Chapter 3 Astra
THREE
Astra
My head is dizzy, though I swear I didn’t have anything to drink at the party last night.
Something feels… off, and that’s simply the best way I can describe it.
I sit up, swinging my legs off the edge of the huge bed. I’ve never slept in a bed this big and comfortable before I came here. I might be a little spoiled by it now. I want to melt right back into it and let sleep take me again. Even as I think this, my lids start to droop.
Why am I so tired?
I blink rapidly, as if that will do anything to help with how sleepy I am.
It was quite a night for me, I suppose. As I shift, I can feel a twinge between my thighs, reminding me of what I did with a mysterious stranger.
I bring up his face in my mind, what I could see of it. His cut jaw was dotted with defiant stubble, unlike most of the men who had been at the party with their clean-cut looks. His full lips were turned down more than up. Those dark eyes and how they bore into me with a deadly intent behind them.
But it wasn’t quite as deadly as it seemed.
He didn’t want to hurt me, despite wanting to use me. There was a moment in there, I would say he was almost tender, caring even, as far as a quick encounter like that could be, anyway.
I pull open the small nightstand drawer.
There it sits, the little vial of bright green liquid.
Just enough for a taste on the tongue if you were to drink it alone.
In this case, it’s just enough to get lost in the taste of a good glass of wine.
Where it would kill the drinker without even leaving a trace of what it is behind.
Merrily sipping your drink one minute and dead the next.
Or… so I think. I’m not sure how the poison works.
I don’t even know what kind of poison it is.
I was just handed the little vial and told it would lead to death, and all I hoped was for it to be a quick one.
So, whether or not it would be fast or painless is something I have no clue about.
I’m not an expert on poisons. I’d rather stay far away from such things.
But I was given no choice.
Well, maybe that’s not entirely true.
I suppose it doesn’t matter now since the person the poison was intended for is still breathing. Looking on the bright side, that means I can’t label myself as a murderer.
Had I really thought I could kill someone?! Had I really been desperate enough to take on such a horrible task?
The thought makes me sick. Even if I hadn’t been so distracted, I think my head never would have let me do it.
I slide the drawer shut, hoping to forget the green liquid’s existence and the whole situation that comes with it.
I might have messed up last night, but I’m sure I will be given a chance to rectify the situation.
Which means I get to worry myself sick until that moment and then have to make the hardest decision of my life…
again. Only this time, I’ll have to get it right.
I’ll have to do the thing I don’t want to do in order to get the thing I was promised.
My heart is breaking even as I think about it.
There’s a knock on my suite door.
This place is so massive that it makes me feel uncomfortable.
It’s like I have my very own apartment in this house.
For someone who has spent the last seventeen years sharing a tiny cottage with three “aunts” and a couple of cats, this seems absurd.
I’m pretty sure we could fit the main living space of the cottage in this room.
“Yes?” I call before I can think better of it.
I’m wearing a pair of pajamas, which leaves a lot to the imagination, so it’s not like asking someone to enter while I’m in this state of dress would be scandalous.
Still, I have to remind myself I’m in an entirely different world now. New life, new rules.
The door swings open slowly, and standing right at the threshold, looking as if she has no interest in stepping over it, is a woman in a pair of black slacks and a white polo shirt, indicating she is one of the house staff.
“Mr. Aubert has requested your presence for lunch,” she states with a blank face.
Wonderful.
It’s not like I can refuse, and I’m sure this isn’t going to be a lovely midday meal.
“Right, okay,” I say as I get to my feet. “How much time do I have?” I look around frantically for a clock but find none.
“Now, miss,” she replies, and when I snap my gaze to her, she gives me a slight look of apology.
I’m shocked I have no time to get ready, but even more shocked that I slept until lunchtime.
I jump and rush across the room to unzip my suitcase. Even though I’ve been here almost two weeks, I haven’t dared move my stuff to the dresser or wardrobe. It feels weird and wrong. I don’t belong here, and I don’t think I’ll be staying once this mess is over.
