Page 80 of Feed Your Fiends

I suck the metallic taste down my throat as I free it from between my teeth.

“Good as new.”

“Thank you,” I say, inspecting the bandage.

“And thank you.”

“For what?” I ask, but then Gant pops into my mind, and I think she’s thanking me for convincing him to visit. But then she clicks the wound kit shut, tucks it away into the draw with her hip and leans against it, arms crossed.

“For showing me your true colours so quickly,” she says, and even though her serene, motherly smile is still firmly in place, icy water drips down my spine. “It’ll save me a lot of time. This moment was inevitable.”

“I’m sorry—”

“The powder room doesn’t have a towel rack with square corners. There’s a dainty loop for the decorative hand towels. See, those clean sharp lines are more of a contemporary, modern aesthetic, which you should know since you’re so interested in architecture and design, right?”

“I—”

“Is that why you helped yourself to a tour of my home?”

I blink, my lips parting, though no sound comes out.

“I know you went into the garage.”

“D-Delphine—”

“I know my husband did, too. I saw when he pulled into the estate from the gardens. Did you fuck him in the back seat?”

“What?!” How the hell did she jump to that conclusion?

‘Probably fucked,’ Sylo’s earlier words echo in my ear about Silas and my mum. Did Silas just fuck anyone?

“Look, I don’t have time to pretend. If you’re not back in five minutes, Gant will come looking for you. He can’t keep his fingers off you, his little slut of the month.”

A sound does escape me then, one of utter disbelief.

“I knew it the moment I saw that cheap, wrinkled skirt. You probably fucked Gant on the way over, the cum still in your cunt, yet you try to mount my husband because my son turned you down.”

“Your son!?” I jump to my feet, though they scream in protest as the stool topples over with a loud bang, the wheels rolling midair. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You waited for Sylo to be alone, then you slipped away to join him. You bumped his elbow at the tea cart, and you tried to whisper in his ear, and he ignored you.Again.I know today isn’t your first time meeting him.”

“We go to the same academy! He’s in some senior ballet classes, of course; I’ve met him before.”

“Is that how you met my Silas? Through Sylo? Was Gant not enough to fund your lifestyle?”

My lip quivers.Say something!

“I saw the way Silas looked at you when he waved from the sitting room, a good three minutes later, like I’m some fucking idiot. How long have you been fucking him?”

“You’re paranoid—”

“Please, you tugged that cheap dress down your hips the moment you banked the corner. I saw you.”

I’d been trying to unwrinkle, as she pointed out, my cheap outfit.

Cheap, cheap, cheap,Beaulieu’s bitches chirps chime, and suddenly I’m so sick ofthesefucking people. The one percent that think money makes them better than everyone else.

“If you saw so much, then why are you questioning me?” I snap. “Your mind’s already made up.”

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