Wicked Heirs (Electi Academy #1)

30. ~Orpheus~

30

~Orpheus~

A sense of foreboding flooded the office of Dean Bronson.

It really wasn’t helped by the urgency coming off both her and Marlowe.

And then there was Cornwell sending me worried and sympathetic discreet looks.

At least the latter was a warning that I needed to prepare myself.

The attitude from them all had already ruled out that the dean and the faculty, outside of Cornwell, knew about the mission at hand.

No, this was something else.

I’d only walked into her office a few moments ago and taken a seat as Marlowe had moved to stand in his usual rigid and ready-for-anything pose to her right, while Cornwell was just to my right, perched on the edge of her desk close enough to me that if he moved a couple of inches, our knees would brush.

It had been days since our encounter in the showers and this was the first time we’d seen each other since then, so that after-fucking tension was there hanging in the air between us.

“Swallow me whole, Professor.”

“You’ll moan, beg, and scream for me. You’ll shatter in ecstasy as I play your pretty body to my will.”

Fortunately, we were both excellent at hiding our emotions and reactions from others. Even if we hadn’t been, in this case, I believed it would still go unnoticed by Bronson and Marlowe with how uppity they were right now by whatever they’d called me in here to discuss.

“What’s the issue?”

Did they know about Obsidian’s activities here? Had one of the students reported it? Was that why Cornwell was here too? Had Marlowe’s claim that it was about my father really meant that he’d been called and brought in to handle it, to handle me ?

All of those questions were answered in the next second when the dean informed me, “Your father has been reported missing.”

I froze.

What?

“He’s King of the Dark Fae, he can’t simply go missing.”

Cornwell gave the two of them a disgruntled look. “Just tell him how it really is. Don’t sugarcoat it. He deserves to know the whole truth.”

Marlowe and Bronson hesitated and exchanged a concerned look.

And in the moment I saw it—they were afraid of what I might do.

Afraid of my power.

Cornwell stepped up, as he had with everything since I’d known him, and gave it to me straight, telling me, “Saryan Hart was taken two days ago. He missed several meetings in that time and we were able to confirm with his Court that he’s been taken. Exemplar was called once word spread and they’re in the process of investigating now, running down a couple of leads that were provided by his guards.” He gestured at Marlowe, “Hence, his presence here in this meeting.”

“You visited him recently,” Marlowe said. “Is there anything you learned while there, anything Saryan might have conveyed to you that could assist, a threat he was concerned about, perhaps? A covert meeting he was attending? He’s known for conducting meetings of the sort, it’s possible it backfired on him this time, that he bit off more than he could chew?”

“More than he could chew?” I scoffed. “You were in my father’s Court for a long time, the Commander of his army, do you really believe there’s anything Saryan Hart can’t handle?”

“Normally, no.”

“Aside from Exemplar , at least,” Dean Bronson spoke. She shook her head in dismay. “Going against them was a foolish move that cost him so much. Perhaps, this situation is another akin to that?”

I grasped the underside of my chair, digging my nails into the hard material and puncturing it in the process as I fought not to show my indignation on my face or in an emotional retort. That wouldn’t help anything. And it would liken me to my father in their eyes, something that wouldn’t go down well and would put me under heavy watch here as a result.

No, they had to trust me.

They had to believe I was the manufactured version of myself that I’d created upon coming here.

Not the real me.

“You’re right,” I lied. “It could be possible. Just… admitting it… it’s not easy, knowing my father has been kidnapped, what he could be enduring, and the awful—”

“We’ll get him back, Orpheus,” Marlowe cut in.

“I know. I just wish I had something to tell you that could help. But you know how my father favored his many secrets. Even from me. When I went to visit him, it was merely to discuss my progress here at Electi Academy and him pushing me to leave before my final year to be trained by him as his heir apparent. Of course, I refused. That’s not the path for me.”

“All right, thank you, Orpheus,” the dean then spoke. “Rest assured that your father will be found. Exemplar is investigating as we speak. As for you, I must refuse any requests for you to venture beyond campus, in case this is a targeted attack against the royal bloodline and not just your father. We will shield you here. You will be safe.”

