And after she’d passed, I’d learned just how awful men could be.
My next foster home had been a horror. I hadn’t understood why my older foster sisters cried at night. Then I’d turned thirteen and started to become a woman and my foster father had begun looking at me in a way I didn’t much like.
One night, the man who should have protected me from the world came into my room… into my bed.
To this day, I don’t know what happened next.
I’d curled up and wished horrible things on him as he touched my hair. He’d stopped instantly and fled.
After that he hadn’t bothered any of the girls. A few months later the house had been raided by police. One of my sisters who’d aged out a year before had finally spoken to authorities about what she’d endured, and they’d arrested the man.
So yeah, I had trust issues with men.
Old Lady Moonie had been right. Most were pigs, and the rest… well, they left eventually one way or another and broke your heart. So better to not get too close.
But I had no clue where that left me and Myel.
Although… If we kept our relationship to just sex to sate our bond…
Myel seemed to think that would be best. At least that was what he said. Yet, the longing in his eyes told a different story. He wanted me. He wanted what this bond promised, a solid and lasting relationship.
And I didn’t.
And we couldn’t even be seen together, or he’d be killed!
That’s what I used to convince myself I couldn’t give him any more than sex. It’s what was safest… for my heart… and for his life.
I’d keep him as distant as the bond would allow… even if that might hurt him, it was better than him being killed, right?
Right.
Then why did I still feel horrible?
IZZY
“Didyou get everything sorted at the registrar’s office?” Myel asked, breaking my reverie.
“Ah, what? Oh… Ah, no.”
Myel pulled something from his pocket. It looked like a phone, only way more advanced than anything I’d ever seen. It was just a piece of glass, though given how thin it was and how light it seemed in his hand, I had a feeling it was magical glass or some other material.
He swiped it and the time appeared: fifteen-twenty.
Military time? That was… three-twenty in the afternoon, right?
I’d slept late, it seemed. Though so much had happened since I’d gotten out of bed this morning it felt like a week had passed.
“I need to be back by sixteen,” he said. It sounded odd to my ears. “I have a few minutes to help.”
“Can you?” I asked. I wanted him nearby. I needed his help, but could we be seen together?
He grimaced. “As long as we’re not holding hands ortooclose, we can be seentogether,” he said. But then he sighed. “It would be odd though. To be seen with a beastfolk who isn’t a servant or guard is… demeaning for most.”
Ah.
What a world.
Screw it. I’d already insulted a princess, might as well just break all the rules and be the campus pariah.
