Page 167 of Cursed Heirs

It pained me that I couldn’t severe the sire bond between him and Constantine. It was a blood link and it had been built into my son’s makeup since he’d been turned into a vampire. It overrode any magic.ButI had been able to provide him some peace of mind by fashioning an alert in the form of a spelled bracelet bearing my magic that would glow if Constantine invoked the bond again, so there would be a warning to others,andto me, enabling me to stop anything like this from happening again.

Then, shortly afterward, a unit of Constantine’s acolytes had hit Electi Academy.

More than three hundred of them.

I hadn’t been able to leave after that.

Not until I thinned the herd so the kids stood a chance against them.

Especially after I had recognized that some of them were the prisoners who’d been released from Valmont, hopped up on a whole lot of aggression and formerly repressed anger at being confined for so many years.

I stood holding a shield against fifty magic-wielders with one palm, while I blasted incoming attacks from vampires and werewolves with the other.

The acolytes had quickly recognized me as the severest threat to their cause, so they’d targeted me with a chunk of their resources.

They’d also clearly noted my weakness—the speed of vampires.

It was what had cost me the night my son had been turned, the one thing I couldn’t effectively counter against.

No matter how fast I blasted each opponent away, they kept coming, faster and faster, getting far too close to me.

My optimal strategy was to magically-nuke the area, but I couldn’t do that with the kids around, it would hurt them all.

Things like this were exactly why I preferred going into battle alone.

Except where Abi was concerned, and also Saryan, the two of them being the only exceptions, those who could withstand a formidable blast of my power like that.

I looked out at the Dark Fae Prince.

Perhaps he could also withstand it. His power was clearly considerable, maybe even rivaling his father’s at this point.

As I took to streaming my power with my free hand, tearing through opponent after opponent, pushing them back, while holding off the magic-wielders with my shield, I watched Orpheus perform athunderclapagainst twenty magic-wielderssurrounding him that had been forcing him into a defensive position of erecting a spherical shield around himself.

His purple power exploded forth all around him, knocking them all out in one shot.

Barely paying his victory any mind, he rushed over to some of his Light Fae soldiers working alongside some witches who were being overrun by vampires and pounced on by rabid werewolves. My son teleported into the fray, arriving at the same time as him and I smiled as I saw them work in tandem to protect their own, while also beating back the enemy.

The entire courtyard and the quad were engrossed in vicious battle and Orpheus had even sent several magic-wielders up onto the turrets to lay down fire from above to try to push back the onslaught that way.

He had his wolves tearing through the field of battle and ramming into opponents also, ripping them off their feet, wherein some of his vampires would then follow the path and take out those who had been felled before they could recover and resume their attack.

He’d commanded the faculty to form a physical barrier barring entrance into Electi Academy, wherein the other key to Valmont resided. They were the last front, there should the enemy make it past the rest of us.

I jolted as I watched my son take a nasty hit from a magic-wielder that blew him off his feet. A vampire then launched themselves at him and started tearing into the flesh of his throat, as my son struggled to fight him off.

Orpheus was there in the next moment, levitating the offender away with his magic, then smashing him into the enemy magic-wielder, before he then blasted them both right through the gates. He gave my son a hand-up.

And that was all I saw as my distracted state had my shield wavering enough for all fifty magic-wielders to blast through, then start firing at me all at once.

I grimaced as the onslaught drove me to my knees.

Not for long.

My power was too great to allow for that.

But then a staggering power rush assaulted my senses and then screams sounded, the number of magic-wielders firing on me diminishing quickly.

It enabled me time to conjure a spherical shield around myself, and then I sprung to my feet and spun to see silver missiles raining down in a violent lightshow, avoiding the students and targeting only the enemy magic-wielders, each one making contact and stunning their target and effectively knocking them unconscious with one hit.

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