I could see, encompassing me and surrounding me on all sides.

And then someone emerged through it and I jolted as I looked out to see the last person I’d expected standing there.

“This is a supremely difficult situation, Nephilim,” he rumbled.

“What are you doing?”

He blew on his hand and gray dust enveloped me.

“What must be done, unfortunately. I’m sorry. You’ve left me no choice.”

In moments, I was lightheaded and staggering in my step.

I couldn’t… I couldn’t keep awake.

He came to me and supported my weight.

And then I passed out.