Page 54 of Fallen Heirs

He needed to know that the students agreed that the wrong decision had been made in expelling him and putting the kibosh on the army.

I waited a few minutes for him to respond, but nothing came.

Sighing, I stepped out of the alcove and headed over to the quad, spotting Alena and X already approaching our bench.

I slowed, though, when I caught sight of them standing in front of it and whispering in each other’s ear, neither of them looking happy, both of them showing some really tense body language.

That was it!

It was time to figure out what was going on with them.

I employed my supernatural hearing and zoned in on their conversation.

“If you’d given me more time, they might have talked. Maybe not that clear bastard, Jonus, but his buddies.”

“Alena, you employed fucking necromancy! You were ripping their hearts out of their chests!”

“I wouldn’t have actually done it. It was merely a threat.”

“Was it? Are you certain? Or did your obsession with getting to Constantine take you over?”

“It’s not obsession, it’s good sense. That psychopath is still out there. We finally had a lead, then it was snuffed out. You saidExemplartook them away. There’s no way it was random because they didn’t even know beings working for Constantine were there, or they would’ve been dealt with before we could even cross paths with them. So I know it was you who called it in. You took our one lead away!Exemplarwon’t force any intel from them, they don’t go in for torture or severe interrogation techniques. In all likelihood, without proof, they’ll just be let go and disappear into the ozone with their master.”

“Torture isn’t something you should be going in for either.”

“Really? So you don’t think we need to do whatever it takes to find that motherfucker then? That we shouldn’t pull out all the stops to prevent hell from befalling us again?”

“I don’t think you should be compromising who you are, or trading on the dark side to get it done.”

“Sometimes there’s no other way.”

“I don’t agree with that.”

“You agree that he should be killed now. You didn’t before. So you’ve changed your tune once, you could—”

“I won’t change my tune on this. Nothing that leads you down a dark path, Alena.”

“Hence you refusing to do any further hunting with me.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I should see what Orpheus has to say about this. If he knew we had a lead, that we’d actually encountered beings connected to Constantine, these new acolytes of his—”

“Fuck, Alena. He already knows.”

“What?”

“He showed up just after you left that night. He was the one who removed them from the vicinity.”

“You’re telling me that Orpheus Hart sent our only leads along toExemplar?”

“Yes.”

“Something doesn’t add up there.”

“It does when you factor in that Ore’s been severely shaken by everything that’s happened, especially what was done to you. He’s not himself. He’s been hiding it by keeping busy with his time spent up at the compound. And in fucking, of course.”

“No. I mean, I know he didn’t want me getting involved in this again or putting myself in danger, but I figured once you and I had managed to get a lead, we’d take it to him and he’d get back on board in our fight to find and take down Constantine.”

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