Page 8 of Fallen Heirs

The plea not to treat her like a victim.

Like somebody who needed my protection.

But it wasn’t aboutherneeding it. It wasmeneeding to give it to her after everything she’d been through.

She was ours, it was what I did. I protected those close to me.

I always had for Talon and Xavier and now she was a part of that bond, she fell under that too.

“I don’t think that. I know you’re strong, Alena. You wouldn’t have survived what you endured if you weren’t.Butyou didn’t come out of it unscathed and that’s what you need to tend to now, what I want to help you tend to, what all three of us want to help you with.” I stepped closer to her again. “It’s not weakness to lean on support, or even to admit that you could do with it. Sweetheart, your mom died only two weeks ago and—”

“Iknow! I was right there as she killed herself. Right fucking in front of me. With her angel fire, no less! I saw it, Orpheus! I witnessed every excruciating moment of it! But it’s not going to break me! None of it will!”

“I never went there. But it’s okay if it shakes you. It’sokay, little angel.”

She moved further away from me, shaking her head. Then she gestured wildly at the long table in the center of the room. “You’re going to sit right there soon, aren’t you? She wantedyouto carry on her legacy, right?”

“That’s not exactly—”

“You. Not me.”

“Not long ago you absolutely abhorred the idea of becoming a part ofExemplar.”

“And so did you. But with everything that’s happened, things are very different now. We can’t be on the sidelines. Yet now I’m the one discountedbecauseof what I went through with Constantine. The very thing you say makes me strong? Where’s the sense in that?”

“What you survived was an example of your strength, not the essence of it, and I don’t think your mom—”

“Just save it! It is what it is. I never wanted a part of this world, anyway, right?”

“She wanted you to be a part of it, alongside me.”

“As an afterthought.”

“I don’t think that’s what—”

Before I could get another word out, she stormed out of the room.

I went to go after her, but as I was about to round the corner to follow her down the corridor, a hand slapped to my chest as somebody stepped out of the shadows, somebody I hadn’t seen because I’d been so distracted by our conversation—a conversation that had abruptly gone off the fucking wall.

Then I was looking up into the face of my father.

“Let her calm down. It will only escalate if you don’t, and reason won’t prevail.”

I blew out a breath and stepped back. “How much did you hear?”

“Just the tail end of you trying to reel her in, your clear desperation to keep her safe.”

“That’s all?” I asked, wanting to ensure he hadn’t overheard the part about her ability to annihilate dark magic.

“Why? Was there more thatIneeded to be made aware of?”

He stared at me intently.

Had he actually heard that part?

I stared back.

He wasn’t showing any signs of it.

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