One of the men fell to his knees.  His hands were clenched at his sides.  Beads of sweat rolled down the faces of the other two, tears appearing in their eyes.

…is he making them do that, or did she successfully overload them?

“While I’m doing this, you can’t tell them to attack me.”

…okay?

“Unless I’ve gotten stronger over the past few years,” Alec answered.

Ah, it’s a matter of Cherie figuring that even if her influence can’t make them attack Alec or break the control entirely, it can make it harder for him to control them.

The man who was still standing reached for a knife and started walking towards Cherish.

And by the looks of it, she’s wrong.

She hit the knife wielder with fear and indecision, saw him stop.

It’s kind of interesting how this is working. We’ve got direct body control, contested by indirect mind control in a way that just slightly bypasses his body control through automatic, subconscious reactions.

They didn’t budge.

Thought so.

“Cut it out, Cherie,” Alec said, “I’m controlling them.”

And, much like he was vaguely aware of Shadow Stalker’s emotions due to the ways the body tried to react to them but couldn’t, he can tell that she’s doing this.

“If I remember right, you lose control if they’re hit by enough emotion,” she smiled.  She turned up the intensity.

That is very interesting.

Has to take a lot, though. Sophia was quite intensely emotional under Regent’s control, what with her solar anger and mortal fear, and she didn’t break loose.

“If I’m farther away.  Seriously, stop.  It’s irritating.”

Oh yeah, I suppose it makes sense that the distance factor makes a difference for that.

“If we’re changing our names, I’m going by Cherish.  I wanted to make an entrance.”

Not a bad name!

Also, yeah, that’s… quite the entrance.

“Man.”

“You’ll find others.”

That’s… not really the issue here.

“Fuck,” he sighed.

She reached for the three people who stood between her and her brother, manipulated their emotions towards Alec.  Filled them with suspicion, paranoia, hate.

Why? You seem on relatively amicable terms, so why suddenly try to make people attack him?

Is it just to check whether or not he’s controlling them?

“Alec,” she smiled.  “Still sounds French.  I approve, little brother.”

It does?

I guess I don’t know much about French names, really.

Also, hey, confirmation! 🙂

“Cherie,” he ran his fingers through his hair. “What the fuck?”

Is he just using that in the sense of “dear” in French, or is that actually her name?

I’m inclined to think the latter. “Dear” is not really something I’d expect Alec to address someone as in any language, and it’s not in italics like the French “Ça va?” earlier.

Also that’s a very valid question. Cherie just killed six of Alec’s soldiers for pretty much no reason. Based on how calm Alec is acting, she probably would’ve gotten in without too much trouble if she’d just asked the soldiers at the door to tell Alec she was there.

So is Newbie going to address Alec as “Hijack”, if she doesn’t go for his civilian name?

Incidentally, it wouldn’t surprise me if the civilian name she knows isn’t the one he currently uses either.

Or maybe Ashley? Ashley is a good name.

Maybe we’re about to finally learn Newbie’s name.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess… Monika.