She clears her throat. My hands clench around a shirt as I turn my attention to her once again.
“Might be best if you wore something from the wardrobe,” she says in a helpful whisper. She sends me a small smile as she reaches in to grab the door handle. “I’ll be right out here once you’re done.”
Then the door closes with the tiniest snick.
I dress in a hurry. I’m finger-combing my hair as I pull the door back open.
“I’m ready,” I say as cheerfully as I can. She sends me a disapproving look, which I ignore, walking past her as if I don’t even see it.
She lets out a huff as she skirts around me to take the lead.
Nothing else is said as she leads me to the main landing and down two flights of stairs.
I haven’t been here long, but I’ve been asked to stay out of sight.
Let’s just say, I’ve had fun exploring the many different ways to get to the wing where my room resides, along with all the other unoccupied guest rooms. I follow her into the small dining room, which I sense is used for more casual dining. I roll my eyes so hard.
“Ah, Astra,” Mr. Aubert says, looking up from the tablet on the table beside him.
I feel so ridiculous calling him that in my head, but it fits better than Dad.
I don’t know the man in front of me. I don’t want to know him, not as a person and sure as heck not as a father to me.
I don’t think he has a fatherly bone in his body.
The only reason I’m here is because he has a use for me.
I’m supposed to be his secret weapon. A child no one knows about, who most certainly only shares part of the genes his three sons have.
Yeah, my mom was a side toy. Which makes me the “unfortunate side effect” of that affair.
Try just losing your mom at eight and having your father, who you’re just meeting for the first time, tell you this as he ushers you off to a secluded location where you’ll stay for however long.
I’m sure it’s not hard to see why I don’t like this man and why I don’t trust him. But I can’t defy him. He’s got something I want and he knows it. I have to play his game. Do his bidding. Though I’ve already messed up the first thing he’s tasked me with.
I grab the glass of water in front of me and nervously down half of it.
He pays me no mind, his attention back on the tablet. His finger swipes across the screen with such a harsh jerk that it makes me think he’s trying to flick a bug away. He continues the motion, and I wonder if he’s even paying attention to what’s on the screen.
“I see Mr. Falco made it back to his home.” There’s an edge to his statement, and I find myself with a dry mouth even as I swallow hard. “Alive and still breathing.”
I don’t point out that the two likely go hand in hand, especially if his point is that Mr. Falco left the party and made it back to his home, and the whole way, he was still alive.
This is the first time I’ve heard the man’s name.
My father hadn’t given me many details. I’d only known who he was because my father had shown me a security picture of him walking into the ballroom for the masquerade not long before I actually found him at the party.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what Mr. Falco’s first name is, but I bite the question back.
It won’t do me any favors now. If he doesn’t know what happened between Mr. Falco and myself in my room last night, I don’t want to give anything away.
“I’d lost track of him for a while, and when I saw him again, he was coming down the back stairs.
” His eyes cut up, slicing through me like lasers.
I gulp but try to cover it up by taking a sip of water.
“I thought maybe you’d lured him away to do as you’d agreed to, but then I had a conversation with him and he didn’t seem the least bit…
well, you understand what I’m getting at.
And then he just walked right out. I had him followed, and you want to know what’s funny? ”
The pause stretches out entirely too long. I’m close to rolling my eyes when I just spit out, “What?”
“He’s alive and kickin’ this morning, Astra. You didn’t do what you promised to do.”
There is something really off about Greely Aubert—my father.
At first, I thought he just had this high-and-mighty, better-than-everyone-else attitude.
His way or else. But it’s more than that.
I see it clearly now, and I fear it might be too late to untangle myself from this web.
How do I get out of here? I’m stuck now.
I have no money and I’m in a city I may have once known but don’t remember a thing about.
Before my father came to get me, I’d been living with a small coven outside the city for so long I’d started to feel like there wasn’t an outside world.
And by small, I mean the coven consisted of the aunts and me.
“Imagine, to my surprise, how I felt when I went back and watched the security footage of last night to find out where he’d disappeared to.”
