Wicked Heirs (Electi Academy #1)

11. ~Orpheus~

11

~Orpheus~

“So how does it feel?”

I turned from grabbing my glass of bourbon off the edge beside the waterfall and took Alena in again as we sat immersed in the warm water of the pool in the serene surroundings that I’d conjured when we’d woken up just a couple of hours after falling asleep. Her golden magic was lighting the area through the darkness, like golden fireflies floating all around the place.

We were both still extremely wired from what had happened between us. It was why we’d only been able to nap rather than sleep through the night.

So, I’d suggested this, the soothing and very calming waters in a quiet area at the far end of campus where very few ever ventured out to, Xavier and Talon being the only ones I’d taken out this far where we’d spent time within other illusions of mine and glamours chilling and experimenting with our magic and abilities. We didn’t just save that for Obsidian hosted parties or get-togethers.

Alena was absolutely stunning in a white crochet bikini, her pink hair wild and damp and her gorgeous blue eyes bright and shining with contentment—and a whole lot of carnal satisfaction, without a doubt.

“To be fucked by you?” she asked.

I took a sip of my bourbon. “I think you mean, fucked within an inch of your life. But, no, I already know how good that was for you.”

“You’re an arrogant shit and a half.”

“Right back at you. Good thing you really like that about me, isn’t it?”

Her lips quirked. “You’re right, I do.”

“Same, Alena.”

Beautiful, sexy, fierce Alena.

“But I meant, how does it feel to have let go of your fear of your magic and to be wielding it again?”

“Amazing, a little nerve-wracking, but also I’m proud that I was able to do it, and get back into it so easily.”

I smiled as she grabbed some more mini-marshmallows out of the bowl I’d conjured for her and munched away.

I swirled my bourbon around my glass. “And, just for the record, it was earth-shattering for me too,” I told her. “Beyond, actually.”

“Never slept with a Nephilim before, huh?”

“Well, they’re few and far between. And you?”

“No Dark Fae. No supernatural beings actually. Just humans.”

I stared at her in astonishment.

“What? You knew I was living amongst them, assimilating.”

“You would’ve had to tamper down so much about yourself to be with a human. Your strength, your power… so much.”

She shrugged. “It was what it was.” She smirked at me. “And I really don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’ve never had anyone meet my power so closely.”

“Well, I am stronger than most, even my own kind, as prince .”

“I definitely felt it last night.”

“Mmm, I can promise you that you will again very soon.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

I chuckled, then watched her float back and forth, dipping into the water and immersing her shoulders, then going back to rest against the water’s edge opposite me. We were a good ten feet apart. If we were any closer, there was no question that I would’ve already jumped her and fucked her under the waterfall. But this was about trying to come down from that and finally talking like actual people, not enemies.

“Are you protected?”

She frowned. “Protected?”

“Against pregnancy? We fucked in a dreamscape so it’s not possible to impregnate you in that situation, but outside of it is another story.”

“You’d have to rival my power to be able to get me pregnant.”

“I know,” I said, pointedly.

“Fine, your ego really doesn’t need to hear this, but, yeah, your power is insane. But it’s okay, I’m spelled. There’s, you know, a barrier to keep that from happening. Not even you can breach it.”

“All right. Just needed to check.”

Her gaze flicked to my IC Watch. “What is that? I see you wear it all the time.”

“It’s an interdimensional communicator that allows me to connect with my father all the way in the Dark Fae Realm. It’s called an IC Watch and it’s made by Sabre Tech .”

“Wow, that’s ingenious.”

“Yeah, that’s Elliot Sabre’s whole thing.”

I finished off my bourbon, then put my glass down on the side. “You haven’t unleashed your power all the way yet, haven’t reached your full potential.”

She swallowed some more marshmallows. “I have a long way to go before I’m even close to being ready to do that.”

“I don’t believe it’s as far away as you think. That storm you created… that takes magic-wielders years to learn. To come from a place of denying your heritage and barely using your magic and then be able to pull that off… it’s remarkable. Because you’ve been so isolated in the human world, then mostly kept at your family home before that, I don’t think you realize just what a miraculous achievement that was, especially when in comparison to other magical beings. The precision of it too, striking head-on on the first try… again, another level, Alena.”

