Page 24 of Aberrant Monsters
“Food. Hungry now. Food.” He scrambled toward me, and I took several steps back even though there were barriers between us.
“Stefan was one of our top rift walkers until he became infected six months ago. That’s how long it took for him to devolve.”
I tore my gaze from the poor man and fixed it on the chamberlain. “You let that happen to him?”
“Oh no. We tried to save him, but the aberration bound to him wasn’t agreeable to that. It wanted to stay. It wanted a permanent home, and it didn’t care about its host’s needs or wants.” Her gaze slid my way. “Unlike yours. Your aberration is…different. Intelligent. Able to be reasoned with. You, my dear, have a chance of avoiding Stefan’s fate.”
Hope chased away my disgust. “You can help us?”
Her eyes flinched. “Us. You care what happens to it? What if I told you that we’d have to exterminate it in order to save your life?”
Telarion’s head swung my way. He was waiting for me to answer.
The response spilled from my lips without my having to consider the words. “I desperately want to survive this and not become a monster, but if that means killing the creature that saved my life, then the answer is no, because saying yes to that is becoming a monster of a different kind, and I won’t do that either. So I say find another way… Please.”
She smiled, a genuine one that reached her eyes. “You truly are your mother’s daughter.” The smile wilted. “Her death was unfortunate.”
Blood pounded in my ears. “Death?”
She gave me a wary look. “Frederick didn’t tell you?”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I want you to tell me.”
Her mouth turned down slightly. “A rift walker found your mother’s backpack on the other side of a rift two days after she was reported missing. There was blood. A lot of blood. The samples confirmed it was your mother’s blood. There was no other conclusion to draw but that she was killed by something in the eldritch realm.”
The edge of my vision went dark, and I blinked to clear it.
Genevieve tutted. “Frederick has much to answer for. He should have told you the truth.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. All this time a tiny part of me had been holding on to the hope that she would return one day, but she’d been dead all this time. She hadn’tabandonedme. She’d been killed. She’d been killedbecauseshe’d gone into danger after negotiating not to. What had been so important, so inescapable, that she’d gone through a rift after forcing the Order to sign a contract meaning she didn’t have to?
Conflicting emotions tore at me. The knowledge that she hadn’t meant to leave me all alone, the knowledge that something had ended her life, and all this time…all this time I’d thought she’d left me.
She hadn’t. Not by choice.
A sob bubbled up my throat and I pressed my lips together and swallowed it. My heart felt heavy, too big for my chest and brittle as if one more dark word would shatter it.
I could sense Telarion’s eyes on me. His presence cocooned me and kept me on my feet.
I wrangled my emotions under control, focusing on not letting them overwhelm me. “What was she doing going through a rift? I thought she’d given that up. Did you send her?”
“No, we didn’t send her. We don’t know what she was doing there.” She pressed her lips together. “We’re not sure what or who killed her.”
“Who? You mean a person?”
“There were large boot tracks leading away from the blood. Tracks that didn’t match your mother or any of our rift walkers.”
Wait a second… “You think she was murdered by someone on the other side. I thought there were only monsters on the other side.”
“We don’t know,” she said. “We’ve suspected there may be a civilization on the other side but thus far we haven’t come across them.”
“But these boot tracks—”
“Indicate yes. I’m sorry you had to find out like this. Your mother’s demise is something you should have been made aware of a long time ago. I can only imagine your pain all these years as you wondered where she was and why she’d left. Your Uncle Fred should have told you the truth and allowed you to grieve. Have closure.”
She was saying all the things going through my mind. Was I pissed at my uncle? Hell yes, but there was no way I’d stand in a glass cage and bash him to my captor.
“My uncle did what he thought was best.” I lifted my chin. “He loves me and he was probably protecting me.”
