3. ~Xavier~

3

~Xavier~

Orpheus’ soft groans filled my ears as he sank against the wall, grasping my belt while I fed from him in an alcove near the rear of the compound out of the way of everybody and everything.

Every now and then he’d rub his hard cock against my thigh, then stop himself, trying not to get too worked up considering where we were.

For my part, I was being gentle, feeding from him slowly and carefully in a bid not to push him too far either, knowing pain and a whole lot of roughness when I drank from him got him off.

He’d come to me as I’d been inside the compound looking for somewhere to sit down for a few moments after drinking a little too much. He’d claimed he’d needed a little relief in the form of my fangs sinking into his throat after getting into a fight with Alena.

But I suspected there’d been more to it than that.

Tal reporting my state to him, for instance.

He was doing it to calm me down more so than anything else.

And to sober me up a little.

His blood was certainly doing both. It packed a hell of a punch, cutting through my intoxication incredibly quickly. But it was also calming me this time.

Maybe it was because I had my magic back, but it felt more soothing than usual as I ingested every additional drop of his potent blood.

Or—wait. Had he—no, he wouldn’t. Would he?

I eased my fangs free, licking up the blood dripping from them and my lips, before looking out at him, his eyes slightly glazed from the feed.

“Did you spell your blood to calm me down?”

“No.”

“It sure as hell feels like it, Orpheus. It’s like ingesting a tranquilizer.”

“I spelled myself.”

“What?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I needed to calm myself a little.”

“Spelling yourself, though? That’s extreme. Especially for you. You don’t like that sort of thing. You hate things impacting your mind.”

“I made an exception this time.”

“You really had a fight with Alena then?”

“I told you I did.”

“I thought that was a ruse so you could hide my drunken state from my dad and the rest of the guests here.”

He tugged at my belt. “Finish your feed. I can’t keep myself under control where that’s concerned much longer. I already had to turn Alena down when she came onto me in the Hall of Honor earlier. Even I can only take so many tests to my control. The sedative I spelled myself with might be assisting a little, but not to this degree.”

“Alena came onto you? Here? At her mother’s memorial?”

“Sure did.”

“Hell, her sexual appetite has been insane lately.”

“Part of her dealing with her grief—or not dealing with it, as it were.”

“We need to have a talk with her.”

“The way things are, it seems we all need talking to. We all sustained damage during this war and with a moment now to breathe, it’s all coming out. Like you’re demonstrating today, like she did earlier too.”

Damnation, that was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

So I dug my nails into his shoulder and sank my fangs into his throat again.

His sexy groan rolled through me and he threw his head back, giving me even better access, and fisting his hands in my shirt.

“Motherfuck, X,” he rasped. “You’re making it far too erotic with the slow draw.”

I slapped his cock and he shuddered against me.

Then I eased my fangs free again. “Is that better?”

He glared up at me. “You know damn well that it’s not.”

“Pain slut,” I teased. “I was going for slow and gentle so I didn’t awaken that in you.”

“Well, clearly it’s not all about pain for me when it comes to your feeds.”

“Clearly not. You obviously get off on being fed from, no matter how it’s done.”

He sucked in a breath, then adjusted his pants to conceal his hard-on. “It seems so.”

He shoved me back, then went around me and stepped out of the alcove.

Still dazed from it, he stumbled as he did, and I caught his elbow with a burst of speed.

“Easy.” I frowned as he grasped my arm to further steady himself. “I didn’t take that much this time, Ore.”

“Must be the spell then.”

“You did it because of Alena?”

“Not just her. My father also cornered me.”

“Why?”

“Just about a lot of things. He wants me to return to the DFR for a while.”

“Are you going to?”

“I can’t. Not when Alena is still grieving and trying to work through what happened with Constantine. She might be all over us physically now, but the wounds certainly haven’t healed. In fact, she might be using all this fucking to avoid dealing with it, and her mother’s death. We’re all reeling. I can’t be away.”

