Page 34 of Cursed Heirs

8

~Orpheus~

“Say that again.”

I looked up from the magical map I had levitating before me, the one we’d used to track my father’s last known location to that cathedral where he’d been taken by Constantine’s acolytes.

I was inputtingmarkersof his contacts thatIwas privy to. Once my father’s current Commander, Cassius, arrived at Electi Academy in a couple of days, I’d then have more information to input. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to come sooner, as he was dealing with the uproar that had occurred in the Dark Fae Realm due to their King being taken. Once I had his intel, I’d take them one-by-one until I discovered who the fuck had betrayed my father and led the acolytes right to him. He cloaked himself whenever he left the DFR, so they couldn’t have performed a tracking spell to locate him at that cathedral. I was the only one who had the ability to do that through our blood bond as father and son.

Whoever was responsible obviously had a link to the acolytes that I was then planning to use to locate their big boss in Constantine and my father by extension. Alena would be back here by then, so I’d also be able to use her blood to break throughthe ward that her mother had erected around Electi Academy that was keeping us trapped here.For our safety, was the party line. But I didn’t doubt that it was also to force us to stand down and stay out of the fight.

Talon handed me his phone. “Here. Check it out for yourself. Seeing is believing sometimes, right?”

“In this case, yes. Xavier ending things with Alena isn’t exactly an easy truth to digest.”

I took his phone and stepped back from the map, then scanned the text message conversation that had gone on between him and Alena.

Alena:Coming back tomorrow. Miss you guys.

Talon:We miss you too, firecracker. How’s X? Haven’t heard anything from him directly. It’s just been your updates filling us in.

Alena:Nothing new to report since me telling you about Professor Wilhelm showing up. I’ve been kept away.

Talon:Kept away? Like, by your mom or something? Elliot wouldn’t do that sort of thing. No offense.

I looked out at Tal. “No offense?”

He shrugged. “Fine. Lots of offense toward Abigail.”

I shook my head, then continued reading.

Alena:No, by him.

Talon:What? No way. X can’t stay away from you at the best of times. He’s fucking addicted to you, firecracker.

Alena:Apparently he can. He ended things.

Talon:What?He broke up with you?

Alena:Sure did.

I looked at the timestamp and there was a few minutes’ worth of a pause.

He’d obviously been so stunned that, for once in his life, he hadn’t known what to say.

Talon:I’m sorry. So sorry, Alena. We’ll fix it. We’ll fix him.

Alena:I’m not sure he wants to be. He seems… resigned.

Talon:Like, depressed?

Alena:Maybe even worse than that. He kept calling himself a monster, a demon, all of that. Kept talking about how he can’t handle it.

Talon:He was like this three years ago when he came to the Academy shortly after he was turned.

Alena:This time it’s different, though, because he doesn’t have his magic.

Talon:I still can’t wrap my head around Constantine being able to do that to him. Especially with Elliot’s safeguard tattoo thingy that he gave to X.

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