Chapter 5
Creed
Listening to Aurora describe how she was raped—not marital relations or ‘duties’ as she called it, but raped—repeatedly raped was one of the most difficult things I’d had to do. Mostly because I felt useless. I understood now why Ms. Reed said we were a match that couldn’t happen.
Nothing about me was soft or gentle, and that was exactly what Aurora needed. She needed someone who could be patient and understanding.
I was about to explode that I couldn’t peel the skin off this fucker and piss all over his caved-in skull.
“Stop,” I growled, trying to tone it back when she flinched. “Aurora, you were raped. That’s rape. You gotta stop and—say it. Say you were raped.”
She blinked at what she was working on and I saw the tear fall. “I know. I know that’s considered it now, but it wasn’t then.”
“That doesn’t change that’s what happened. You were raped. Others would have considered it rape back then. That’s what you’re missing.”
She opened her mouth but then closed it, trying again and then frowning. “I don’t know that’s true. Human women were sold like that too. Women were property, Creed. Even shifters—witches—all of us. Maybe some rare men would have but…” She shrugged.
I racked my brain on how to handle this or what to say, annoyed I couldn’t manage this better.
“Thank you for being angry for me and upset I suffered what I did,” she whispered. “That means a lot to me. You don’t brush it off as how things were back then. I think I’ve accepted most would say that. I think I knew telling you would help because you wouldn’t. You don’t accept any nonsense.”
“Oh, I wish that were true, but I’m better at seeing it as nonsense than I was as a cub,” I said with a dark tone. “I don’t know how to help you with this. I get though why Ms. Reed said we were a bad match.”
She snorted, which shocked me. “Ellie was in her own abusive relationship for a decade even as she helped others. I’m glad she’s found the perfect man now, but while she is a wonderful woman, she is not perfect.
I have always seen her flaws, and I am the one person she will never be able to see clearly. I cannot fault her for that.”
Fair enough, but I also didn’t understand what had gone down between them.
She met my gaze and let out a slow breath. “I’ll say it one day. Today was a big step for me. I don’t accept what happened to me as acceptable.”
“That’s good,” I sighed, bobbing my head. “Yeah, that’s good.”
She focused back on her task, cutting up chicken for whatever she was making. “When it was over, he said, ‘You better give me a son with all that seed in you.’”
“He’s really a crass fucker,” I grumbled.
She nodded and the haunted look in her eye was like a knife in my gut.
“I knew women carried babies. I’d seen pregnant women, but—women didn’t know things like they do now.
It was shameful to talk about anything. We were kept ignorant.
I had no idea that was how a woman became pregnant. I-I spiraled out.
“He left to go get drunk with the others and servants came to tend to me, not letting me bathe to keep… You know.” She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable, hurrying on. “But all I kept thinking about was what if I had a daughter?”
“Yeah, an asshole like him would be super pissed.”
“That’s more complicated than you know, but that’s not what I mean,” she mumbled. “If I had a daughter, she would live through what I did. I couldn’t have a daughter to live through that. I’d rather die than bring a girl into this world to suffer what I did.”
Oh shit. Yeah, that would be… Fuck.
And clearly, it was more than a thought from the grief, fear, and horror I was scenting off of Aurora.
She told me how she was violently ill from the stress, couldn’t keep down blood or food.
The elders assumed her husband did something horrific…
Which he did, and they reprimanded him about her age and being a better man—setting an example.
That she might have become a woman by menstruating, but truly breeding her could lead to babies with deformities.
And she said it all in such a detached way as if it hadn’t happened to her but someone else that it broke my fucking heart. It really did.
It bought her time and she hatched a plan, a sin she could never be forgiven for from what she said. A way to hide her child if it was a daughter when she did eventually become pregnant.
Because apparently, she would absolutely have a daughter since her husband was cursed to have no sons for something horrific he did. I was honestly riveted, the fucking crazy I was listening to like some movie that I couldn’t believe wasn’t made. Like the shit was beyond unreal.
I kept blinking, shaking my head, or pinching the bridge of my nose as she told me all of this, the dishes long done and now her finishing up dinner.