She smiled at my compliments, even blushing a little and waving it off—literally.

I chuckled at this carefree and slightly bashful side of her, showing me inside her in ways I hadn’t been able to access before because she’d been closed to me with the hostile way things had started off. What I’d been able to garner about her had been from my own observations and my strong ability to read people well. But through that there were obviously things that were missed.

The levity subsided all too quickly as she said, “Abigail Rose isn’t afraid of the dark.”

I frowned. “You mean, magical corruption?”

A small nod was her only response.

She clearly didn’t like the subject matter, but now that I’d touched on it briefly it seemed she felt like she could actually head down that conversational path.

She definitely needed to, that much was clear.

She’d been bottling her fears where that was concerned up so much that she’d actually turned from her powers and abilities entirely.

She’d cut herself off from them and shut down as a result.

Talking to me was a lot different than talking to her mom who she saw as infallible and completely pure—completely incorruptible.

But me, I was born into darkness.

We were opposites in that respect—Xavier would be the best person to go to where concerns about control were the topic—but we were both bound by legacies. For my part, I wanted the Kingdom of the Dark Fae, but not in the way my father wished me to rule. And for Alena, it was clear she didn’t feel worthy and had convinced herself as such that she didn’t want it at all.

“Any being with power as great as hers is prone to magical corruption, because at that level they become automatically susceptible to it. So, yes, she must be fearful of it. I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t be, for good sense alone.”

“Maybe,” she murmured. “But I struggle more than I should. It’s my human side, something she doesn’t have to contend with.”

“I think it’s more than that.”

She eyed me curiously. “Like what?”

“Like Constantine Vale.”

“What?” she asked, with a shudder, just like the last time I’d brought him up.

“He got inside your head.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard what he said to you when I was in your dream, which was more of a precise recollection than the wanderings of your subconscious.”

She shoved a hand through her pink hair. “He was so sure that my power had such staggering potential for darkness that he was prepared to stand against the likes of my mom and take me for himself. That’s no small thing. And he recognized it right away, like it was so obvious that it was a given. When it comes to knowledge and experience, he’s right up there with the best, like your father, my mother, and Xavier’s father.”

“I understand why it shook you, especially coming from him, somebody who was corrupted, combined with his surety, but nothing is a given. You also need to recognize that he had his own agenda. Acquiring celestial magic would have been a mammoth achievement and if he’d been able to control it through controlling you, he could have become virtually unstoppable.”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding to herself as she absorbed my words. “I hear you.”

She took a moment, then floated toward me. “Do you believe it’s inevitable?”

“What’s that?” I asked, as she reached me and I slid my hands to her hips, holding her to me.

As soon as we touched skin-to-skin, it was trying just to leave it at that, as heat rolled through me.

It was true what they said about sparks flying between those attracted to one another—deeply fucking attracted. And in our case those sparks were all the more intense and could quite easily be literal also.

I swallowed down that need that threatened to get the best of me, and focused on what she was saying, hating the pain and worry there all over her gorgeous face as she uttered words that had clearly haunted her for too long, “For some beings to succumb to darkness? No matter how much they try, how much they don’t want it?”

“No,” I answered firmly.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Just like that?”

“It’s about strength of will, little angel,” I said, sliding my hand into her hair, eliciting a soft moan from her as I stroked the strands softly.

The urge to fist it and use it as leverage to jerk her ever closer and slam my mouth to hers was nearly overwhelming.

As Dark Fae, especially prince, I was known for possessing a powerful allure, but hers was another level to me.

Alena Rose called to me in an inexplicable way.

In the most all-consuming way.

A way that made me feel powerful and vulnerable at the same time.

It was unnerving to say the least.

But staying away as had been my strategy after what had been happening recently, just wasn’t possible. I’d entered her dream to make sure she was all right after what had transpired between her and Talon, and then to tell her the vendetta was ending, that she wouldn’t be bothered anymore.

To say that hadn’t exactly panned out was a hell of an understatement.

But in the best way.

I’d made her mine last night.

