Page 145 of Wicked Heirs

“What?” I asked. “No.”

“Yeah, I am. I’ll do the spell to protect you, but the rest I’m not on board with.”

Orpheus cursed, then told me, “Are you ready for this? I have to reiterate that itwillhurt, little angel.”

“It is what it is. I’ll handle it.”

“Okay,” he said, soberly. “He eyed Xavier. “Get out your frustrations, then I’ll instruct you on the intricacies involved in the spell.”

“Fine,” Xavier muttered.

“I needyou to create a shield of phoenix fire around her. I’ll be just outside it holding up a ward as a second front should she involuntarily release her magic in response to the pain,” Orpheus told Talon as the two of them stood either side of me.

Xavier was a few feet away in front of me, pacing back and forth and memorizing the spell Orpheus had typed onto his phone for him. He’d given Xavier his blood to ingest in order to see to theblood linkaspect of the spell.

Everything was in place.

We just needed Xavier to be ready to carry it out now.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long, as he stormed over, muttering, “All right, let’s get this over with.” He shoved his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, then took my right wrist and sucked in a steadying breath. “Brace yourself.”

Talon erected his phoenix fire and I saw a flash of purple flames belonging to Orpheus too, just before Xavier started the spell, the incantation sounding out eerily through the dark forest.

For a few seconds, I felt a numbness at the sight he was touching of my wrist.

His voice grew in vehemence, Latin words and phrases tumbling from him like the experienced sorcerer that he truly was, his confidence and love for it unleashing so beautifully, something I hadn’t really seen from him before, and had only heard about.

And then it happened.

The thing Orpheus had warned me about.

The pain.

It was absolutely searing.

I gritted my teeth as I watched a symbol being very slowly drawn into my flesh with Xavier’s cobalt-blue magic.

It was like a cross between a tattoo and a third-degree burn.

Like it was stabbing into my skin and melting it at the same time at that specific site.

I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming and I sank to my knees, digging the nails of my free hand into the ground. Xavier moved with me, crouching down in front of me, and I saw him hesitate on continuing with the spell. Despite how upset he was with me, he hated seeing me hurting in any way.

“No,” I choked out. “Keep… going.”

He grimaced, but nodded, and continued.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

It was no use.

I couldn’t hold back my cries and then I was screaming out into the night.

My eardrums were ringing.

Pain was all that I was.

My body was shuddering.

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