“Darius!” Orion’s voice carried to us, a whoosh of air and a blur of movement signalling his arrival a second before he crashed into my brother and the two of them went sprawling over the ground. “Where the hell did you go?”
Darius started explaining as Orion checked him over for wounds, frowning at the bloody injury on his side and pressing his hand to it with a snarl of frustration, muttering something about him not feeling it before they exchanged a look which ended in them laughing.
I watched as he healed the wound, his jaw gritting as he concentrated on it and Darius muttered an explanation about our father having a new shadow hand which made my gut knot with tension. Of course the asshole couldn’t just have been left with a useless stump which made it easier for us to face him when the time came. No. Now he had a shadow hand more powerful than the one he’d lost. I swear the fucking stars were laughing at us for believing we’d gotten that small victory.
Orion finally managed to heal the wound, though it left a set of pink lines on the side of his body which he said would need further heeling to remove entirely and I sighed my relief as Darius stood once more.
There were still other cuts and bruises marking his skin but as Orion sagged a little, it was clear he’d used all of his magic on the shadow wound.
“Anyone wanna offer up a vein?” he asked, looking over to the herd but Darius shook his head.
“The rest is superficial. I can do it myself once I get back to my gold.”
Orion frowned like he wasn’t really okay with that but nodded his agreement before shooting off and getting him some jeans at such a speed that he was back before I’d blinked. Darius pulled them on and Tyler and Sofia pouted, still butt naked.
“No clothes for us?” I grumbled and Orion threw me an apologetic look, carving a hand down the back of his neck.
“Sorry, it was an old Guardian bond habit,” he muttered. “I can go get some…”
“It’s fine,” Sofia said. “Let’s just get inside.”
I lost the battle of trying not to stare at Sofia, my gaze falling to her perfectly round tits and the gleaming vajazzle that glittered around her pussy. Shit, she was so beautiful. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and every time I looked their way, I kept getting an eyeful of Tyler’s fancy fucking dick like it was trying to catch my eye. Gah.
I forced myself to look at Orion instead of them, remembering the books I had with me and clutching to that excuse to stop staring like a virgin.
“I got you these.” I flipped open the satchel again, offering him the book on gemstones first and Orion’s jaw went slack as he took the book from my hand, turning it over gently like it was the most precious thing in the world.
“Oh my stars,” he gasped, grabbing the bag from me and rifling through the books with a youthful smile on his face. I snorted a laugh as Darius gave me a pointed look, realising I’d just lost myself fifty auras, but the look on Orion’s face was definitely worth it.
“I’m afraid Highspell had some of your other ones burned,” I said with a frown and I immediately regretted saying that as Orion looked like I’d just told him I’d murdered his puppy.
“Burned them?” he rasped and I nodded, offering him an apologetic look as he hugged the bag of books to his chest like he didn’t want them to hear what had happened to their friends.
“Sorry, man.” Darius rested a hand to Orion’s shoulder and he growled.
“I’ll murder that fake-faced witch,” he snarled, his fangs on show as he held onto his books even tighter and I was pretty sure he was making that promise to them. Dude would definitely kill in revenge for those books.
“I got this for you though,” Darius said, taking a large wooden chest from his bag and handing it over, making Orion grin again.
“All my equipment?” he asked excitedly and Darius nodded.
Orion gave the chest a shake and it rattled like there was something heavy inside it.
“You got the bones too?” he asked and Darius gave him a dark smile, glancing over his shoulder and tossing a silencing bubble around the three of us before answering as he took hold of the bike’s handlebars and started pushing it towards the entrance to the tunnels just as Hamish opened the door hidden behind the clock and stepped out.
“Well I didn’t spend all those years learning to wield dark magic against Father to just forget about it when the time finally came to take him down.”
Orion nodded eagerly. “We can restart your lessons soon then.”