Wicked Heirs (Electi Academy #1)

32. ~Talon~

“He still hasn’t called. Hasn’t mind-linked. Hasn’t… anything,” Xavier was muttering as he paced up and down our covert spot at the edge of the campus forest.

“He’s the most powerful sorcerer in the world,” Alena reminded him.

“That doesn’t matter when going up against hellfire,” Ore spoke from where he was leaning against a tree a few feet away and stroking the piece of his father’s wing.

“Orpheus,” Alena warned.

We were trying to comfort and calm X, not rile him up even more than he already was after his dad had hung up on him to take on the acolytes seeking to release Constantine, then hadn’t called him back or answered any of X’s attempts to contact him in the hours since.

We’d been up all night with him, waiting on some news.

We’d made an agreement that if we didn’t hear in one more hour, Alena would contact her mom to find out that way.

I felt sick with it, because I remembered three years ago when I’d gotten word that something had happened to my parents. It had taken hours before I’d found out the whole deal, that they’d actually been killed. Exemplar had been so slow to inform me because they’d been in the heat of the Cataclysm.

Was that what was going on now? Was it happening all over again? Was that monster free?

I rubbed my hand over my hair.

All of this, with their fathers, was bringing back everything with my parents.

And I felt for them, so fucking deeply.

Alena was trying so hard to keep morale up and to comfort them at the same time, but it was a losing battle with the weight of it all, the stakes involved.

“I can’t pretend, Alena,” Orpheus spoke, pushing off the tree and finally coming over to us, not distancing himself since we’d headed out here to get X some fresh air and trying to provide him some sort of distraction all at once. The latter hadn’t worked out one little bit. “There’s just reality right now. Something we all need to face.”

“There’s a difference between facing it and ramming it down someone’s throat,” she retorted.

Things were so dire that I didn’t even have the wherewithal to run with the ramming it down someone’s throat innuendo.

“If he was dead, I’d know,” X suddenly stated, pulling us all up short at the blunt brutality of his words. “I’d feel it.”

Before anything more could be said, a whirring siren erupted, tearing through the entire campus like a foghorn on steroids.

“The threat alert,” Ore said.

We all exchanged a dire look.

And then we rushed from the forest and back toward the main building.

We took in the students hightailing it into the buildings, people looking all around, trying to locate the threat the siren was warning of.

All I could see was heavy smoke.

Unnaturally heavy smoke.

We made it into the main building, Ore and me side-by-side at the front and X holding Alena’s hand at the rear as we rushed down the corridors, headed for the main entrance doors.

We burst out to see the courtyard already emptied.

“The smoke,” I called as I saw it dissipate and a single being there over by the gates, a hand pressed to the dome that was now visible as his crimson magic touched it.

Dressed all in black—tough, worn leather pants and an open-collared shirt, a cloak billowed around him. Creepy, almost white eyes sent a shudder through me.

Constantine Vale in the flesh.

“Holy shit,” I rasped.

No.

The dome shuddered, flickering in and out of being.

“He’s siphoning it,” Xavier said.

“Using extreme black magic to achieve such a thing without being a natural siphon,” Orpheus told us.

I saw Alena shudder and Xavier wrap his arm around her. “Oh my God. He’s here. He’s free.”

“Get inside!” someone called, and I craned my neck to see Professor Targus trying to usher us inside with the others.

The dome shattered, drawing our attention.

And then Constantine blasted through the gates like they were nothing, turning them to kindling.

We all turned to rush into the building where I could see some of the professors within conjuring another protective ward.

But just as we were about to step inside, we were wrenched back by Constantine’s magic and dragged halfway across the courtyard, just a few feet from him.

He released us and I looked to see him fire a bolt of his magic at the main building, effectively magically sealing it and keeping them back.

I seethed at him, “Psychopath. Get gone. You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere.”

The monster bared his teeth in a wide, creepy smile as he took all four of us in.

“Ah, my special creations. It’s been so long.”

“Creations?” Orpheus spat. “What are you talking about?”

He gestured at Alena, “I had the phoenix’s parents murdered near you so you’d unleash the dark side of your magic, priming you nicely for me.” He eyed me. “And I wanted you vengeful and to tap into all that rage. It’s the source of your greater power.” He gestured at Xavier. “And creating you speaks for itself. You’re my heir now, sireling.” He smirked at Orpheus. “And ruining your father through making him believe he could actually double cross me cast you out of his suffocating control wherein you became your own man and explored the full breadth of your power.” He rubbed his hands together. “Mmm, so much careful manipulation, but it paid off. Look at you now, all drawn together. By me. By my actions. You are my heirs.”

“The fuck we are,” I snarled. “You murdered my parents, now you’ll die by their creation.”

He laughed derisively. “There’s that delicious rage. Perfect. That’s it, embrace it, baby phoenix. I have great plans for all that raw fury. For all of you.”

