Chapter 21 A Battle of Shadows #2
“Where are we going?” Nicolai asked, as he and Edward ran to keep up with him as he made his way down the side road he’d seen Adriana disappear to.
“To find her,” Xander replied, tugging on his jacket. “If you don’t want to come with me, feel free to stay back at the station to help the others.”
“Xander,” Edward said softly. “She could be anywhere by now, and we don’t know if she even wants to be found. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
Xander stopped and turned to him, his face twisted in pain at his words. “I am going to find her. I have to.”
Neither of his brothers said anything as they shared a worried look. Edward stepped towards Xander and moved to rest his hand on his shoulder, his face bearing the same expression he wore whenever he was lecturing one of his children, when they heard a scream from a nearby alleyway.
They ran to the alley entrance and saw a girl with dark curly hair leaning over a figure that was doubled over on the ground. She was shaking them, begging them to get up as they cried in pain, their body heaving and twitching.
“Come on!” the woman yelled, a hint of a Scottish accent in her tone. “I know it hurts but we need to go, we need to go right now!”
Xander stopped in his tracks, his body going tense. He knew those cries. He knew that scent of blood.
“Addie, he’s nearly here, we have to leave! You have to get your shit together, we have to…”
The girl stopped shouting, her head whipping round to focus her gaze on Xander. He recognised her as the Incantrix that had helped Adriana escape the Liberators at the station.
She stood and faced them, her arms outstretched with her palms facing them, ready to use her powers and attack.
Whoever this woman was, Xander got the sense she was not to be messed with.
But it wasn’t her that caught Xander’s attention, it was the smaller figure behind her that had slowly begun to stand.
“Oh shit,” Edward breathed out. “Adriana? Is it really you?”
Xander watched her look up at the mention of her name, her eyes widening as she took in Edward and Nicolai standing beside one another. And then she trailed her gaze to him, and her entire body began to shake.
Xander stepped past his brothers, stopping a few feet away from her. His usual calm demeanour had vanished and was replaced by a nervous wreck. His hands trembled uncontrollably at his sides, his eyes stinging as he took in her bloodied appearance.
While her shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding, her arm was slick with blood, and the rest of her body was littered with an array of scrapes and bruises. But it wasn’t her injuries that made him cry… it was the terrified look on her face as he had stepped forward.
“Adriana,” Xander spoke, unable to hide the mixture of emotions in his voice.
He was elated to finally be able to see her with his own eyes, to finally see for himself that she was alive. But he was devastated at the same time. It meant that she had hid from him all this time, that she wanted nothing to do with him.
Xander couldn’t blame her. He despised himself for what happened. He’d lived every day in misery without her, left to suffer with the memory of watching her die beneath him. But he couldn’t leave her now, he couldn’t give up.
Slowly, he took another step forward. “Adriana, please, it’s me.”
“I know it’s you.”
Her voice was cold, distant, making him stop his advances.
She sounded nothing like the girl he knew, nothing like the passionate woman he had fallen in love with so long ago.
This was someone completely different, someone who had lived through years of pain and loneliness. Xander knew the feeling well.
“Leave,” she said through gritted teeth. “Get away from me, get out of here.”
Xander shook his head. “No.”
“Get. The fuck. Away from me.”
“No. I’m not going to do that.”
Xander continued to edge closer, holding his arms to his sides as if he were trying to tame a fierce predator. He knew she could tear him apart, she could blind him with her power and destroy him, and he would let her if that was what she wanted.
“I’m not leaving, Adriana. I won’t leave you again.”
Adriana stepped backwards, clearly desperate to put some more distance between them. Her foot caught on a bottle on the ground and she fell backwards. The dark haired Incantrix knelt down beside her to try to calm her down, but she dragged her body back and away from her, away from everyone.
“Stay away from me! Stay the fuck away from me!”
She sobbed and screamed loudly, her hands frantically reaching out behind her, nails clawing at the pavement as she pulled herself further away.
The ground began to crack under her fingers, the wind picking up to wail down the alleyway and blow her hair across her face.
