Chapter 1 #2
He leaned toward me with one hand pressed against the wall behind me, leaving only a few inches of space between us.
His voice lowered to a soft but menacing tone, breath hot on my neck as he put his lips next to my ear so that Greta couldn't hear. “I will be back in three days’ time to collect you and that bastard child. I am in town and have my men watching this hovel of a shop. I have eyes everywhere. Don’t try to run.
” He paused and ran his tongue over his teeth.
“Or do. I would love a reason to get a little rough with you.” His dark eyes ran hungry lines up and down my body, lingering too long on my chest. Inching his face so his nose brushed mine, he added, “I’ll have you scream for me in one way or another. ”
A wave of nausea hit me, and cold dread slithered down my spine.
Terren didn’t make idle threats. I knew from experience that he kept true to his word.
He straightened, turned around, and briskly walked to the front of the apothecary.
With his palm on the brass door handle, he paused, looked back at me over his shoulder with darkened eyes, and said, “By the way, Jairus wants you to know he looks forward to having you back.”
I sucked in a sharp breath as Terren turned around and disappeared out the door, slashing one last deep wound open within me with his forked tongue.
Greta rushed to me and gently cupped my face. “Are you alright, dear? Who was that?”
I let out a shaky breath. “Terren. My beastly mother sent him to deliver a message and upset me.” I didn’t often talk about my parents.
I craved a clean slate without the status and wealth of my family to influence the way people perceived me.
It was challenging being an outsider in a village that flourished with generations of families who all knew and supported each other.
If they had found out I was a noble, my welcome here would’ve been nonexistent.
But Greta knew. She was the only person in the world whom I had trusted to divulge my past to.
“She found you,” she whispered. “How long has it been since you left?”
I swallowed. “Four years.”
Four years and hundreds of miles between us. Yet I still couldn’t escape the clawed reach of this monster and the wounds she reopened within me.
I looked at the letter fisted in my hand.
The loopy and delicate handwriting of my name indicated my mother took time to write the letter herself instead of making one of her servants do it for her.
I broke open the seal and pulled out the folded parchment, letting the envelope fall to the knotted wooden floor.
A small trace of my mother’s perfume lingered on the parchment.
Greta turned to leave, but I grabbed her hand, and she silently drifted back to my side.
I needed her to anchor me. My heart raced as I read.
Aurora,
You have had your fun to the detriment of Cora, but it is time for you both to return to Alwine Manor.
There are too many crimes and uprisings, making it unsafe for a woman of your breeding and status.
Additionally, Cora needs proper education, lessons, and to step into the life a young lady of her standing should be embracing.
I have sent Terren to collect you both. I must warn you that the royal court of Edenalee has granted me custody of Cora on the grounds of noble preservation in times of great conflict.
If you foolishly decide not to return, Cora will return without you.
I have the means to keep Cora safe from the ongoing civil unrest and give her the life she deserves, even if you squandered your own. She will want for nothing.
I am generously giving you three days from the reading of this letter to get your affairs in order and say goodbye to whomever you need to, or to have time to part with Cora if you selfishly decide to keep living below your status.
If you do decide to stay where you are, I must impress upon you that you are not to contact me if and when your ‘happy life’ starts to crumble around you and you need help picking up the pieces, like the last couple of times. I will not be there.
~Mother
Blood rushed into my ears, and my stomach flipped. “No. No, no, no, no! This can’t be happening. I won’t let them take her from me.” Tears rolled down my warming cheeks. Greta’s eyes shone as she wrapped me up in a hug.
“I am so sorry you don’t have a mother who sees the amazing and capable woman you are. Cora is lucky to have you as her mom,” she said warmly, pulling back to look up at me. “Oh, I could slap that woman for doing this to you!”
I chuckled between sniffles. “Goddess, that would heal a piece of me to witness.”
Greta searched my tearful eyes. “How can I help?”
“I don’t know. My mother always gets what she wants. Cora cannot go back to that manor and endure what I did. She deserves better.”
My jaw clenched as I reread the letter, infuriated by my mother’s insinuation that I was not only unable to keep my daughter safe but that I couldn’t give her a good life.
She believed that the key to a fulfilling existence was possessing the best things money can buy.
Her time and affection were the two things she couldn’t squeeze from her purse, yet what I had needed most. Things I readily gave to my daughter.
The cold reality of the situation washed over me.
“My mother is nothing if not persistent with unlimited resources and a quasi-friendship with a man who wants nothing more than for me to crash and burn, aiding her plight. I have settled on a platform of stability and safety only to have it swept out from underneath me the moment I begin to feel safe. The goddess Clotha is certainly weaving a fated path for me like I have personally offended her.”
Greta set her jaw, tipping her chin up. “Goddess of fate or not, I will help set you back on a path to a life you deserve. You get to choose which of the paths she has created for you. I’ll give you what coin I can spare, and you can take off to start anew.”
“Greta, I can’t ask that of you!”
She stared at me and narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t. And I am not offering; I’m telling. Take the money, and let’s get a plan in place. Choose this path.”
Greta had given Cora and me so much. Too much. I wanted to refuse, but I didn’t have the connections or coin that Greta did, and getting my daughter to safety required both. I had to swallow my pride. It was what Cora deserved.
“Alright,” I whispered and looked deep into her sky-blue eyes. “I will pay you back. I won’t do this unless you let me pay you back,” I demanded.
Greta flicked her hand at me. “Yes, yes. Fine.”
“We have three days,” I continued, “but I refuse to do anything that will put you or Cora in danger. We must be strategic.”
“Strategy is what women do best.” A sly smile formed, deepening the lines on her face.
“Leave it to me. I’ll get you both safely away from that man, and I won’t even need three days to do it.
” Greta loved to problem-solve and piss off men.
The fact that she was about to do both made her practically giddy.
I was not as confident, but I had successfully eluded my mother once, and I could do it again.
My voice had only ever been disregarded, no matter how much I fought to use it.
I wouldn’t let Cora fall victim to the same fate.
Maybe my conviction was truly desperation or delusion, but I would need both to get through what was about to unfold: An upheaval of our status quo and blind faith in Clotha that we were destined for more than being submissive, to both my mother and the men she would seek to marry us off to.