9. ~Alena~

9

~Alena~

Orpheus jumped as he rematerialized via a cloud of teleportation outside the double entrance doors to the mansion and found me standing right there barring the way.

He tried to play it off, tossing one of his smirks out there and saying, “Well, it’s nice to be greeted when I return home.”

“Do I look like I waited out here to greet you?”

He studied my expression. “You look like you were standing here to greet me about something. Something you look considerably pissed about.”

“ Considerably pissed? It’s beyond even that.”

He shoved a hand through his shock of white and black hair. “I’m sorry about the way it happened, but it did need to happen, Alena. You’d left me no choice. I had to break through it.”

“And you get to decide when I break through something?”

“Yes. When you’re not talking to us and you pull this shit, absolutely. Talon was so wiped he could barely fucking move.”

“If it was that bad, why didn’t any of you say anything?”

“Because no one wants to upset you and the two of them convinced me to let it lie too, but then it went too far so I took action.”

I threw up my hands “No one wants to upset me. There you go again treating me like glass! Like I can’t handle my own shit, like I’m some victim, something to just protect and mind.”

He got right up in my space and glared down at me. “Prove me wrong.”

“What?”

“That’s how you’re coming across. A similar thing happened when we first met and you were scared of your own magic, your darkness.” He slid his hand to my cheek, stroking in that soothing way he did with Talon. “And yet you overcame that, you grew so much, became confident in who and what you are. You impressed even me.” His soft tone went to hell as he then uttered on a growl, “ Until Constantine. And now, also losing your mom.”

I slapped his hand away, then shoved him back with a burst of my strength.

Of course, the infuriating bastard caught his balance easily, absorbing my blow with his royal Dark Fae strength too.

“He hasn’t ruined me! None of it has!”

“And yet it’s coming across exactly like that, because in your bid to prove that to yourself, you’ve shut down to it all. You’re not facing it, Alena. And you’re trying to blow right past your grief too so you don’t feel it, that pain.”

I took his words in. His heavy fucking words.

And the fact that he was also telling me that being this way was hurting the men I loved, the men who’d become my family, those I cared about above all else.

Those I would do anything for.

Those that I needed to do anything for right now.

I scrubbed my hand over my face and turned away. “If I… if I do that, it’ll all come bleeding out and I might not be able to control it. Then I’ll just be a mess. Is that not weakness?”

“No,” a response came, vehemently.

But it wasn’t his.

I turned to see Talon had come out of the house.

As he strode toward us, he exchanged a chin lift with Orpheus, some sort of understanding passing between them.

Orpheus nodded and met him halfway.

“Thank you, baby bird,” he said, kissing his cheek, then heading on into the house.

Talon came to me, a sad smile on his face. “As he most often is—or as he’d say, always is—Ore is right about this, firecracker.”

“I know.”

“Yeah?” he asked tentatively.

I nodded.

“Come here,” he said, and took my hand, leading us over to a rockery wall where we took a seat.

He shifted slightly to face me. “You remember what I was like when we first met?”

“I do.”

“I was a miserable bastard weighed down by all the shit I tried to hold at bay, only putting rage out there. Shit, only actually allowing myself to feel that, and not all the rest. The weakness was me not being willing to deal with the pain behind all that anger.”

I nodded, taking his words in, feeling the truth to them, but also the weight they bore.

“I hear what you’re saying. You don’t want me to suffer through the same.”

“No fucking way. You deserve better than that, to have a better life, and the three of us want that for you so badly.” He laid his hand on mine, telling me imploringly, “And we want to be here for you, to help you in any way we can. We love you, Alena. You’re ours.”

“And I’m yours,” I told him, giving his hand a squeeze.

He smiled, but that brightness that usually went along with it when I spoke those sorts of words was diminished by the other subject matter infecting us, and he told me, “The thing is, we can’t be there for you properly if you don’t let us in, if you just shut down and numb yourself like you’ve been doing. If you need more time to be able to start to deal with this, let us know. I’ll fucking make Ore stand down on it, I’ll convince him. But if your plan is to never deal with it, that’s a major problem, you know?”

I sighed and pulled my hand away, then pushed off the wall, and started pacing. “Coming here… I wanted to be surrounded by my mom’s things, by all the memories of her that are throughout the house. And, as messed-up as it sounds, the fact that she was rarely ever around… it kind of enabled me to convince myself that it was still the case, that she wasn’t really gone.”

“I get it, I really do. I went through a similar thing after my parents died before I enrolled in Electi Academy.”

I smiled out at him sadly. “But she is gone. And I hate it. I hate that I had to stand there and watch her perish right in front of us. I hate that I couldn’t stop it. And I hate that we weren’t as close as I would’ve liked before that happened, before I lost her. Being up at Exemplar, it really brought it home to me. She hid so much of herself. Not even just from me, but from everyone. Even Elliot, the closest person to her. He had no idea she was just so done with everything, far too willing to lay down her own life.”

