She should have known it, she could have protected her son, both of them, if she had been better prepared. She watches in earnest as Remiel uses his coercion on Xander and gets him to agree to help him. She watches as he passes along his magick to Xander and the pain that he went through accepting such power. She hisses and opens her eyes when she feels what the magick was used for. Xanthe pulls her fingers out of Xander’s head and his head lolls forward. He will be unconscious for days after this invasion. With a flick of her wrist, she undoes the ties that were keeping Xander chained to the wall and he falls forward. She catches him and drags him across to his bed. She places him down gently and settles him comfortably, stroking his face to try and soothe the torment etched into his features. She grabs a throw from the end of the bed and pulls it over him, tucking him in tightly.
“I’m sorry that you got dragged into this,” Xanthe whispers to him as she strokes his face again. “None of this should have happened to you.”
After several moments, Xanthe gets up to find her husband. Her search brings her to their bedroom where Xerxes is finishing off getting dressed. He sees her face in the mirror and he turns to her, adjusting his cloak.
“Xane told you?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says shortly. “How dare you keep this from me.”
“I am sorry, my love. It was all very short notice under the circumstances. I think Xane was worried you would betray his confidence to Tiamat and ruin the plans of Xerxei,” he says.
“You should have told me the second that he did,” she scolds him. “We don’t keep secrets here, Xerxes.”
“I know,” he says with a sigh.
“Do you agree with his decision?” she asks then, placing her hands on his shoulders.
“No, but when did that ever stop him?” Xerxes says with a sad laugh. “I can only hope that he doesn’t end up getting into trouble over this.”
“He will,” Xanthe says. “Tiamat will be furious that he didn’t stay loyal.”
“We will protect him as best we can,” Xerxes says in reassurance, but Xanthe doesn’t feel very reassured. She knows she has to say something about the lie she told Xane, but it pains her to have to lie to her husband. If she doesn’t, though, it will come out eventually and he will wonder why she kept it from him.
“The child that Xerxei lost was Xane’s,” she says quietly. “Our grandchild.”
Xerxes is startled by her comment. “Really?” he says. “How did you figure that out?”
“Don’t ask me questions that I cannot answer,” she says and turns from him with a sigh.
“Xanthe,” he warns her. “You must be careful.”
“I know,” she says. “I also got the information out of Xander. Don’t ask me how I did that either, please.”
“Didn’t you just say no secrets here?” Xerxes says with a purse of his lips.
“I did,” she replies. “But you don’t need to know what I did to our son in order to gain this information,” she says.
Xanthe watches as her husband gulps and she is relieved that he remains silent.
“It was Remiel who made him do this,” Xanthe says and takes Xerxes’s hands. The fear wells up in her as she remembers what she felt. “But something went terribly, terribly wrong, Xerxes.”
The Underworld, August 2014 – Constantine
He knows it was a mistake to leave her. He never should have gone back to the house in L.A., but it was the only place he could think of to get away from her. She was going to come with explanations and try to get him to understand why she wants to bring Fraser here from her past. But she doesn’t see, she doesn’t understand that of all the men in the all Worlds, he is the one Constantine fears the most. He knows that her own Fraser is the only one that can tear her away from him.
And now, while he was letting his darkness consume him with yet another Substitute that he asked Nico to get for him, she was here being whisked away to the Dragon Realms by him, to go to their daughter. He longs to go back to the girl and finish what he started, but he mustn’t. Aefre needs him to be strong now. They have their plans and he has to see this through for her and for their own child.
He closes his fist around her rings, and they dig into his palm, but he doesn’t feel it. All he feels is anger that she let Remiel take them off her. The curse is supposed to stop this from happening. He can only imagine how she must be feeling, and it is worrying him, as it will soon start to affect her. He can only hope that she gets out of there before that starts to happen.
“We need to go,” Vito says.
Constantine doesn’t answer him. He just sits on the bed staring at his fist where her rings are biting into him.
“She’s gone and she is relying on us to stick to the plan,” Vito tries again.
“I know,” Constantine growls at him. “I just need a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute,?