Page 4 of Fallen Heirs

“I’m handling it this time, not to worry. No rage burst is forthcoming.I’mnot bottling it up. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I’m not bottling my issues up either. We just discussed it, didn’t we?”

“We scratched the surface.”

“Alena said that you held onto your control really well that night.”

There he was changing the subject again. And none too smoothly either. That was a dead giveaway that he was off-kilter.

“I had to. I would’ve burned her otherwise. I only let my phoenix fire out because she begged me to.”

“That’s a huge thing, Tal. You did it for her. You found a way to keep control even under the worst of circumstances.”

“Yeah,” I uttered, taking his words in. “Shit, I did.”

I was smiling then as I recalled the rest and I confessed, “I also told her that I loved her.”

His eyes shot wide. “What? You did?”

I grinned. “Yeah, I did. And she reciprocated.”

“That’s incredible. Look at you, no longer stifled emotionally. You’re putting it all out there, letting her in all the way, feeling positive sentiment and everything.”

“I know. It’s… it feels amazing.”

He gave my shoulder a brotherly squeeze. “I’m really proud of you, firebird. Hey, we’ve got to tell Ore about this. He’s going to love it.”

We looked around, no longer seeing him standing with his father and Marlowe.

“There,” X said, zeroing in on him heading into the compound.

A few feet behind Alena.

“What’s going on there?” I wondered aloud.

“Probably just him keeping an eye on her.”

“Maybe they’re gonna talk about them becoming a part ofExemplar,” I proposed.

“Right,” he said. “The two heirs with magnificent legacies. Especially Ore with the DFR too.”

I looked away as both Alena and Ore disappeared into the compound out of sight and found another drink in X’s hand. He must’ve vamp-speeded over there while I was distracted. “Cheers to that, right?” he said, rather bitterly, raising his glass to me.

His legacy had been cut off when he’d been forcibly turned.

Even though he’d been able to access more of his magic before Constantine had taken it for a while there, it could never even come close to what he’d been able to wield before becoming a vampire. So he could never walk in his father’s footsteps.

Before I could speak to it, he was downing the entire glass, then striding over to the bar away from me and ordering another.

I shot a look over in Elliot’s direction.

Fortunately, he was distracted, his back even turned our way, as he talked with the Dragon Emperor and the Light Fae King.

He wasn’t bearing witness to X hitting the spelled booze hard.

I might need to call in backup to keep it that way.

2

---