She was losing it, she was losing her control because of him again.
Only this time, Xander wasn’t sure he was ready to handle it.
“Leave me alone,” she cried out, her voice trembling. “Please, just let me be. Just let me go, please!”
Her words pierced through Xander’s chest, the fear in her voice resonating within him. She was scared of him. His Adriana, the only person who had always refused to fear him, was completely terrified of him.
Xander sank to his knees at the realisation, his sad eyes never leaving hers as he crashed to the ground. He knew she wouldn’t welcome him with open arms, he wasn’t that foolish, he’d honestly expected her to be furious with him, but he hadn’t expected this. And it broke his heart.
The Incantrix wrapped her arm around Adriana’s shoulders. “Haven’t you done enough?” she yelled at him, her brown eyes seeming to glow with her fury. “Just let her go, let me get her out of here. I know what will happen, I’ve seen it. I know you will make her lose control.”
Nicolai stepped forward to stand next to where Xander knelt, his eyes narrowing in on her. “You’re a Vanticini, aren’t you? A descendent of Divina?”
She ignored him and continued to stare at Xander with pure, unfiltered hatred. “You have hurt her enough, Alexander Duran. You fucking murdered her, you murdered her family! I won’t let you take her, I won’t let you destroy her again.”
Adriana squeezed her eyes shut and visibly flinched at the woman’s words.
Xander pushed himself to peer through the defences around her mind, and he watched as she kept returning to that night.
She could feel the pain radiate across her body from the bleeding wounds from Xander’s deep bites.
She could taste his blood on her tongue as it dripped from the gash on his cheek onto her face and into her mouth.
She could hear the bones in her wrists crushing and snapping under his strength.
She could see him leaning over her, smiling down at her as she screamed for him.
And now he was watching, too… over and over.
He stayed there, observing her thoughts through the barriers she’d put up as she fixated on her own screams, on the torture he’d inflicted.
As he remained with her, he saw how she had tried to make herself hurt that badly again, her desperate attempts over the last century to find ways to be able to feel the pain he had put her through before she’d died.
She just wanted to feel something other than the emptiness he had left her with.
But nothing ever compared, nothing ever came close.
She knew it was pointless, because she would never feel for someone the way she felt for Xander, and so no one would ever be able to hurt her like he could. And she hated herself for that.
No, Xander whispered into her mind. Hate me. Only me.
Her eyes flew open as she threw him out of her mind, and Xander could see their usual pale blue had turned an endless black. Everything seemed to pause, before an overwhelming sense of magic buzzed through the air around them. Her magic.
The wind howled, the brick walls cracked all along the alleyway, as Adriana’s hands singed the pavement. It was like a dam had burst, and the torrent of power was too much to hold back. And her focus was fixed on Xander.
The Incantrix tried to pull Adriana towards her. “Addie, no! Don’t give in, don’t lose everything you’ve worked for.”
Adriana’s head slowly turned to her, her lips curling back in a smile that showed her sharp fangs. She grabbed hold of the woman's throat in one hand, throwing her down onto the concrete and climbing on top of her.
She raised her other hand, lightning dancing between her fingers, and brought it down to strike her across the face, but her hand was caught mid air by a shadow.
At Xander’s command, it wrapped itself around her wrist and yanked her body away, allowing Nicolai enough time to get to the Incantrix and bring her to a safe distance from Adriana.
Xander rose to his feet, his hands held in front of him as he controlled the shadows that moved to restrain Adriana’s arms behind her back.
Xander didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t let Adriana hurt herself or anyone else.
She snarled up at them from her knees, her features completely shifting into her Lamia form, and he couldn’t help but think she looked like the deadliest, most beautiful goddess he had ever seen.
Adriana let out a wail as she bowed her head, her body shaking with what he thought were tears. But as he approached, he realised she wasn’t crying, she was laughing. Hysterically.
“You really are a fucking idiot,” she giggled. “Did you not realise which power you passed down to me?”