“We’ll keep you abreast of any developments,” Marlowe promised me.

I rose to my feet. “I appreciate it.” Shaking each of their hands in turn, I told them, “I trust in you and Exemplar. I know you’ll find him and I trust you’ll protect me in the meantime.”

They smiled as I’d told them exactly what they’d wanted to hear. Their body language was far too communicative, making them easy to manipulate.

I turned to Cornwell and took his hand also. “You too, Professor.”

“Of course. We’d do nothing less.”

I felt a push at my mind and I opened to it, recognizing it as his touch there.

“The alcove. North side of the quad. Approach from separate routes.”

“Got it.”

With that, I bid them all farewell, then walked out of the office, and made my way to the meeting place Cornwell had just given.

My father had been taken? The almighty Saryan Hart?

It didn’t compute.

But it sure as fuck had kicked in. It had taken everything I’d had to fake it in there as my gut had twisted and emotion had threatened to clog my throat and get the best of me.

It had to be the acolytes.

It fucking had to be.

The timing was far too coincidental.

How had he let this happen, though?

Had he really lost his stealthy and strategic approach and gone in with proverbial guns blazing?

Fuck.

As my mind went a million miles a minute thinking about what he might be enduring now, what this kidnapper’s intent was, I was caught off guard when I realized I was suddenly right upon the alcove.

I almost walked right past it, until a hand shot out and grasped my arm, then yanked me inside it.

My back hit the wall and then Cornwell was there, his body pressing against mine in the tight space.

“I’m so sorry,” he told me.

“I need to corrupt Exemplar’s investigation or they’ll put the pieces together and figure out what he was really up to. And then finding him will flip right to hunting him.”

“You intend to find him yourself?”

“It’s the only way.”

“I’ve run a tracking spell already and it slammed up against a wall, meaning his kidnapper is keeping him cloaked, so other means will be needed.”

“I can trace his steps from the moment he left the DFR, using my blood link to him.”

“Ingenuous.” He grasped my chin with his thumb and index finger, guiding my gaze to his. “I shouldn’t have expected anything less, pretty prince.”

“Hmm, you think I’m on edge, that I need your special brand of soothing therapy.”

“No, I can feel you’re in control, despite the circumstances. Yet, why relegate our sessions to mere therapeutic need?”

I started.

He wanted more?

I really hadn’t seen that coming.

Then again, we both played things close to the vest.

He leaned in to brush his lips over mine, but I turned my head away, making him release my jaw in the process. “I need to see Alena. She doesn’t know what’s going on, she’ll be worried. And then I need to figure out covert passage out of here so I can get out there and find my father, covering up what he was up to in the meantime before Exemplar sets upon the scene and all hell breaks loose.”

Disappointment marred his features, but he stepped back so his hard body was no longer pushing against mine, and he shrugged off the sentiment and told me, “I’ll facilitate your passage. In fact, I’ll come with you.”

“The hell, you will,” a familiar voice came from just outside the alcove, and I swung my head to see none other than Talon stepping from the shadows and coming into view.

“Baby bird, what are you—”

“Professor, your pretty prince doesn’t need any more of your help. We’ve got it. As a team. Like we always do and always have.” He basically spat. “And always will.”

Fuck. He knew. Talon knew about Cornwell and I.

“I know his huge cock is beyond addictive, but you never should’ve set eyes—or hands—on it in the first place. You’re a professor, tens of years his senior. You should fucking well know better. Now get the fuck out of his vicinity before I report you and this whole fucked-up bullshit situation.”

“Talon,” I growled in warning.

“No! No standing down from me this time just because you demand it.” He glared at Cornwell. “Not on this.”

“Callum, it’s okay, I—”

He held up his hand to me. “It’s fine. The phoenix is worked up as usual. Par for the course with their kind.”

Talon started toward him, but I threw out my arm, blocking his path.

Cornwell reached out and brushed his fingers through my hair. “You need me, I’m around. Understood?”

I nodded, and then he exchanged fierce, uncompromising glares with Talon, before teleporting out.

“Piece of shit,” Tal seethed. “We’ll get into that shit-fest later. But for now, Alena mentioned something is up, so I’m here. What’s the deal?”

