Page 116 of Wicked Heirs

Orpheus told me, “Her classes ended an hour ago.”

“Well, maybe she had something else to do afterward. Practicing her magic, for instance?”

“She practices it right here,” Xavier said.

“She could have decided to switch it up—maybe she headed to the turrets now after you took her there the other day.”

The two of them exchanged a look and I saw them recognize the validity of my theory.

“Fuck,” Orpheus uttered. He’d finished up and I watched him pull his magic back and observe what he’d created, before eyeing me and saying, “I’ll fly over there and check.”

X shook his head. “Just give it a little more time. Tracking her down for our date would definitely take the romance out of it.”

“I see,” Orpheus said, taking his words in, and clearly making a mental note, because he was trying to learn how to be more like X from a romantic standpoint, for Alena’s benefit. It was one of the sweetest things I’d ever known him to do. To make changes for another, to accommodate another and go out of his way with it.

“Besides,” X went on. “We want her to walk through the trees and take in the surprise we’ve prepared, to absorb it all.”

“Yeah, you know, I want to see the look on her face so badly. The happy surprise in her eyes. You’re right.”

“You’re just freaking out,” X said.

“What? No.”

“Oh, you most definitely are,” Orpheus agreed.

Was I? “I just want it to go well.”

“And it will,” Xavier told me, flashing one of his reassuring smiles.

Orpheus came toward me frowning. “What’s wrong, baby bird? Why are you so worked up?”

“BecauseI’m not you two!” I found myself blurting out in a burst of anger. It was that inescapable side of my nature coming to the surface again from a catalyst of agitation. It just went from zero to a hundred most of the time. Where most beings had something between the two that stopped them from escalating so quickly, as a phoenix, I didn’t.

My fiery nature at its finest.

Sometimes anger and rage were useful, they could be so powerful. They could also get you through some depressed and dark times, helping you to transcend it, really.Butit could definitely also be a detriment. Like when I couldn’t remain levelheaded, when I burst out saying shit I didn’t really mean in a fit of anger—unfiltered shit that hurt people, or when I jumped into dangerous action instead of having the presence of mind and rational thought to assess things properly.

It also made me shut down when I leaned on that part of my nature too heavily, when I allowed it to take the reins for too long.

“Tal?” Xavier pressed.

Orpheus reached me and slid his hand to my cheek and stroked my skin with the pad of his thumb in that soothing way of his.

But I didn’t want to be soothed right now.

I wanted to be heard.

I needed to get out the toxicity running through my veins.

“X, you’re the romantic one and Alena is already enamored with you. And Orpheus, you can do pretty much anything, you’re king of your domain wherever you go and you have this intense connection with her that none of us have been able to figure out the root of, but which keeps you two bound together, no matter how pissed she gets at you in between. But me? I’m the guy who came at her really viciously. Even though she’s forgiven me, all I am now is the guy in the background. I’m the odd one out.”

“What are you talking about?” Orpheus ground out, pissed for me that I saw myself that way. “You have a great deal to give. You’re not anextraor theodd one out. You’re a part of us. You’re important to us both and you’re becoming that for her too already.”

“I’m with him for once,” X said, moving to Orpheus’ side and literally standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “He’s right on.”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re just saying that, trying to make thebaby birdfeel better. Treating me with kid gloves as usual.”

Ore’s lips quirked. “Well, you are my sweet baby bird.”

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