Chapter 4
Several days passed before I was summoned for a dinner at the Triton family estate.
My parents hadn’t asked about my bedraggled state upon my return from being spat out by the sea, and that was for the best. However, both Mina and Angus had reiterated that we’d be having dinner with the Triton family soon to see if an arrangement could be met.
The thought made me sick.
Just dinner. The visit was just dinner tonight—nothing binding.
I hadn’t mentioned the arrangement to Jason—hadn’t wanted to bring it up there—but if I needed somewhere safe to fall, he’d offer.
My plans had begun to thread themselves together.
I slid into the stiff, starched material of the button-down, of the fine tailored suit, like I settled armor into place.
Unfortunately, I never quite managed to avoid the blows, even if I pretended like the vipers in high society didn’t bother me.
My room was sterile, as always, filled with books on business, and the stuffy, expensive paintings my parents deemed appropriate rather than the surrealism or art deco I gravitated toward.
I could appreciate the mastery in the pieces, but they didn’t call to me, not like other works.
“Are you ready, Elrich?” My mother’s voice sounded from the other side of the door.
“Coming,” I said, slipping on my cuff links and then heading for the door. We’d all be arriving together of course, our driver, Anthony, taking us there. My parents disapproved of my preference to drive myself places when we had drivers, but I’d claim every inch of independence I could.
My mother stood in the hallway, dressed to the nines like always.
She wore a tea-length dress with hand-painted flowers across the cream fabric.
She rarely donned the same outfit twice, and the sheer waste of her wardrobe bothered me more with every passing day.
The jewelry she wore sparkled, delicate yet costly, and guaranteed my father would be wearing his own displays of wealth, from his designer watch to his handcrafted cuff links.
I minimized updating my own wardrobe, even when they insisted.
“Are you ready to meet Arielle?” my mother said. “She’s a lovely girl.”
“You’ve met?” I asked. As much as I’d tried to research a bit on the family, a lot about them remained elusive.
They were old wealth but secretive, and of course my parents would be drawn to that like flies to honey.
Triton Industries was a unique purveyor of orichalcum, a rare metal zealously guarded by the underwater dwellers.
How they’d established a foothold in New Atlantis remained a mystery, yet the lucky few they did business with ended up wealthy beyond measure.
Guaranteed that was what my father searched for in selling me off. As if he wasn’t surrounded by enough money.
My stomach curdled at the thought, but nothing could be set in stone without my permission. I was an adult, as much as they still attempted to control my actions, and I planned on walking away the first chance I got.
“Of course we’ve met,” Mina said with a light laugh. Her black hair was pulled back into a low chignon, and a coldness reigned in her eyes, similar to my father’s. “I’ve been to the Triton Estate before.”
“Right,” I murmured, not wanting to engage my mother more than needed. “Let’s go.”
We hustled to the car outside with nary a word, my father waiting for us.
Our mansion was a sterile environment I’d hated growing up in, and I continued to hate it now.
Nothing like the coziness of Jason’s studio, where streaks of paint were on the floor, cobwebs in some of the corners. It was real in a way I craved.
The drive to the Triton Estate was filled with my father making the occasional comment on an upcoming business proposal and my mother humming along as if she had a part to play in any of this beyond faux-doting wife.
I closed my eyes and tried to follow the threads of an image that had been coalescing in my mind ever since I’d almost drowned at sea.
Of my mysterious savior.
The low, dulcet tones of their voice felt like blue and white brushstrokes on canvas, an idle flowing brook and dappled sunshine, and I needed to get that out onto canvas.
“We’re here,” my father announced, snapping me out of my daydreams. This was probably why I made so many mistakes in his line of work.
Whenever images took root in my brain, I struggled to dispel them.
The itch to get them out on paper, on canvas, on any possible surface, grew stronger and stronger until I succumbed.
Anthony drove us past a wicked wrought-iron gate with a trident adorning the center peak. A winding road led up to the silhouette of a mansion at the top, darkened by the surrounding night. Delicate globe lights dotted the way, as if fairies beckoned us deeper into the forest.
Once we wound around the staggered curves up to the top of the hill, the lights illuminating the Triton Estate cast it into magnificent view.
