- EIGHT
Cece
I wanted to pull my arm free, his grip hurt so much.
As if sensing my thoughts, he stopped mid-stride and tossed me toward the ground.
I hit with a grunt, rolling to my hands and knees to push myself up, trying to ignore the helplessness of the situation, the indignity of it.
Then there was an exploding pain in my stomach that sent me sprawling several feet away onto my back again.
I would have sworn I was completely air born for a moment.
I curled to my side, trying to breathe through the winded-sensation, never having been in real pain like that before, not the kind of pain that was inflicted on purpose.
"Get up," he demanded and I quickly took my feet, hunched slightly forward.
"They won't want you dead, but there's nothing saying I can't have some fun with you first." The way he said 'fun' made my stomach turn, made bile rise up my throat.
I had a feeling I knew exactly what kind of fun he was referring to.
"You're too pretty," he said then, sounding amused.
"Let's see what we can do about that first."
Before I could back away, his arm swung out, the back of his hand smashing across the side of my face. The pain was immediate, sharp, then throbbing and I knew it was probably already bruising. I stumbled back, tasting blood, and I realized he had split my lip with some gaudy, awful ring he wore.
"Nuh-uh," he said as I backed away from him. He reached out, grabbing the hair at the nape of my neck, curling into a fist in the strands, and pulling violently to the side.
I hated myself for it, but I let out a screech at the smarting in my scalp.
"Frank!" a clear female voice called out.
Frank's hand immediately fell from my hair and he turned quickly, looking for the source of the call.
Finding her standing several yards away, he bowed low at her.
"You are to bring guests directly into the house," she declared, her young voice firm and chastising.
"Yes, yes of course, miss," he rushed to say, tripping over his words as he bowed again.
Even from a distance, the family resemblance was unmistakable. She had the same long blonde hair as Jade, the same bright eyes as Jasper. Her face, while of the same sharp features, was a little more rounded, a little softer. She was tall and slight and maybe in her late teens.
I wondered suddenly if either Jasper or Jade knew they had a little sister.
She stood there for a moment to make sure Frank was doing as he was told, then turned to go inside the sprawling house, leaving the front door open for us.
Everything in the Winters' house was white. The floor tiles were white; the walls were an eye-aching shade of white. Even all the furniture was white. Everything was stark, neat, expensive, and cold. Nothing seemed to offer any kind of comfort.
"Stay here," Frank commanded, pushing me inside the closest room.
Could I make a run for it? But even as I thought that, a man appeared, closing the front door, eying me, then pressing his back against it, sealing off my escape.
I turned and looked around the room with its massive floor-to-ceiling windows and the bookcases lining one whole wall.
There was a grand piano to one corner and I couldn't help but wonder if Jade or Jasper had ever learned to play.
I smiled a little wistfully at the image of a small blond Jasper sitting on the bench, trying to make his little hands play the right notes.
"Well, hello," a smooth female voice called, making me stumble and turn, my heart slipping into overdrive.
Who I found was a middle aged woman with ice-blonde hair that she had pulled away from her face and clasped behind her neck.
She was tall and almost painfully thin with her white dress, slit into a deep V in the front.
She was beautiful, but in a very distant way like a black-and-white movie star. There was a calm and collected air about her that, for some reason I didn't understand, made her seem dangerous.
"I'm Opal Winters. Welcome to my home," she said with a smile, revealing perfectly white teeth that were just a tad too pointed. Like fangs. "I hear you have gotten a bit turned around in the woods and stumbled onto our property."
"I'm so sorry," I said, the words dripping with sincerity because I was truly, genuinely sorry to be in that house right then.
Opal held up one fine-boned hand. "No. None of that.
Frank says you took quite the tumble," she remarked and I could tell she knew exactly what happened.
"Here, let me get a closer look," she said, closing the vast distance between us.
Really, the room was unnecessarily massive.
She moved slowly, languidly. Like a cat.
She was about five feet away before she stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth falling open the slightest bit. "Oh, my," she said under her breath.