The long story was she realized that “bedding” was being raped as she was and how maids were always raped in her family’s castle, so she assumed they would be in that coven’s castle as well.
So if they were being raped, at least have one carry a child for the coven leader so she could keep her daughter safe to not suffer what she did was better for them.
Right, but some girl would still suffer that. There would still be another horror and… Wow.
I mean, she wasn’t wrong that being raped by one man as a coven leader’s wife was better than being born a bastard of a guard and becoming a maid to endure the same as the maids did. But… That wasn’t exactly… Fucking shit was fucked up.
Beyond fucked up.
“I know,” she whispered when she was done and plating food for us. “I know what I did was beyond forgiveness. I know Ellie will never forgive me for keeping her mother away from her and the way I excused it. I’ve had centuries to understand my sins.”
“It irks me that you say sins, not crimes,” I admitted.
She blinked at her plate but then winced.
“They weren’t crimes back then, Creed. I was a noble and she was a commoner.
I would maybe have had to pay a fine, but no one would have come after a rich man’s wife.
So yes, by today’s standards, they were crimes, but back then…
” She gave a half shrug. “I’m sorry that upsets you.
I’m not sure why crime is more important than—”
“Yeah, it will when I explain, sorry,” I muttered. “Plus, I paid for my crimes.”
She gave me a glance filled with so much sadness that I felt it in my soul. “People and judges decide the punishment on crimes, Creed, and they are never harsh enough for the victims. The gods punish sins, and they are the harshest possible judges because they made the lives we sinned against.”
Wow. Just… Wow. She truly believed that.
I listened as she told me about how Ms. Reed was raised, how she was fiercely protective of her and attended her schooling so no one could teach her anything bad, never look down on her.
She was able to learn as well. That was how she found out her most “trusted” friend and maid was actually a spy for her family.
They knew everything about what was going on from the beginning but didn’t care as long as they were still paid for her.
Maybe they had in the beginning, but they were too far to do anything since they had angered all the witches and warlocks in France.
None would ever work with them or open a portal.
She confronted her friend and the woman confessed—said she had no choice since her family still worked at the castle and for Aurora’s parents.
This was the way for any daughters of Aurora’s family, and a servant was always educated to hold their leash at the new coven, exert influence, and be puppeted.
She begged for forgiveness and asked for a chance.
“You didn’t give it, right? She could have told you from the beginning and asked to work together so her family wasn’t screwed,” I grumbled.
“Exactly what I said, so I gave her the option to run or die,” Aurora told me.
“She tried to inform my family and I let my husband find out, playing dumb and suggested that she had been a spy all along.
The evidence was easy to find, and he rewarded me greatly when I was the loudest voice that any traitor should be punished mercilessly.
“He didn’t know that I was hiding Theresa, and I was scared that my family now knew about her.
I realized later he already knew from a different servant—the one with Theresa.
” She chuckled darkly. “No one ever can really be trusted for anything.” She shook her head.
“But my family knew what was done to me and didn’t care.
“They only cared about my gaining power in the coven and influence over the elders like my friend had been pushing me to do. Kenneth and the elders were skeptical and watched me closely, but I wasn’t acting disgusted, I truly was.
I asked to see the marriage contracts and found a clause that made the betrayal nullify the payments.
“I demanded the coven ask for funds back from my family for their deceitful ways when they hadn’t even visited or acted as family.
” She smiled. “I stirred up a huge fuss to protect Ellie and Theresa.
I made it clear that I thought it was all because they heard how excellent Ellie was and wanted to claim her for their family and pull something fishy.
“The elders listened and two went directly to my family coven and demanded the money returned. My parents actually paid some of it for the misunderstanding. My place was solidified in the coven then and I made it clear to Kenneth that it was all for Ellie. My family was her and the people I was born to dead to me.”
“What changed? Clearly, it changed,” he muttered.
“I couldn’t give him a son or more children no matter how many times he tried to breed me,” she whispered. “A just punishment from the gods for what I’ve done.”
I froze in my next bite. “Like you’ve confirmed you can’t have children, or you just assume that’s what happened?”