“My father. He’s been taken.”

I’d never seen him so shocked in all the time that I’d known him.

Circling the wagons.

That was what we’d done as soon as we’d teleported from the alcove to my chambers.

Well, what my baby bird had done for me.

He was afraid for me.

Afraid I’d end up like him, losing my father.

I couldn’t deny that I was above thinking that either.

But I couldn’t allow too much of that, I had to focus.

I had to pull on all the reason and logic at my disposal and squash the emotion threatening to rise up and piss all over it.

My father needed me to bring it now.

Nothing less would suffice.

I looked around the room at Talon, Alena, and even Xavier, gathered around.

Here for me.

Supporting me.

Our foursome in all its glory.

It had been fractured recently, so seeing this now, it was something else, and it meant a lot.

Meant a lot? I was headed to an emotional place again.

My father could certainly have that impact on me. Especially in this case, with what we were dealing with here—him needing me like never before, him actually in a helpless state.

I gritted my teeth, then focused on watching Xavier’s reaction as I drew the blade across my open palm, spilling blood from first one, then the other.

He hissed and his fangs dropped.

Just like angel blood, Dark Fae blood was absolutely intoxicating to vampires.

“All right, sweet thing?” Alena asked, worriedly.

Surprising me, he actually kept it together better than he ever had done before, his eyes flaming with his cobalt-blue power, a moment before his fangs retracted and so did the demon as a whole.

He sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah. Fine. All fine.”

“Impressive,” I told him.

He shrugged. “Just a good day, I guess. Also, I just fed ten minutes ago.”

No, it was more than that.

And judging by how he’d quickly blown it off as nothing, it leant weight to him being up to something.

Alas, I didn’t have time to venture down that path at the moment.

Talon stepped between the three of us and unfolded the mammoth map of the human realm that included portals to the Fae Kingdoms and the Dragon Empire too. I needed to track my father right from the edge of the Dark Fae Realm portal. “Ready?” he asked us.

Alena nodded and grasped my bloodied left hand.

“Let’s begin,” Xavier said, taking my right hand, my blood seeping through his fingers.

Even touching it and feeling the sticky warmth on his bare skin, he kept it together.

Yeah, something strange was definitely going on with him.

Fortunately, it suited our immediate situation.

“Ready?” I asked him. “This is gonna take a lot of magic and focus.”

“I’ve got it,” he assured me, giving my hand a squeeze.

“Thank you, X.”

“Of course. It’s your father. You’d do the same for me.”

I smiled.

And then I looked to Alena. “Prepared, little angel?”

She nuzzled my cheek. “Good to go, Dark Prince.”

A chuckle escaped me.

Even somehow despite everything she was able to bring that out in me.

The boys caught my eye and grinned.

The effect she had on us… it was unbelievable.

Magnificent.

We began the spell and I felt the strain of it instantly until the two of them joined me, pooling our power together as one, using my blood both as a conduit to do so and also to search out my father using my familial blood link to him.

We were searching such a vast area that it took a lot of juice.

I watched a thread of blue, purple, and gold start moving across the map, getting a lock on my father when he’d left the DFR, then tracking his movements from that point onward.

It started moving all over, back and forth, around and around.

Fuck. He’d been all over searching for the acolytes and the Vitalium.

“Shit, this looks like days’ worth of movements,” Talon spoke.

“It is,” I confirmed.

“This is going to take forever,” X pointed out.

“Let go,” Alena said.

“What?” I asked.

“Both of you let go. I have an idea.”

In the next moment, X’s hand left me and as I went to do the same with Alena, she grabbed my hand, then licked my palm, lapping up my blood.

“Hell,” Xavier choked.

“Instantly hard, huh?” Tal said.

“He’s not the only one. Fuck me, woman.”

She gave us a withering look. “You were leading the spell. With me now taking it over, I need a stronger blood connection, hence me ingesting it.” She grinned at us. “Get a grip, guys.”

“Shit,” Talon said. “We’ve been told, brothers.”

She rolled her eyes, then squared her shoulders and flipped her palms down, her golden glow emanating.

