Forced Promises

Prologue

When I was six, my mother pulled me away from my beadwork. I didn’t know why I was in trouble, and my nails dug half-moons into my palms.

Nothing was private on Mount Aer; the Father had security cameras all over the compound, and he was always watching. Had he seen me do something wrong and told her to discipline me? I racked my little brain, searched her expression for guidance, but found no clues in either.

“You’re inviting sin in with that heathen smile, you little Jezebel,” my mother snapped. Her eyes were narrow, absent of maternal compassion. She was twenty-two at the time, a few years older than I was now.

Had she forgotten that girls were supposed to smile, be sweet, and helpful? She couldn’t have. The adults of the Family weren’t to be questioned. The key to eternal salvation was obedience, and I tried to exemplify that virtue.

“Okay, Mama.”

Her scowl deepened.

“You agree, then? You’re trying to tempt the men?” The question was a trap I couldn’t navigate or escape.

I carried the weight of disappointing my mother since before memories existed.

But that was the day I knew.

There was something wrong with me. Not just in my actions, or my words, but fundamentally at my core. I tried to be the good girl, the loyal daughter, but I always failed.

Thirteen years later, and I was proving my mother right.

I invited in sin.

I ran away from the Children of Aer, escaped my arranged marriage to my own half-brother, and then I took a job as an entertainer at a Bratva bar.