Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Her lips curled, her expression turning sardonic. “Nice lingo. It’s perfect for softening the description of the terrible things that happen when taking one of my drugs. It fits here, too.” Her smile eroded and her gaze sharpened. “Why did you do it?”
I took off my shoes and turned to lie on the bed, though I was careful not to touch her. “At first, because I hoped you would be less loyal if she had perished.”
“Perished. Another nice term.”
“Without someone to remain loyal to, I’d hoped you’d be more open to telling me about the organization and your role in it. I didn’t care, then, about your pain.” Not initially, at any rate. Learning I was hurting my true mate had created other issues. “I needed results, and that seemed like the best way to get them. When you isolate a person, they are easier to control.”
She flinched a little. That was what Granny had done to her.
“And when it was clear I was being open about what I knew?” she asked.
I entwined my fingers, looking down at them. “Honestly? I was afraid you’d leave. I was afraid of your reaction—this reaction. I was locked in guilt, as well. I’d held back the information for so long. I didn’t know how to tell you the truth.”
“But you let me go.”
“Yes, knowing you intended to hide yourself from Alexander. I hoped, in turn, you’d stay hidden from Granny. I-I hadn’t really been thinking.” About anything but losing her, that was. “I knew you were going to force your way out, I knew ultimately you weren’t the guilty party, and I knew I couldn’t stomach your being punished by the dragons. Letting you go seemed like the best course of action. Shortsighted, probably, because the bottom line was—and still is—that my duty forbids me to allow you to return to her. I can’t have you making product for her. The kingdoms can’t risk it. Hell, your life would be at stake if you made that decision. There is so much at risk, and it all comes to a head if you go back to working for Granny.”
She was quiet for a long time in the wake of my jumbled explanation.
“Hadriel left some time ago,” she finally said, “and all I’ve been doing is thinking. Thinking about the present, about the way you’ve treated me, about the past . . .”
I wanted to reach out to her, to touch her and offer her some physical comfort. Or to pull her close to me and soothe her. Maybe even brush the strands of hair away from her wet cheeks. She’d reject it, though. Reject me.
My heart filled with pain. “What about the way I’ve treated you?”
“I’ll get to that. I never really processed Granny’s death—well, what I thought was Granny’s death. I felt the pain when it was fresh, but I pushed it away to deal with it another time. Then all that stuff came up about my situation, and the journals shed some light on my past, and I pushed that down as well. I’ve been too busy surviving to reflect.”
“Understandable.”
“I’ll get to that, too. It isn’t totally a relief that she is alive because I didn’t fully process her death. Her not being in the picture, though, meant I didn’t have to fully process my own situation. I have been moving forward, taking each step as it came, dealing with one thing at a time. I’ve been trying to carve out a new life because there was nothing left of the old one. Now I find out that there is something left of the old life. Knowing Granny is still in the picture makes me feel like I’m doing something gravely wrong. I’m betraying her in the worst possible way, and I know I’d have a serious punishment to go home to. It . . . scares me. Yes, the punishment itself scares me, but the thought of going back to that life, working intensely long hours in a place where everyone hates me, with no one to talk to . . .”
She reached up to smooth her hair away from her face before she went on, taking a moment to collect herself.
“What about the organization?” Her voice was faint. “Without Granny in the picture, it would be tearing down a harmful legacy. It would be fixing the wrongs and then mourning her loss. But now?”
She stared at the ceiling.
“Now . . . it feels like an act of war.” She swallowed. “It is ripping her livelihood, however crooked, away from her. It is dismantling what she built in my name.”
“She didn’t build it in your name.”
“She built it with my product and with my packaging design. She built it in my image. My signature is written all over an organization that creates pain and suffering. It can’t be allowed to remain, but to go against her is to go against someone I have viewed as a parent. Someone I have loved. Someone I can’t help but still love, regardless of how she treated me . . .” She shook her head. “It can’t be helped, and I won’t deny it. It is what it is, as Hadriel would say.”