Chapter Eight #3
Once again, I was saying things I didn’t mean to. Admitting hurts and wrongs in the same way that Father always told me not to. He’d hate who I was becoming—who I already was. Maybe that meant I was heading in the right direction.
Tershetta’s hand pressed down onto what felt like a bandage, the thick gauze sinking into my skin and soothing the burn.
She must have put some kind of salve on it.
I sighed, letting my body relax into my bed, tension bleeding from me.
Again, she stole my anger from me. Leached it away.
I wished I could hide behind my elite mask.
Could at least shield myself from the exhausting sight of her pity as she leaned back into my eyeline.
She didn’t speak, her full lips pressed so tightly together that they nearly disappeared. Huffing out another sigh, I pinched my eyes closed and damned myself fully.
“I wasn’t sleeping with Benadell Zade. Well, I was, but I didn’t want to be.
She…she made me do it. It started on the first day of academy, when she shoved me in a closet and threatened me.
Once, she said she’d wanted me since I was little.
She said she always knew I’d grow to be handsome and strong.
I think…I think she’d been planning it for a while. ”
I waited for her to condemn me. To say I should’ve stopped her or shouldn’t whine about it.
How could a man be overpowered by a woman, after all?
But I thought of the way Tershetta spoke about being a woman the other day.
How she’d insinuated I would never think more of her because I was raised not to believe in women at all.
Captain Zade had been a woman. She was strong, ruthless, cunning—everything Colonel Zade had been. Perhaps more so. Women had to be, because they weren’t given second chances or the benefit of the doubt like men were.
Suddenly, as if I was being punched in the face by Tershetta’s words, I understood. And I knew at that moment that Little Void wouldn’t condemn me or judge me. Of all people, she’d understand me.
I met her gaze, watching as her eyes watered, the tears not quite falling.
“I don’t know why I was surprised. The men do it openly.
They watch their fellow cores raise their young girls, waiting until they’re awarded magic and then buying them like cattle.
My father picked out my mother when she was six.
At the time, she was the sole heir of the Brash dynasty.
But she was beautiful. She had bright blonde hair with the strangest pink tint to it, and her eyes were a startling blue.
Even as a little girl, she was smart and talented.
Father said he would have killed for her, because he had a feeling she’d sire powerful heirs.
Little did he know, my mother would only give him one child.
” I was getting off topic, but my mouth couldn’t stop moving, my eyes glued to Tershetta’s.
“She hates him now. Of course she does. He only stopped beating her when he realized it wouldn’t help produce another child.
I’m the only one of my friends without a sibling, which forced me to be the best. There was no fall back, no second chance.
And so when Captain Zade told me that if I didn’t fuck her she’d make sure I didn’t graduate, well… ”
“You did what you had to do.” Tershetta said after a few moments, finishing the sentence I couldn’t.
“Yeah. I did what I had to do. And, for a while, she got what she’d been wanting for decades.
She’d come for me whenever she felt like it, and her husband was none the wiser.
But she got sloppy. Sometimes she’d even touch me during trainings.
One time she forced me to take her on the beach.
It was like she wanted to get caught. What turned into drinking randomly for a bit of relief turned into me struggling to be sober.
And then she came for me after graduation.
I thought I’d be free. That she was done with me.
But she said she’d have me for as long as she wanted, and I lost it. ”
Just like before, I waited for her to finish my thought. Hoping she’d say what I couldn’t.
“You killed her. That was why you were so bloody when I saw you that night.” Her voice was hoarse, a sort of rasp that made it sound like she needed to clear her throat.
Slowly, I began to rotate, the external pain somehow numbing the internal ache.
“Don’t move, you could rip your stitches!”
“I killed her, and I’d do it again. I’ve killed a lot of people, Tershetta, and I’ll kill more before the stars bring me home.”
We stared at each other, my back stinging as I sat upright. She was so close to me. If I moved my knee, it’d graze her fingers. I thought about it, but she quickly snatched her hand away, twirling the necklace that she never took off.
“You and I both, Altair.”
My breaths were coming heavier, something in my stomach twisting as I waited for her to run. To flinch. To do anything. She didn’t move though.
“Can Death and I stay here?”
An unintentional breath escaped my lips, and I couldn’t help the way my body deflated in relief as I said, “Of course, Little Void.”