Opal inspected me for a long minute, long enough to make me squirm, as if I was some sort of mythical unicorn. Hell, for all I knew though, unicorns were real too.
"I had no idea," she said finally. There was the slightest trace of worry lines next to her eyes.
Her lips turned up into a tight smile. "I'm so sorry," she said, snapping her finger and a servant appeared out of nowhere, normal except for skin that was more reptilian than human.
"Please show this young lady to the sitting room.
I will be in directly. And fetch Amy and my husband...
wherever he might be." She gave me another worried smile that I didn't understand. "I will be right with you, dear."
I was led into another huge room and left alone.
I sat down on one of the cream couches, hands in my lap lest I mark up their gorgeous furniture.
Taking deep breaths, I tried to convince myself that it would be fine.
I had no idea what the hell was going on, why Opal had acted so strange with me, but I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't good for me.
It was possible that I looked like my parents, that maybe she thought she knew me.
I felt a swell of hope and crushed it right back down to the ground where it belonged.
First, that was problematic because I had no freaking idea who my parents were.
Were they friends or foe of the Winters family?
Second, even if they were friends, I had no idea how to use that to my advantage.
"Hello," the same clear, feminine voice from outside said a bit tentatively. Amy, that was Amy. "I'm Amy. Well, Amethyst, but I prefer Amy."
"I'm Cece," I said as she approached, realizing just how stunning she really was up close.
While Jade was beautiful, this girl was the type of pretty to make you lose your breath with her creamy skin and gunmetal blue eyes.
"Opal is your mother?" I asked, already knowing the answer, but wanting to ease the uncomfortable silence.
A look of embarrassment seemed to cross her face for a quick moment before it was replaced with a shy flush. "Yes."
The silence fell like a veil between us, both of us seemingly uncomfortable for our varying reasons.
As I sat though, sneaking glances at her, I thought about Jade and Jasper and the fact that they must not have ever met her.
I wasn't sure how time passed in The Green, but she seemed too close to their ages for them to have not met her.
Then I realized that she likely lived through the same kind of ill treatment they had that made them run away.
And knowing that, knowing how good her siblings truly were, my heart went out to her, a complete stranger, for having to grow up around monsters.
"I see you two have met," Opal said, gliding into the room. All of the worry lines were gone, giving her back her serene kind of confidence. "I'm afraid I haven't caught your name," she said, taking a seat beside her daughter who ever so slightly stiffened at being close to her.
"Cece," I supplied automatically.
"Cece," Opal rolled the sounds around in her mouth. "That must be short for something."
I felt a wave of unease then. Somewhere in the back of my mind, something was telling me not to supply that kind of information to a stranger, especially one like Opal Winters.
But if I chose not to, I knew she would be suspicious.
And the last thing I wanted from a woman like her was suspicion.
"It's short for Celestine," I said, making a show of rolling my eyes at it.
"My mother must have watched too many French movies when she was pregnant with me. "
Opal's smile went condescending then and I felt a rush of relief. The more she thought I was a clueless changeling, the safer I was. "I see," she said, her tone cool. "So how did you ever find yourself on our property? We are quite a ways into the... woods, you know."
I was on shaky ground and I was painfully aware of that.
I knew my cover story: a Will-o'-the-Wisp.
Except I had no idea what a Will-o'-the-Wisp was, what they looked like, or why I would be chasing one.
"You know, I don't really know," I started, scrunching my brows together in mock confusion.
"I went out for a walk and found myself by the woods so I ventured in.
Then I must have gotten turned around. I had no idea how far these woods went.
I couldn't find a way out. I felt like I was walking in circles forever.
I followed a stream for a long time then I thought I saw...
something. I don't know. But I, for some reason, followed it until I saw your house... "
Opal's face looked amused as she lounged back, her fingers absentmindedly straightening the hem of her daughter's dress. "Why did you end up in our barn?"
"Well, I, ah, heard a man yelling and I figured I wasn't supposed to be here. I panicked."
"And you met Drake?" Opal asked, her voice positively frozen. I'd swear the woman must have had icicles on her tongue.