I’d claimed her body, mind, and trust.

Well, the latter would take a little more work, given the fucked-up and volatile way things had been between us since she’d started here at Electi Academy.

“You possess a great deal of mental fortitude, Alena. You were thrown into an unwanted and foreign situation and not only didn’t you balk, but you stood tall. You were fierce and forthright.” I pressed my free hand over her heart, trying to ignore the feel of her pulse speeding up at my touch. “ This even managed to affect a stone-cold, previously impenetrable bastard like me. As I state often when it comes to you, that’s no small thing.”

She beamed up at me and pushed her hot little body into mine, her bikini bottoms brushing against the hard-on in my purple boardshorts. Damn. “You do state it often, huh?” she said in a teasing tone, rubbing my arms and fingering my biceps. “If I didn’t know better I’d swear the infamous Dark Fae Prince is majorly impressed with me.”

“ Majorly impressed? Well, that might be overstating it.”

We both chuckled and I leaned down to kiss her—and to do a whole lot more than that—when commotion coming through the trees pulled us both up short.

No sooner had I registered it—far too late for me, because of my distracted state—than Talon burst from the trees.

He thrust his hands forward, his phoenix fire unleashing and aiming right for Alena.

I moved to react only to be beaten to it by a shield of blue fire suddenly shooting up between him and her.

His fire slammed into it and I heard a grunt a moment before Xavier rematerialized from a cloaked state, grimacing and holding both hands up to hold back the extraordinarily powerful flames of a phoenix. An irate phoenix at that.

“Enough!” I yelled over to Talon.

“Yeah, you think so?” he bit back fiercely. “After I woke up looking for you, needing you, I find you out here in this shit-tastic show with her? Our fucking enemy! The girl responsible for killing my parents?”

“She’s not our enemy. We talked about that last night and we were going to solidify it later today.”

“I let you control and dominate everything! But not this! You don’t get to control this! Not when it comes to my parents, Orpheus!”

“I can’t hold this much longer,” Xavier called to us, his foot slipping a little, his hands shaking against the violence of phoenix fire slamming against his shield.

“You’re going to hurt him!” Alena called out to Talon. “One of your best friends!”

“You don’t speak to me!” he yelled back at her. Looking at Xavier, he said, “Drop the shield before you do get hurt. How are you even doing this at all? It’s phoenix fire.”

“Angel blood.”

Shock infiltrated Talon’s features. “You… what? You fed from her?”

“He needed help,” Alena told him.

He scoffed. “And you just offered it up? Just like that?”

“Yes.” She pulled herself out of the pool. “Now, we’re done with this.”

As soon as she was out and standing upright, she shot her palm out, her gold magic streaming forth right at him and forming a dome around him. The moment it was erected, it snuffed out his flames.

I watched, awestruck, as he went to call them again, but nothing but sputters happened.

“Argh!” he cried, slamming against the dome trapping him.

Xavier blew out a breath of relief and dropped his power.

With a snap of her fingers and a brief spark of gold, Alena was wrapped in the turquoise and gold satin robe she had been when we’d first woken up earlier and come down here, before I’d conjured her a bikini. In the next beat, I had my purple long-sleeve tee covering my bare chest, along with a pair of leather pants. And we were both bone dry.

Then she swept a stream of gold over my illusion, collapsing it in moments and returning it to a clearing in the woods at the edge of campus.

“Are you okay?” she asked Xavier, walking to him and looking him over worriedly.

“I’ll be fine, beautiful.” He looked between us. “As I can see you are, even in Orpheus’ presence now.”

“It was an unexpected development,” she told him.

Unexpected was one way to put it and not the word I would have used.

Inevitable was more like it.

And that was really saying something seeing as though I didn’t believe in fate or that sort of thing in the least. I was all about carving out my own life using my own well-determined and strategized actions, and making my own choices.

Hence why I was here at Electi Academy and not back in the Dark Fae Realm learning under my father’s tutelage.

Well, one of the reasons why I was here.

Alena spun to face me. “Show Talon the truth.”

I walked to her. “You want me to go inside your head? It’s more invasive than entering your dream like I did last night.”