“I’ll help.”

“You’re reeling too.”

“As are you. You just spelled yourself, for fuck’s sakes. Yet you’re fighting to hold us all together while you’re also hurting yourself. I can do the same.”

He breathed a heavy sigh. “Thank you. That would take some of the load off me.” He eased back from me. “I’m okay now, stable.”

“You want to head back to the gardens, mingle and pay our respects some more, then see if Alena wants to head out?”

“Sounds good.”

We were just about to round the corner when Alena beat us to it.

She pulled up short just before smacking into us both.

“There you are,” she said. “I had to use a tracking spell to find you. The two of you sure know how to hide when you want to.” Her eyes darted to Ore’s throat, my puncture wounds on display. “You forgot to hide this,” she told him, a moment before she swept her golden magic over it, healing it like it had never been. “There. All better,” she said, smiling at him.

He frowned. “You’re smiling at me? I thought you were pissed at me.”

“I may have overreacted. I guess the emotion of the day got to me. I’m sorry. Really sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s a difficult day, little angel.”

“You were right, too.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “I do need to take some time. To grieve and to process everything.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. And about Exemplar , you need to know that your mom did want you to be a part of it. She wanted us to become a part of it together. Whenever you were ready, were her words. She believed in you, she just let her overprotectiveness and her own disillusionment with things cloud that for a while.”

There was their legacies thing again.

I fought to push past it and how useless it made me feel, and focused on the way Alena’s beautiful eyes lit up at his words.

She stroked his arm. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“Of course. Come here.”

She did and he wrapped her up in his arms, the two of them holding one another for a few moments.

Ore’s phone buzzing pulled them apart, and then he was easing it from his blazer and swiping it open. “It’s Tal,” he told us. “He’s worried about you, X, and now he can’t find you, Alena. I need to go to him and reassure him.”

“Go,” Alena told him. “I need a moment with Xavier anyway.” She gave me a look. “About this drinking of his that Talon told me about.”

Dammit, Tal.

Well, he was looking out for me. I knew it was coming from a good place.

“All right,” Ore said. “Just don’t be too long.”

“We won’t,” Alena assured him.

He gave a nod, then he was teleporting away in the next moment.

As Alena came to me, I told her, “I’m so sorry. It’s your mom’s memorial and I shouldn’t have—”

“This is about your guilt over what happened, isn’t it?”

I started. “Well, you’re certainly going for the throat.”

“You wouldn’t talk to Talon when he tried the gentle approach.”

“What I did directly led to the awful and tragic events that happened that night.”

“What Constantine did.”

“Alena—”

“You had nothing to do with it. He used and manipulated you. He controlled you, just like he controlled me when he made me hurt Orpheus.”

“It could happen again for me and the idea of doing anything to harm the three of you, or anyone, is sickening to me.”

“He made you into a victim. He made you feel useless. And now you feel like a problem too.”

“How do you—”

“Because I feel that way after what he did to me .”

I frowned. “You are far from a problem or useless. You’re a Nephilim. Orpheus just told you that your mom wanted you to take on her legacy at Exemplar.”

“To placate me. They’ll never allow it now. Note him saying when you’re ready. They don’t think I am, they don’t think I’ll be for a long time—if ever. Orpheus and all of them are treating me like I’m fragile now, like a victim, like someone who needs to be protected—not someone who does the protecting. And they’re doing it to you too. Orpheus pulling you away from everyone for a feed to calm you down, your dad checking in on you through everyone he possibly can, that bracelet he bound to your wrist.”

I nodded, taking her words in.

Words that rang so true for me and hit me right where I lived.

“You’re right.”

She stepped closer. “I think it’s about time we altered that perception, don’t you?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Teach me to hunt. Like a vampire.”

Huh.

Not what I was expecting.

None of it was.

But I couldn’t deny that it felt good to have someone else who was right here with me when it came to all of this.

And to feel needed too… it was everything.

It had me telling her without reservation, “I’m ready when you are.”