16 #2
But I play by the rules of the game—a game I’ve been out of for so long now.
“How is Asta these days?” I ask. “Married Eric Harling and had little demons for babies?”
Dray leans closer.
His forearm braces on the edge of the table.
He says, soft and dangerous, “She married higher.”
The scent of smooth scotch is on his breath, blended with spearmint.
‘Married higher…’
I bet she did.
Bet she married all the way to the top after I took everything out from under her.
“And as for offspring, she is with child now.” His growing smile is dark. “You might be spending a lot of time with her. Do try to be nicer.”
My insides coil.
There’s too much in what he really says.
And all of it pisses me off.
Asta is happily married, obviously to Dray, since she’ll be around so often, and for my sake, I should be nice so I don’t get my ass whooped again.
My jaw tenses, firm, until my teeth ache.
Then the attendant cuts into my peripherals. She comes to the table, a platter balanced on one hand.
The colour is draining from my face.
I fall back in the seat, slumped.
I stare at Dray.
The scent of scotch lingers in the air.
“The chef has prepared homemade fettuccine with white truffle and sous vide duck,” she says—
But her voice is an echo.
It’s so far away.
It climbs on the wings of the plane, tumbling around with the engine and the murmurs further up the aisle.
The plates are served, the coffees taken away, a fresh glass of scotch set down on the table, and all the time that takes, I drift further and further away.
I can’t explain it.
A sinking sensation inside of me.
A sense of... jealousy or hurt, like I just want to shove a pregnant Asta down a flight of stairs.
It’s the fight.
It’s definitely the fight.
Long buried anger and resentment waking up inside of me.
Asta won the fight, then she won life—all while being accepted by the other witches.
I drop my gaze to the plate.
It’s a strange thing to have my mouth flood, but my stomach be as still as the air in a sauna.
Dray makes no move for his cutlery.
He drapes the napkin over his lap—and waits for me to start.
It’s a propriety rule he doesn’t need to follow when it’s just us two at the back of the plane.
But he does, and he waits.
I move slow.
It’s not petulance or resistance that slows me down. It’s the daze that’s settled over me.
Like I lost that fight with Asta all over again.
My grip tightens on the silver fork.
I mumble, “I guess I should say congratulations on her pregnancy.”
I shouldn’t be this surprised.
Every time I let myself imagine what was going on back home, I saw Asta and Dray together.
It wasn’t so much a question.
Dray arches a brow. “I will pass it on.”
I turn my cheek to him and look out the window.
Dray uses his cutlery to place strips of duck onto my plate. A polite nudge to start eating.
“It doesn’t feel real,” I confess. “It feels like I’m dreaming.”
“Do you dream of home?”
My mouth flattens into a tight line, as if to stop the truth from escaping my lips.
Dray presses, “There is nothing to be ashamed of.”
My gaze is lured back to him.
“You were raised with certain tastes and luxuries,” he says.
“It isn’t unsurprising that you didn’t take to your little life when it came to it.
The food, the clothes,” he adds, and looks me over, the polyester sweater that clings to my midsection, wider than the last time he saw me, “and empty connections, surrounded by those who will never understand you. It was more than always looking over your shoulder, wasn’t it? You missed it. You missed this.”
He gestures to the overall extravagance enveloping us—
And it’s so sickeningly true.
I eat my feelings.
It’s an effort to not shovel the strips of duck and fresh strands of fettuccine into my mouth. I have to actively force myself to be polite, to remember my manners, manners I lost somewhere along the way.
Dray lets me eat in peace for a while.
It’s only when I’m starting to slow down and relax in the chair that he says, “My mother is pleased you are returning. She did attempt to call a few times too many as we were boarding.”
Staring down at my plate, I shake my head. “No one is happy to see me come home. They’re just relieved I’m back so they can put an end to the rumours.”
Politics and all.
Reputations.
No actual love for me.
But Dray surprises me—
“Rumours? No one knows you are gone, Olivia.”
I flick my glower up at him.
His stare is unflinching, a quiet challenge.
I force down a swallow. “What do you mean? I’ve been gone for years.”
“Yes.”
“But the Videralli don’t know I’m gone?”
He answers, “Not outside of the coven.”
The face I make is confused, an unkind grimace. “How?”
Dray gives a smile that chills my spine. “Asta’s illusions have gotten much better with practice.”
For a heartbeat, two, I just stare at him. His cold, unyielding gaze.
Then a scoff jolts me.
Asta has been illusioning herself to look like me, to play a part, a role, with my face?
It feels like an intrusion.
A violation.
I set the cutlery down, a tad harder than I should, then slide off the chair.