“You did what?” Xavier bit out.

“It’s fine, it worked out,” Alena told him.

“No, it certainly isn’t fine . The fact he’s got you thinking that is beyond.” He eyed me, basically seething at what he viewed as a major violation.

He really was so innocent sometimes.

There was no perfect in our world.

There was no black and white.

Everything was gray.

I held up my hand. “Later.”

“You better believe it,” he ground out.

I gestured at Talon who was raging completely, slamming against Alena’s dome over and over again, roaring out into the night. “He’s our focus right now. Calming him down. Taking the edge off for him, something I’m sure you can agree that he needs so badly.”

“Fine, but I’ll anchor your spell.”

“You don’t trust me now? Is that where we’re at?”

“Not when it comes to her. Can you honestly tell me that you trust yourself with her?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to do what needed to be done, at least for the moment, with the two of them questioning me when it came to this, and deny their accusations that I wasn’t thinking straight—or in my usual cold and rational way—when it came to Alena.

But then she stepped into the fray, done with our shit, and demanding, “Let’s do this. As much as he pissed me off for coming at me, I don’t like seeing people suffer, and all the while he’s raging like that, he is.” She winced. “All that pain… it’s too much for him to hold onto for so long.”

And there was the angel in her.

That care in the face of horrendous things.

That purity of heart.

She hid it behind a defensive and forthright approach, because she was definitely no fool, but that softer side was clearly still there, and strong at that.

As she stepped up to the dome, Xavier and I joined her with me ignoring his glares and disapproval and working on centering my mind for the spell I was about to perform.

He held out his hands to her. “I’ll ground your mind to ensure the search is smooth and not lingering, and that it’s only directed to the moment Talon needs to see. The rest won’t be exposed to him or to Orpheus as he searches. Basically, it will be blurred from their view.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Are you sure you can hold your magic steady?” I asked him.

Ever since he’d been turned, it had been unstable in that regard.

“I can now,” he told me with a glint in his eye.

Ah, angel blood.

“All right. Ready, little angel?”

After she gave a nod, I stepped up behind her and pressed my palms to either side of her head.

“Relax for me, let me in,” I breathed at her ear. “It’s important you don’t react in any sort of intense way or it’ll taint the spell like it did last time.”

She sucked in a breath. “I know and I’m okay, I’m calm.”

I took her words in, then gave Xavier a chin lift, signaling him to anchor her.

As soon as I saw his vibrant cobalt-blue glow emanating between their joined hands and heard a serene moan escape her as she felt his magic flow into her, I began my part.

I closed my eyes as I streamed my magic carefully, searching Alena’s mind.

She was doing exactly what I needed, guiding me along, clearing the rest of her thoughts out to make an easy path for me.

I reached the memory we needed not moments later.

Two trees were on fire and so much worse than that was the sight of two people bound opposite one another and being ravaged by said flames.

“Break the dome,” I told her. “Now,” I grunted at trying to hold a memory steady like this for more than a few seconds. It wasn’t something I’d done before, and it was taxing on my body and power alike.

I felt the soft heat of her magic then, followed by Talon’s roar coming closer.

I shot out my hand, opening my eyes and grasping him by the throat just before he could slam into her in a lunging attack.

My purple shimmering glow held him still and then he was jolting as I took Alena’s memory I was holding steady and fed it into his consciousness.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“Sorry for—ah! No!”

He was seeing his parents dying, being burned alive.

He had to, he wouldn’t believe me otherwise.

He wouldn’t believe her.

He squeezed his eyes shut as I carefully gave him the whole memory, the entire picture of what had taken place that day.

When I was done, I pulled my power back and so did Xavier, and we watched as Talon just remained standing there with his eyes shut.

“Constantine used black magic to force my mom to unleash her phoenix fire while he had them bound together. He made her burn my father alive and then… what I heard about later from the autopsy… he used an iron blade to destroy their ashes with black magic so they couldn’t resurrect,” he uttered.

Tears started to fall, rolling down his face.

And then he collapsed to his knees and let out an awful agonized cry that cut painfully through the night.

Finally, he was letting it all out.

After all this time.