The estate was vast, the mansion itself featuring arched display windows, decorated cornices, regal columns at the front entrance, and sharp steeples on the domes of the shorter spires.
It made our storied estate look paltry in comparison, and I guaranteed my father was seething with envy as he often did around his peers.
Anthony pulled to a stop in front of the entryway, where my father stepped out first, then my mother and me. My skin had begun to crawl like the onset of the flu at the idea of being here. Maybe I’d made a huge mistake in indulging them this much.
I should’ve run while I had the chance.
When I stepped up to the entrance, the chill from the stone exterior settled over me. Guaranteed, this was another sterile prison, like the one I’d come from.
A butler strode up to us, clad in all black. He had a distinguished air about him, like he’d been with the family for ages. “The Durands?”
“Yes,” Angus said, giving a sniff.
“Follow me,” he said, holding the door open and gesturing us inside.
My father escorted my mother, and I trailed behind them, the butler taking the rear.
Upon entry, splendor sprawled out in every direction, a marble staircase to the right, a seafoam bluish-green color to the walls with white accents.
The chandeliers were made of sea glass that cast glimmering deep blue and green patterns on the tiled white floor, with veins of silver and black.
Two figures emerged from an anteroom. One was a tall man with a crisp black and gray beard and similar hair, dressed in a formal suit like my father. The other, though…
They weren’t human. I’d seen cecaelia before, but never any as striking as the one before me.
They stood at an equal height to the other man, but instead of legs were eight dark tentacles.
Their short silver hair was carefully coiffed, and their skin gleamed like a moonstone in the light with a pale-blue hue.
The suit jacket they wore had longer tails, and they had a maroon vest on underneath, the whole look complementing their broad shoulders and solid frame.
Their dark eyes held a sharpness that fascinated me, and the severity of their pursed lips made them seem dangerous.
My mother bristled. Of course she’d take offense to being in the presence of a monster.
“Ah, my esteemed guests,” the man said, stepping forward. Frederick, I presumed. “I was just finishing business with my lawyer here. Ursuline, this is the Durand family.”
They gave my father and mother a quick scan over and arched their brow, as if they found them wanting.
Then their gaze landed on me, and I froze.
The intensity there was something I’d never experienced before.
A whole-body shiver traveled through me, as if I’d been plugged in, and the hum of electricity zipped to life.
Ursuline tipped their head in a nod and then shuffled past us on their tentacles.
I glanced behind to watch them go, wishing they didn’t have to.
They were the first bit of unexpected since the moment we’d headed out for the night.
Everything else felt like the same old-wealth circles I was accustomed to—and loathed.
“Come, dinner will be set out for us soon,” Frederick said, sweeping his arm to the right. “Arielle is waiting, as well as my wife, Darla, and our two other daughters, Olivia and Pearl.”
“Right,” my father stated, heading in the gestured direction. My mother quickened her pace, as if she could escape having been in the same room as a monster. Much of my family involved themselves in Human First far too much for my liking.
We stepped into the dining room, where four women were seated around a massive table, the cherrywood seats polished to perfection, and a cream tablecloth and pale-blue table runner across the length.
The chandeliers in this room mimicked candles with their tremulous false flames glittering.
The older woman with her hair in a low bun must’ve been Darla, and two women who appeared to be in their twenties sat beside her.
My gaze landed on a familiar redhead. “You’re from the beach.”
She glanced at me, and her smile brightened. “And you’re the one the sea spat out. Funny seeing you here.”
“You’ve already met Arielle?” my mother asked, stepping beside me.
“Apparently so,” I said, taking the steps to go sit beside her. I’d rather her company than my parents’. I’d rather most company to theirs.
She flashed me another grin when I sat. “Who knew you’d be the esteemed Durand heir?”
I shook my head. “Nothing esteemed about me. Just happened to be born into a rich family.”
My father coughed into his napkin, and when I looked up, his glare burrowed deep into me.
Clearly, that had been the wrong answer.
Though I never knew how to navigate these conversations, not truly.
I wasn’t interested in business or fluffing my ego, and my real passions were off the table for discussion.