7. 6 #3
Ada stepped beside her, fingers brushing hers before curling gently around Mabel’s hand. “Men are pigs,” she said with a sigh, voice dry but warm. “Most of them. Maybe all. And they’re hopeless, foolish creatures who don’t know what they have until it slips through their fingers.”
Mabel’s gaze dropped. “And he’ll probably do it again. Hurt me, like this.”
Ada was quiet for a beat, then looked at her squarely. “He might,” she said softly. “But I won’t. You have me. We have each other. And I’ll be here—even when he isn’t.”
Mabel’s voice barely rose above a whisper. “Why does it have to feel like this?”
“No one promised it wouldn’t,” Ada replied, gently reaching up to tuck a strand of Mabel’s hair behind her ear, her touch familiar, calming. “But that doesn’t mean you’re alone in it.”
“I know.” Mabel sighed, eyes shimmering. “It’s just—I thought he was different. That maybe … maybe I could be happy. Just once.”
“You still can be,” Ada whispered, stepping behind her and gathering Mabel’s hair over one shoulder. “His apology might’ve meant something. Maybe he doesn’t understand the weight of it all, but he knows he caused the bruise.”
Mabel met her reflection in the mirror, eyes searching her own face for something she hadn’t quite lost yet.
Maybe he was sorry.
With practiced ease, Ada undid the buttons lining Mabel’s dress, her fingers nimble and steady. Mabel let out a slow breath as the corset loosened around her frame, the weight of the day slipping away with the fabric. The dress pooled softly at her feet, leaving her in her slip.
Ada bent to gather the fallen garment, folding it with care before glancing back at Mabel. “Don’t twist yourself up over him. He’s just some boy.”
Mabel gave a light laugh, a breathy kind of disbelief. “Some boy I’m supposed to marry,” she scoffed, shaking her head.
Ada smirked. “Just remember—cute babies,” she teased, winking.
Mabel laughed again, the sound sweeter this time, mellowed by affection. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she whispered, eyes lingering on Ada.
Ada stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her. “I love you, you know.”
“I know,” Mabel said softly, her body sinking into the comfort of Ada’s embrace.
Ada stroked a hand gently through Mabel’s hair, calming her like muscle memory. “I’m always here if you need me.”
Mabel closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she breathed. “For everything.”
Ada smiled, pressing a kiss to her temple before turning toward the door. “Laundry calls,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “But I’ll suffer through.”
“Goodnight,” Mabel called, her voice barely above a hush.
Ada lingered a second longer. “Goodnight, Mabel.”
She left with a soft click of the door. Mabel took a deep breath, eyes flickering to the cloak that lay on her bed. She walked over, slow hands lacing through the thick fur.
She slid beneath it, letting it wrap around her shoulders, the warmth sinking deep into her skin. The fur was impossibly soft, comforting in a way words couldn’t be.
Her fingers found the clasp once more, tracing the golden antlers carved there. A reminder of responsibility.
Her parents’ voices echoed faintly in her thoughts. Cold, commanding, always reaching with invisible hands. Their threats hadn’t followed her physically, but they clung to her mind like frost. Promises of consequence.
And then Theodore. His earlier sharpness still haunted her—his entitlement, his control. The bitterness in her chest hadn’t vanished.
But neither had the memory of snow. Of laughter. Of his touch lingering with unexpected tenderness, cloaking her in warmth instead of command. Of his apology, even if it came late.
She wasn’t sure what to make of it all.
The cloak gathered around her shoulders like a question she couldn’t yet answer. Maybe he was trying. Maybe she was simply too weathered to believe in trying.
Yet whenever his name drifted through her thoughts, her chest stirred, fluttering with echoes of his smile, the warmth of his presence, the softness he wore like a second skin.
And still … Lance’s words lingered like thorns beneath the surface. There was truth in them. She felt it in the way Theodore flinched. Heard it in the silence that followed. Whatever he had done, it carried weight.
She let herself be swept off her feet far too quickly, too easily. She knew better. Her defenses weren’t just decorations; they had been built from splinters and scars, and that morning had only reminded her why.
She barely knew him. And yet, somehow, his smile had slipped past every barricade, stealing the air from her lungs before she had a chance to say no. How could he so effortlessly take her breath away? How could she have let him?
Her cheeks still blushed in his shadow. Her body remembered him.
But not now.
Not yet.
For this sliver of time, she allowed herself the quiet. A breath unburdened. A moment untouched.
“Auren,” she whispered. “If you can hear me … I want dreams of peace, not passion.” And slowly, she closed her eyes.
But yet again, when her dreams twisted with desire, it was Lance—his breath, his lips, his touch.
It devoured her.