I watched her eyes spark brightly with the same gold, and then she thrust her hands forward and a massive surge of her magic swept across the entire map, the ferociousness of it lighting up my whole suite, the three of us wincing at the brightness.

“There!” she cried in triumph after a few moments.

She pulled her magic back and then the bright light dissipated and we were able to see a swirling golden circle around a particular point on the map. “That’s the final place we can track him to. Before his captors cloaked him clearly.”

I moved closer to the map, taking it in. “A cathedral?”

“That’s crazy blasphemous if that’s where he found the acolytes holed up,” Tal said.

“Only one way to find out,” Alena said. “My blood will enable us to pass through the ward around the Academy.”

I nodded, then held out my hands. “Time for our own investigation.”

The three of them gathered around me, taking hold of me, then I teleported us straight to the site.

We rematerialized just outside the entrance doors to an old, dilapidated cathedral that clearly wasn’t in use anymore.

There was nothing around it either, just wild grass and fields. I remembered from the map that there was a small town down the road a couple of miles away.

“X,” I called.

He nodded and concentrated, reaching out with his vampiric senses.

“It’s empty,” he confirmed. “No one inside.” But then he grimaced.

“What?” Tal asked him.

“There’s a lot of blood.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, his upset clear. For me, I realized, when he said, “Dark Fae blood.”

Fuck.

Emotion finally got the best of me and I bolted up the broken stone steps and shoved open the double entrance doors, and barreled inside.

I felt the three of them at my back as I took in the immediate surroundings of the cathedral floor.

A choked sound left me when I saw the blood all over the pews and down the gangway.

But what really had my stomach roiling were the scorch marks all over the white walls and then the piles of ash over by the altar.

“Oh my God,” I heard Alena gasp.

“Fucking shit,” Tal uttered.

I made a beeline for the altar and took in the ash, counting over a dozen piles.

Xavier was there with me in a burst of vampire speed.

He called his magic and then he ran his blue glow over each one of them, reeling off the names of my father’s guards, as his spell put an identity to the ashes.

“He’s not here,” he told me. “Your father isn’t among them, Orpheus.”

“He wasn’t killed, he really was taken then,” Tal said, coming up to us, along with Alena just behind him.

“We’ll find him,” she said, wrapping her arm around me and giving me the comfort I really needed so badly.

“This damage,” Tal said. “It could only be caused by two things—phoenix fire or hellfire.”

“The acolytes are in possession of a Hellborn,” Xavier realized.

“My father’s Hellborn,” I said.

“Fuck me,” Xavier exclaimed.

Yeah, this was bad. Really fucking bad.

“With the Hellborn in play and clearly in the acolytes’ hands, my father, at the very least—if not Abigail and the rest of Exemplar— needs to know,” Xavier spoke.

“He’s right,” Alena agreed.

“He’s protected Saryan from Exemplar’s wrath before,” X went on. “Kept certain things off the books.”

He was right, he had. Elliot Sabre had a soft spot for my father, and vice-versa.

“Yeah. Notify him,” I said.

Talon gave my shoulder a squeeze. “It’s for the best.”

I looked up at the dome ceiling and frowned, taking in the specific way it was broken. “He tried to fly away,” I murmured.

I walked the few feet away until I was standing right under the dome and that was when I saw it, something that churned my stomach.

I heard a gasp from Tal as he noticed it too.

Crouching down, I snatched it up from the ground.

A charred and bloodied piece of my father’s wing.

“He tried to fly away,” I found myself repeating. “They stopped him with the Hellborn. Severing a piece of a Dark Fae’s wings… the agony would be horrific.”

“He’s strong,” X said, crouching down in front of me.

“Yeah, he’s one badass motherfucker, Ore.”

A surge of magic caught all four of us off guard, rolling through us.

Xavier and Talon reached out with their senses, then reported that it was Exemplar arriving, as per their investigation.

“We can’t let them find us here,” Alena said.

“Yeah, we need to go,” Talon agreed. When I didn’t respond, urgency spilled from him and he grasped my shoulder. “Now, brother.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, registering what they were urging.

Fuck.

I pocketed the wing, a growl rumbling from my throat as I stared at the scene, eyes narrowing to slits.

“This means war.”