Page 13 of Fallen Heirs

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “I do need to take some time. To grieve and to process everything.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. And aboutExemplar, you need to know that your mom did want you to be a part of it. She wanted us to become a part of it together. Whenever you were ready, were her words. She believed in you, she just let her overprotectiveness and her own disillusionment with things cloud that for a while.”

There was their legacies thing again.

I fought to push past it and how useless it made me feel, and focused on the way Alena’s beautiful eyes lit up at his words.

She stroked his arm. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“Of course. Come here.”

She did and he wrapped her up in his arms, the two of them holding one another for a few moments.

Ore’s phone buzzing pulled them apart, and then he was easing it from his blazer and swiping it open. “It’s Tal,” he told us. “He’s worried about you, X, and now he can’t find you, Alena. I need to go to him and reassure him.”

“Go,” Alena told him. “I need a moment with Xavier anyway.” She gave me a look. “About this drinking of his that Talon told me about.”

Dammit, Tal.

Well, he was looking out for me. I knew it was coming from a good place.

“All right,” Ore said. “Just don’t be too long.”

“We won’t,” Alena assured him.

He gave a nod, then he was teleporting away in the next moment.

As Alena came to me, I told her, “I’m so sorry. It’s your mom’s memorial and I shouldn’t have—”

“This is about your guilt over what happened, isn’t it?”

I started. “Well, you’re certainly going for the throat.”

“You wouldn’t talk to Talon when he tried the gentle approach.”

“What I did directly led to the awful and tragic events that happened that night.”

“WhatConstantinedid.”

“Alena—”

“You had nothing to do with it. He used and manipulated you. He controlled you, just like he controlled me when he made me hurt Orpheus.”

“It could happen again for me and the idea of doing anything to harm the three of you, or anyone, is sickening to me.”

“He made you into a victim. He made you feel useless. And now you feel like a problem too.”

“How do you—”

“BecauseIfeel that way after what he did tome.”

I frowned. “You are far from a problem or useless. You’re a Nephilim. Orpheus just told you that your mom wanted you to take on her legacy atExemplar.”

“To placate me. They’ll never allow it now. Note him sayingwhen you’re ready.They don’t think I am, they don’t think I’ll be for a long time—if ever. Orpheus and all of them are treating me like I’m fragile now, like a victim, like someone who needs to be protected—not someone who does the protecting. And they’re doing it to you too. Orpheus pulling you away from everyone for a feed to calm you down, your dad checking in on you through everyone he possibly can, that bracelet he bound to your wrist.”

I nodded, taking her words in.

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