“You’re demented, completely unhinged,” Alena spoke for the first time since she’d laid eyes on him, the bastard who’d caused her to stop using her magic for years on end.

“I’m afraid not. You will all fulfill your respective roles in my plans.” His eyes flamed as he eye-fucked her. “You first, darling princess.”

He was right in front of Alena with a burst of vampire speed like none of us had ever seen before.

We couldn’t even react before he dropped his fangs, fisted her hair and buried them in her throat.

She screamed as he drew brutally hard.

I started forward, unfurling my wings, intending to rush him with the full force of my phoenix speed.

But Orpheus was there first, firing a bolt of his purple magic that slammed into Constantine’s gut and blew him back several feet.

Xavier was there in the next moment, taking hold of Alena with one arm and using the other to heal her bite wound with his magic.

As he frantically checked her and asked her if she was okay, Constantine grinned and made a show of licking her blood off his lips.

“The best I’ve ever had,” he taunted.

The three of us snarled back at him.

“How chivalrous. You’ve made the angel yours, it seems.” His eyes narrowed. “It’s a shame for you that it can’t remain as such.”

“Go to hell,” Alena rasped.

“Already done, princess. Now it’s our time.”

“Ours?”

“You. Are. Mine.”

“The fuck she is!” I yelled.

Orpheus stepped up to him, just a few feet out. “You’ll die here today before you touch her again.”

“Such hubris, Dark Fae Prince. Just like your father. He’s adjusting nicely to his time with my friends. He won’t give me his screams yet. Stubbornness clearly runs in the family. But it won’t be long now.”

With a roar, Orpheus thrust his palms out, delivering two blasts of his magic.

Shocking us all, Constantine caught them in his palms.

Even as they burned his skin, he allowed it and let out an orgasmic noise, getting off on it. “Mmm… your darkness is primed. Tantalizing.”

Orpheus went at him again, but Constantine reacted with his vampiric reflexes and threw Ore’s own magic back at him.

Thankfully, all his time spent training in combat served him well and he managed to anticipate it and dive out of the way even in spite of Constantine’s speed.

“Nicely done,” the creepy bastard told him in a freakishly proud way.

I fired a stream of my phoenix fire at him.

He reacted so quickly, throwing up his hand and conjuring a black shimmering shield, stopping it in its tracks.

“How the shit?” I grunted, pushing harder.

“Pull back, Tal!” X cried. “He’s using black magic!”

I watched in horror as black specks infected my stream of fire, traveling along it.

I dropped my hand, my fire sputtering out, and then a bolt of his magic came firing my way.

X was there just in time, tackling me to the ground, out of range.

As Alena ran into the fray, calling her power, Constantine tossed something her way.

As it hit and the blurring motion stilled, I managed to catch sight of them.

Two black bands that encircled her wrists, making her magic sputter out. She screamed as they burned into her flesh, and then she was collapsing to her knees.

“Stop!” X and I yelled.

Purple fire smacked into Constantine’s chest, knocking him back, and then Orpheus was there, standing in front of us, both palms flaming with his power.

He thrust his hand behind him, a bolt hitting the barrier Constantine had erected that was keeping the rest of the Academy trapped inside.

As it hit, my breath caught in my throat when I saw black sparks traveling along Ore’s usual purple fire. They started eating at Constantine’s barrier, bit by bit, while the purple aspect forced open the gaps that it made all the wider, trying to speed up the process and working in concert.

He hadn’t.

He hadn’t just fucking used black magic.

He must’ve gathered some from Constantine as he’d been unleashing it in various ways.

I didn’t get the chance to focus on it, as Constantine struck Ore in the gut with a brutal blow of the nasty stuff.

It propelled him into the air, all the way into a tree in the distance.

I winced as he smacked against it painfully, the tree ripping from its roots at the brutal impact.

He ricocheted off it and landed on his front.

And he didn’t move.

“Ore!” I screamed.

Constantine vamped right in front of me in the next second.

He shot out his hand and wrapped it around my throat, hauling me off my feet.

Before I could call my fire, X was there, but Constantine was so much faster than him, and then he suffered the same fate, the fucker holding us off the ground and choking us out.

I heard the doors rattling to the main building, the surge of magic, as the faculty tried to free themselves, trying to finish off what Ore had started.

While X struggled, I was being choked out, not being a vampire and all that.

X tried to call his magic, but Constantine put up a shield without even using his hands to conjure it, just by sheer force of will.

I slashed my talons across his skin, but all I got was him getting off on the pain again.

Shit.

I heard a grunt from Alena behind us, but neither of us could turn around to see what was going on.

What I did see was Constantine’s eyes widening.

Was that actually fear there in his gaze?

I didn’t get to figure it out as in the next second, a scream sounded from Alena, a moment before a tidal wave of blindingly bright golden light tore through the area.

Constantine roared in actual agony this time.

I was vaguely aware of him losing his grip around my throat.

And that was the last thing I registered before blackness engulfed me.

To be continued in CURSED HEIRS