Page 43 of Stray
Ella didn’t miss the note of bitterness in her voice. Whatever bad blood there was between the pride’s Matriarch and the regional head of the Fellowship, the years never had thinned it.
“I didn’t think she was going to be in town until the Unveiling,” Ella remarked.
“Neither did I,” was Emily’s only response before she strutted down the hall. Ella could hear her barking orders at Beatrice and felt a mixture of guilt and relief that she had narrowly escaped being berated herself.
If she was being asked to attend dinner, that could only mean Emily was hoping to give the appearance of a happy, united family, including the stray who usually lived on the outskirts of their shared existence.
Ella’s room was upstairs on the opposite end of the hall from the others. It was smaller than most of the rooms in the house, but it was comfortable and quiet with a view of the garden out back, which she considered the old manor’s hidden treasure. She walked over to the closet and scanned the sparse rack within. Other than her old school uniforms, there weren’t many options to choose from. She finally decided on the fitted navy blue dress she’d worn for graduation. Beatrice was the only one in attendance, so she doubted anyone would notice.
Emily hadopinionsabout wearing the same dress twice.
If the Matriarch wanted her to dress up, she’d probably have a fit if she didn’t go all the way and put on makeup. Ella dabbed a bit of foundation on a clean makeup sponge and put on a couple of layers of mascara, as well as a nude lipstick she didn’t fully remember how she’d acquired. As she stared back at her reflection, her newly painted lips curved into a frown.
“Not much help,” she muttered to herself, smoothing out the fitted bodice of her dress. It would have to do. She slipped on a pair of flats and headed downstairs just in time to realize the Watersons had arrived.
Of course they were early.
“Sweetheart, you look incredible,” Emily cooed in the tone she reserved for her closest frenemies, embracing the red-haired woman in front of her. Blake Waterson was not quite as tall and elegant as Emily, but she had regal features and a sort of timeless beauty that often caught the eye of toms young enough to be her son. Ella figured Marissa had to get it from somewhere.
Speak of the devil,she thought, tempted to run back upstairs before she was noticed as soon as she laid eyes on Marissa. She decided against it, choosing instead to linger behind Emily and near the wall separating the hallway from the dining room. There had to be some benefits to being invisible.
Marissa had her mother’s fiery locks, though she’d pressed the waves out with a combination of Brazilian blowouts and flat ironing. As her parents exchanged pleasantries by the door, the blue eyes she’d inherited from Mr. Waterson fixed on Ella and her cherry red lips turned downward.
No words had to pass between them for Ella to know exactly what she was thinking. Marissa had been a fixture in her life ever since she’d come into the Hill family, and the other girl had despised her just as long. Ella was no closer to understanding what she’d done to make Marissa hate her than she’d been back then, but the fire of enmity burned bright between them nonetheless. Over the years, it had become mutual.
Especially once Ella realized Marissa had already dug her claws into Axel. Not that he needed much convincing.
Ella was the first one to break eye contact. Each time, she told herself it would be different, but she always gave in. Some instinctive reaction she could neither understand nor help.
Maybe it was just how a lowly stray was supposed to react to a destined Empress. Everyone else seemed to think it was plain as day. The admiring whispers of the adults in the pride made it seem like she was some sort of celebrity, or a young royal.
In a way, she was. Maybe she wasn’t known as a leader among the humans, but among shifterkind, Marissa was nothing shy of a legend.
As far as Ella was concerned, there was no point in having the Unveiling ceremony at all when everyone from the priestesses of the Fellowship to the neighborhood gossip knew who she was and what she would become.
“This way, please,” Emily said warmly, leading her guests into the dining room. “The others shouldn’t be long.”
“I’m glad we arrived before Tessa,” Blake remarked, slipping out of her capelet. She casually handed it to Ella, who froze in uncertainty as to whether the other queen thought she was a maid, or had simply assumed she was a coat rack. Either way, she hung the capelet on a hook by the door and tried not to indulge the sneer she could feel coming from Marissa’s direction.
“Blake, Elijah, you remember our…” Emily trailed off and her expression went blank as she studied Ella, as if it was the first time she was having to choose a word for it.
“Daughter” certainly wasn’t it. There had never been any illusion that Emily saw her as one of her own, but while she often filled the role of one of the live-in servants, that wasn’t a socially acceptable descriptor, either.
“Ella,” she finally said, smoothing down the ruffle on the front of her blouse.
“Oh, yes,” Blake said, her eyes widening in recognition. “I didn’t recognize her. How old are you now, dear?”
“Eighteen,” Ella answered, glancing at Emily to make sure answering for herself wasn’t somehow speaking out of turn. It was an estimate more than a hard figure. She was at least eighteen, but the doctor said malnourishment had made it impossible to pinpoint it exactly. For all she knew, she was coming up on her twentieth birthday rather than the nineteenth. Not that it really mattered. Her life wouldn’t look any different after the Unveiling than it did now.
“Time flies, doesn’t it?” Blake asked with a wistful sigh, touching Marissa’s shoulder.
Marissa smiled, but rolled her eyes as soon as her mother glanced away. They were all seated at the table, and for a moment, Ella wasn’t sure where she belonged. There were a few seats left open, and while the head of the table was obviously out, she was tempted to take the seat nearest to the one Axel usually chose, even if it meant sitting closer to Marissa.
The younger queen shot Ella a death glare, as if the limited choice in seating was somehow her fault. Ella chose to ignore it and focus on surviving dinner without sticking her foot in her mouth.
When Axel walked in looking like a young god in an open blazer and a shirt the exact shade of gray in his cold, cold eyes, she decided it was enough to just focus on surviving the night.
He’d cut his hair. It wasn’t shaggy any longer, but the shorter cut made his jawline appear even sharper. He had grown into his father’s features, and while Ella had never quite grown accustomed to his beauty, months of not seeing him had certainly weakened her immunity to it.