Well, crap. This is about to get extremely awkward. What am I supposed to tell him?
“The security footage?” I ask dumbly. I really hope there aren’t cameras inside the room. How gross would that be?
“Yes. And I saw Mr. Falco following you, of all people, into the private, off-limits parts of my house.” His eyes turn dark.
A shiver of fear runs down my spine. “I saw him go into your room after you went in there. Then I saw him emerge after quite some time. Certainly, longer than you would have needed to slip him the contents of the vial. And I find it funny how the man seemed fine when he walked out of your room. I think he might have even been smiling.”
I find his words bitter and odd. I try not to grab onto hope at the last part, especially since I can’t imagine Mr. Falco did anything at all other than walk away from my room as if the encounter with me hadn’t meant much.
That’s the very feeling I got from him last night.
If I’m being honest, it’s the way I want it, too.
One night to live free. To not be myself and maybe change one thing about who I am.
“What did you do, Astra?” He scowls. “Did you tell him what my plan was? Did you give away all of my secrets? Tell me!” His fist hits the table, causing the dishes and silverware to clink together. I can’t even hide how hard I flinch.
“No,” I say quickly. That is a truth I can give him. “I didn’t tell him anything.”
“Did you even try to give him what was in the vial I gave to you to use?”
“No,” I say, averting my eyes. “I still have it. I can try again. I… I—”
“You, what?” He sneers. “You thought it would be a good idea to take him behind closed doors and what…?”
I shrug. My cheeks are probably lighting up pink, and the unsaid answer is likely obvious by the way I can’t look at him.
Do I regret what happened last night? No. But maybe losing my virginity to a dangerous stranger, one my father seems to be obsessed with ending, probably wasn’t the best idea.
“I slept with him,” I blurt out, the weight of his berating causing me to crack. It irks me how I fall apart so quickly under his hard stare and verbal poking.
He stares at me, mouth open, face full of shock.
“You… slept with him?”
“Yes,” I say, looking down at the table. “Not that it’s any of your business. And I don’t know why—”
“Have you… slept with anyone before?”
“No,” I say, bile rising in my throat.
“So you have no idea…” I look back up at him, but he doesn’t finish. I’m too grossed out and a little embarrassed to ask him what he’s talking about.
What is it I have no idea about? What it was that I had been doing?
Well, yeah. I don’t imagine it was good for Mr. Falco, though he had been nice enough.
Not sweet, but caring in a way I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about hurting me.
As far as first times go, I don’t think it could have gone much better.
Not that I’m going to say any of this to the man sitting across from me.
“This is even better,” he says. The sinister smile is back on his face. “Yes. This might just work after all.”
“What?” I can’t help but ask, feeling like I’m missing something big.
His unfocused gaze snaps to me.
“Be gone. I’m done with you, child.” He starts looking around frantically. “You!” He calls out to a young man trimming the hedges about forty feet away. The kid whips around and points to himself. “Yes, you, you imbecile! Go get Sandra for me. Now!”
He drops the hedge clippers on the ground and takes off in a run toward the house.
I stand, the chair nearly tipping over as I push it back with my legs.
“Astra,” he says, catching me before I can turn and flee. “You may have just done alright after all. And now no one will be able to connect his death to me.”
His smile is so evil, I have a feeling it will be burned in my brain for a long time to come.
What is he talking about? Why would Mr. Falco be dead now? How does it connect to me?
To say I’m completely lost would be an understatement. Something rocks in my gut. Fear and dread twist themselves like vines around my insides and up my spine.
I feel sick and want nothing more than to get away from my father and whatever demented game he’s playing.
I know it’s not over, but I’ve had enough for now.
So, I run. Run faster than that scared boy did a minute ago.
I run through the house, everything a blur as I pass by it.
I run up the stairs and don’t stop until I feel safely tucked away in my room.
But even after I slam the door shut and turn over the lock, I don’t feel safe. I feel like I’ve only found a hiding place.
The evil is still out there, and it is bound to find me at any second.