Page 44 of Cursed Heirs

“I don’t know. I mean… something happened. He said he’d stripped away everything else but my true wants and desires and then he… pleasured me.”

Ore jumped off the bed, dressing himself with his magic as he went. “He assaulted you!”

“No!” she cried, twisting to face him.

Ore looked at me, grimacing, matching my expression and the sickness I was feeling at hearing this.

And her reaction… she wasn’t recognizing it for what it was.

“Yes,” he told her firmly. “What he told you he was doing isn’t conducive to what happened. You’d still have had yourwants and desiresfor us. There would have been conflict there. You wouldn’t have been able to succumb like it sounds like you did.”

“I did,” she admitted on a guilt-ridden murmur.

“It’s not your fault,” I told her.

“It’s his,” Ore seethed. “To create that… favorable… reaction in you, he would have been employing black magic to interfere with your free will. He would have been clouding your mind, essentially psychological reconditioning.”

“Brainwashing,” I added for simplicity.

“That means there wasn’t consent to be had. If you were fully human, it would have been like him using his vampiric mind control on you. It would have had the same effect.”

She started shaking her head vehemently. “No. I… it was me having a moment of weakness. He overwhelmed me and I gave into him. I made a mistake. I wanted it… him.”

Ore frowned at her. “You can’t stand being any sort of victim so much so that you’d rather we thought you cheated and also betrayed everyone by sleeping with the enemy?”

“Shut up!” she cried.

I went to her and reached out, taking her hand. “We’re just trying to help you understand what he really did, that you’re not at fault,” I told her gently.

“And that there’s no way in fuck you’re going anywhere near him again,” Ore growled. “He’s in your head. He’s still partially there. Refusing to acknowledge that he actually assaulted you, and forced you. Repeating that you should go to him, albeit under the guise of trying to kill him. It all adds up.” He stepped up to her. “Let me flush out the remnants he’s left you with.”

She jerked back from both of us. “You’re both overreacting. To everything.”

“Alena—”

“You don’t get it, Orpheus! Icantake him out!”

“And how the fuck do you plan to do that? By the grace of the angels? A lucky break? Distract him while you somehow grab theHellbornand run him through with it, all without his speed tripping you up and fucking up everything?”

“I can destroy dark magic!”

Ore’s eyes shot wide and he took a staggered step back.

“Holy shit,” I choked.

“No,” he kept saying, shoving his hand through his hair. “That can’t… it’s not… it’s unheard of.”

“So was a hybrid being not too long ago. So was there being a Dark Fae Prince with a secret heart of gold. A Nephilim with a dark side.” She sighed and revealed, “I found it out during my battle with him. I was destroying his stream of red magic.”

Pacing back and forth now, Ore murmured to himself, “This is why I was so drawn to you… that inexplicable pull… your odd ability to see my illusions from the outside… you were predisposed to be able to identify all dark magic so you can destroy it.” He raked his hand through his thick hair again. “This is incredibly dangerous.”

“Xavier was right!” she yelled, her anger sparking again so quickly. “He told me it was a bad idea to reveal this to you, that you’d freak and see it as a threat—see me as a threat!”

“X knows about this?” Ore asked.

“He saw me! He saw me andhedidn’t react like this, thinking I’m dangerous now!”

“Alena, that wasn’t what I—”

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