“Some people have a gift for hiding so much and the facade is all you get to see.”

“I don’t want to be like that with the three of you. I really don’t. And I guess it got away from me lately, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for checking out, except when it came to the physical side of things. I just… with my mom’s death, then what Constantine subjected me to… I want to cry, to scream, to break down, to rage… but I’m worried that if I open the door to it all, it will overwhelm me, that I won’t be able to stop or overcome all that pain and grief, or that I’ll rage out of control.”

He rose to his feet and came to me. “All of that is okay to do. That’s what we’re here for.”

I started shaking my head. “But the darkness in me… it’s fueled by things like this. If I let it out—”

“If you don’t, you could implode whether you like it or not. Choosing to do it, to face it, that gives you more control over it. And in the process, if you feel like you’re losing your grip on that, we’ll be here to prevent things from going too far, to bring you back.”

“I don’t know,” I murmured.

“Alena, if there’s anyone who understands walking that line, it’s the three of us. And look at X. He’s been struggling with the demon in him for years and it nearly broke him. Until Ore made him finally let it all out.”

“It was a game changer,” a familiar voice came from behind me.

As I turned to see Xavier standing there, I also caught sight of Orpheus over by the mansion entrance partially obscured by shadow.

He hadn’t walked away after all, he’d lingered.

He’d stayed.

To make sure I was okay.

Hoping that Talon would be able to get through to me, but not wanting to push it at the same time.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him feeling like he couldn’t push me. Him challenging me, us challenging each other, it was our thing. Our love language as Xavier had called it before. And it was also a real thrill to have that.

But lately, with everything that had happened, that had been missing.

Tonight when he’d urged me to prove it had been the closest he’d come to bringing that. But then he’d backed off.

As he made his way over, I stroked Xavier’s arm. “I know it was, sweet thing.”

The three of them were surrounding me then, eyeing me expectantly and a whole lot worriedly, clearly afraid that I’d keep going the easier route of remaining numb, shutting down, shutting them out.

“I’m sorry,” I told them. “I’m so sorry I’ve been like this for weeks on end, what you had to do to break me out of it… it’s messed up, and I don’t want to be like this anymore.” Warmth permeated my hands and I looked down to see my fingers sparking with my golden power, as I started to loosen my hold on everything I’d been holding back.

I stepped back away from them, sucking in a breath. “You’re right, I need to start letting it all out. Just… get back… I don’t know if…” I felt that heat building inside me, the kind that used to when I hadn’t used my power in a long time when I’d been denying my magical heritage and trying to assimilate as human.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Talon told me.

“We’re here with you through anything,” Xavier said.

“Let it out, little angel. We’ve got you.”

Their words rolled over me.

And as I approached that point where I knew I could still pull it back, where I could also shove down all the pain that begged for release, and had been for so long now, I didn’t take the out.

I squeezed my eyes shut and let it all flood me.

All the trials and tribulations of the last few months.

Struggling with my magic.

Being taken by Constantine.

Being abused and used by him.

The horror.

The torture.

The degradation.

The shame.

And then my mom.

Watching her dying before me.

The grief of having to live a life without her now.

As it all rushed out of me, so did my power.

It was so intense and overwhelming that it had me screaming as it threatened to tear me in two, as it threatened to break me.

But I didn’t balk.

I opened my eyes and watched as my golden power blasted from me like a vicious shockwave, ripping through the grounds, up into the sky, all around me, as I screamed and let myself feel everything I’d been holding at bay.

It reached the ward and I watched through the heart of it to see Xavier suddenly there, throwing up his hands, his magic streaming forth into the sky and creating a shimmering barrier to contain the damage. At the same time, phoenix fire swirled around me, holding back the onslaught on the ground. And then Orpheus was created a swirling purple storm encompassing us all as the final front.

Despite it all, a smile spread over my face.

They were amazing.

They were fighting for me, pulling on every ounce of their power to contain my celestial magic to make it safe for me to unleash like this.

To make it safe for me to let it all out.

My hands shook with the furor of it.

And knowing that, seeing that, it was the light that cut through the agony and sorrow.

My magic calmed, I calmed, the ferocity of it retreating.

And then I dropped my hands and pulled my power back.

I collapsed to my knees and emotion bled from me, pouring forth uncontrollably, like it had needed to do for too long.

Then I was sobbing, unable to stop the tears from falling.

And not wanting them to.

It was a relief like no other.

One I’d needed for weeks.

I felt arms around me, warmth nuzzling against me, and I looked out to see my men wrapping themselves around me, holding me through it.

I wasn’t alone.

And I loved them so much for making sure I knew that.