Page 74 of Cursed Shadows 2

I whisper because it’s all I can manage, “Daxeel pursued me—”

“Do not play with me as you would him.” I flinch at the sheer strength of her interruption. “I know your kind of female, your tricks and your arts. You pursued him from the moment you saw him. You only feigned modesty.”

The heat burns at my cheeks.

Teas have gone ignored. Probably cold now. My mouth doesn’t water anymore, and that hungry coil in my belly has turned into a pit of snakes, disturbed.

Mutely, I shake my head.

But before I can defend myself, she adds, “My suspicion is that you realized when he interrupted your fiancé, he revealed himself as a protector, and that was an advantage you sought. Daxeel has always been a protector,” and her voice softens for that one sentence before hardening again. “You have seen his scars.”

Swallowing back a lump of unspoken words, I nod. They flash in my mind like a painting seared into the insides of my eyelids. His back, littered in raised white lines, jagged and violent. Whipping scars.

“Those were meant for me.” Her smile is small—and utterly wicked. “My husband loathes that he cannot control his evateor earn her love.”

I look up my lashes at her at the mention of evate. I didn’t know that was the bond between Daxeel’s parents—but less did I know how ruthless their bond was. I wonder if she means for me to take that piece of truth, the ugly side of evate, and store it away in my heart.

She goes on, “His temper takes over. And Daxeel stands between me and the whip. He has done so since he was too young, and so he has many scars. But it was you,” and her voice lowers into a near-growl, “who left scars not of flesh, but of heart and soul.”

Melantha makes no move for tea or sandwiches, and it’s an unspoken, glaring truth between us that she only invited me out here to give me a piece of her mind.

My hands are wringing together on my lap so roughly that I feel the pain of pulled knuckles and the bite of nails digging in too hard.

Keeping her relaxed posture, Melantha warns, “I promise you, Narcissa, that if you dare hurt my son again, I will make sure no one is around to stand between you and my whip.”

My eyes widen a fraction. All the blood rushes out of my face and down to my chest.

A fae promise.

I’m collecting too many of those.

“I love him.” Still, my fingers twist on my lap. “I mean him no ill, no harm, no slight.”

She’s quiet for a moment, but her stare feels like a rod beating my face. Then, she asks, “What is your meaning with him?”

“His love, his forgiveness, a true second chance with him…” In a whisper, I add, “Marriage.”

“Protection,” she hisses it like it’s a correction. “From your father. From your fiancé. From the future you face without my son.”

Boots discarded on the ground beside my bare feet, I watch them glitter under the dim firefly lights, how the leather flickers orange and dusty brown on repeat.

I don’t respond to Melantha’s accusation—because she’sright, yes, but also she doesn’t want me to. She doesn’t want me to tell her that it’s a half truth she speaks, because I do love Daxeel, and I want my future with him, the future I might have had if I had done things differently that night.

I doubt standing up to his mother right now would earn me any favours with Daxeel, especially after my fight with Aleana he’s yet to learn anything about.

Am I wallowing or does it all seem so unfair?

“You won him over in body.” Melantha runs her gaze over me, and I say nothing because the stink of her son is anywhere and everywhere she looks. “But did you really win?”

I flick my gaze up at the dark twinkle in her eyes, the cruel curl of her thin mouth, the hunger she must feel to watch me like a beast to be ripped apart.

“Are you safe now, Narcissa?” she asks softly, but there’s nothing gentle about her hushed tone, nor in the way she watches me with her lively eyes.

A sudden lump in my throat almost chokes me. My heart has leapt up there—and there it is to stay for a while.

With a sigh, I reach down to pick up my boots. “I find there is no truth I can speak to you that you want to hear—and so you paint me the way you do.” I slip my foot into one, then fix up the lace. “You love your son, you want to protect him from the wicked halfling who broke his heart, and I understand that,” I add with a bitter smile aimed at her stony face. I shove my foot into the other boot. “But if you’ll excuse me… I just don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

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