The Cursed King

"You\'ve already met him." The words spilled out of Dante\'s lips before he could even realize that he shouldn\'t have said that.

When the Time Master raised Alexei, he told the boy that he was an orphan. He grew up thinking that his father was Dante, Dimitri\'s twin brother and Elise, who were both killed by Loriel Ashborn.

Now, he just told Elise that Alexei was her son? She would surely want to meet her son, and since it seemed she had gathered all her memory back, Dante\'s story to Alexei wouldn\'t match what Elise would tell her son.

This was not good at all. 

"I have?" Elise\'s eyes bulged and her heart pounded. A part of her already knew who it was but she couldn\'t be so sure. "Take me to him and introduce me to him properly."

"Elise, will you go with me somewhere else for a moment to calm ourselves first?" Dante was panicking on the inside but he didn\'t know what to do except delay the meeting. How was he going to explain to Alexei that he lied all this time?

"No!" Elise stomped her foot on the concrete floor and glared at Dante. "I will not calm down or go anywhere else!"

That one action made the earth tremble beneath them for a moment and nearly made the Time Master fall off balance. 

The Elise in front of him was bolder and fiercer. 

If having no memories allowed her to be more confident with herself and not be dictated by past norms and beliefs, having her entire memories gave Elise the whole picture of what happened and she was frustrated.

"I\'ve lived my entire life so held back by everything and now you\'re going to hold me back too? When I was younger, I lived my life so eager to marry Loriel and start a new life with him but now that I\'m older and I have a son… you still refuse to bring me to him? Who do you think you are to tell me what I should or should not do???"

Dante immediately dropped to his knees before Elise. He bowed his head low so that his forehead touched the floor. His shoulders were shaking and he knew that this was barely enough to appease her anger, but he wanted her to know.

"I have done something unforgivable, Elise. Elise… please, I need to fix everything first before you can meet Alexei. I raised him and told him that he was an orphan and that his parents were killed by Loriel."

"What?" Elise was stunned. 

Dante raised his head and looked at Elise with tears in his eyes. The man could no longer lie or hide the truth from Elise and it was finally where he found relief to finally say everything that he\'d been bottling up for the past centuries.

"I\'ve seen how much love you have given to your husband fifteen centuries ago and yet all that he did to you made you suffer. It made me hate him so much that I wanted to kill him because of how terrible he was to you."

Elise looked at the pitiful expression and there was only a frown on her face. 

"You tried to kill Loriel?" 

She was listening to him for now and understanding everything that was provided to her. 

"I tried to kill Loriel too and yet he survived. Then he came up to Cretea to become an immortal and, during that time, he killed my brother, Dimitri. I\'ve hated him for so long… that I thought it was justified that his only son would also hate him."

"Dante. How could you do all of this?" Elise narrowed her eyes at him. She couldn\'t believe how Dante could justify what his lies by saying he did it for Elise and Dimitri.

Before the Time God could say anything else, Elise continued shaking her head. Everything was so cool right now as she was accepting all the information, but she was moments away from bursting up and unleashing everything that was within her heart. 

There was an icy tone evident in Elise\'s voice.

"It was not in your position to interfere with my life and make decisions for me, Dante. Even if I were to appreciate it, it was not up to you. Why did you do all of this? Revenge surely, but he wouldn\'t have killed your brother if you didn\'t try to kill him first, right?"

"It was because, and I still do… I love you." Dante smiled sadly and shook his head. 

Elise\'s eyes widened and she was startled for a moment and stepped back. She who had lived through and remembered everything in the past life but was still taken aback by this sudden revelation. 

She had never seen Dante as anything more but a good friend and never noticed it at all.

"Ever since you freed me and we became friends, I fell in love with you and thought how miserable Elise\'s life is to be with that scumbag that I thought, maybe, just maybe, if Loriel was out of the picture, I could make you happy."

"YOU could make me happy?!!??"

"I thought I could, that I would treat you better than him because I knew how he didn\'t treat you properly. But then everything started to go wrong and you disappeared through the time portal. I raised Alexei by myself and I\'ve searched for you all through these fifteen centuries in hopes of seeing you again." 

Dante smiled sadly. 

"I was wrong to think that I could make you happy. I put you through all of this suffering because I thought I could help you move on from your pathetic husband by helping you forget. However, all I did was actually help him make you fall in love all over again with him. That bastard didn\'t even tell you the entire truth!"

He looked at Elise deeply.. His expression was a mix of pain, shame, and regret.