She lifted her head up to meet his eyes, her arms slowly coming out to her sides.
The shadows he had restrained her with now twirled around her hands, weaving between her fingers and waiting for her instruction, waiting for their new master.
She hadn’t just manipulated the darkness, she had stolen it from him.
Adriana let out a scream as energy exploded from her body. A wave of darkness rippled through the air, shattering the windows of the surrounding buildings and sending her shadows flying towards them.
With one hand, Xander sent a wave of his own dark magic to push Nicolai, Edward, and the Incantrix out of the way, and with the other, he caught Adriana’s shadows.
He connected with them, moulded them to belong to him once again.
It was a struggle, as if he could feel their loyalty calling out towards her, but they eventually allowed themselves to wrap around his arm.
He saw Adriana hunch over on all fours, gagging and coughing as the pain of uncontrollably releasing so much power hit her. He knew the feeling well, that painful tearing inside his chest when his magic had, at times, overpowered his control.
As he stepped towards her again, she threw a beam of light, directly aiming for his head.
But it was weak, and easily deflected with a wave of his arm, his shadows protecting him from her exhausted attacks.
She tried again and again, but his darkness swallowed every single beam she aimlessly threw at him.
Xander motioned to Edward to put her to sleep, using Adriana’s intense fixation on hurting him as a distraction.
As soon as Edward’s hand raised, a slight flick of his wrist as he let his power flow over her, Xander could sense Adriana’s mind becoming hazy with sleep.
Her body swayed for a moment as she struggled to keep herself upright on her knees, before she fell to the side.
He knelt down and caught her before her head could smack against the ground as she passed out, but not before he caught the look of defeat in her eyes.
Carefully, he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, his fingers tracing the small scar on her right cheekbone, the scar that he had given her when he hit her that night.
He couldn’t seem to stop stroking her face, as if it would remove what he had done.
But he knew nothing could change the past, nothing could wipe away their tragedy.
“What are you doing?” the Incantrix asked, as she pushed Nicolai aside to reach them. “You cannot take her, I won’t let you.”
Xander hooked his arms under Adriana’s limp body and picked her up as he stood, cradling her to his chest. He looked into the Incantrix’s mind, sensing the worry and love she felt towards Adriana, flicking through the memories the two had made together.
She was a gifted Vanticini descended from Divina, and the rightful heir to the second seat on the Incantrix Court.
But more than that, Xander discovered she was Adriana’s closest friend, Cassandra.
“I’m going to help her, Cassandra. I taught her how to control her powers once, I can do it again.”
Cassandra shifted, clearly uncomfortable with his plan. “Why should I believe you? After all you did to her, why should I allow you to take my sister away?”
“Look then, if you don’t believe me. You are a Vanticini, correct?
” She nodded her head in response. “Then look, and you will know I’m telling the truth.
I never meant to do what I did, I would never…
” Xander’s words caught in his throat as his eyes began to sting with tears once again.
“I promise I will not hurt her. I just want to help her, I need to help her.”
Cassandra glared at him for a moment longer, before her eyes became clouded with what appeared to be a starlit night sky. Xander had seen Divina’s eyes portray a similar pattern when she had predicted prophecies for the Courts.
“Okay,” she finally sighed, her eyes returning to a dark brown. “You look after her, and I want to be kept updated to make sure she is safe. She means everything to me. If anything else happens to her, if you hurt her again, then I swear I will kill you myself, Duran.”
Xander bowed his head to her. “And I would gladly let you.” He turned to Edward and Nicolai, noticing the latter had not stopped staring at Cassandra the entire time.
“Take Cassandra back to London, then come back for Deion and Kadeem. Bring back anyone else who needs help, too. I’m sure Katie will already be making plans for our next steps, so be sure to support her in my absence. I will return when I can.”
Edward nodded, smiling sympathetically at Adriana sleeping in Xander’s arms.
“I take it you want me to send you somewhere else?” Nicolai asked, raising his hand to open a portal gate.
“Yes,” Xander nodded. “Send us home.”