“He is,” the Professor stopped talking to the Admiral for one second to chime in.
“Then just tell us the truth,” Juliette went on. “He’s gay, and you're his beard while he's visiting San Francisco for business. Or you came into some cash, so you thought you’d pay him to pretend to be your date, so we’d all be dazzled by your new boyfriend, and let you back into our social circle. Just tell us, Susan.” She smiled widely, a nasty smile. “We all know that a man like that would never go for a woman like you. Especially not now. You’re used goods. Rejected stock.”
Everything she was saying was true. I knew it. It shouldn’t hurt—God knows I’d managed to withstand her barbs so far, but for some reason, her stating the truth penetrated the armor I’d wrapped around myself. I shrugged lightly. “Maybe it’s my magical vagina.”
“Your dried-up vagina, you mean. You’ve got to be almost ten years older than him, to start with.”
“I think he’s older than he looks.”
Juliette wasn't giving up. “Have you got dirt on him? Is that it? Did you bribe or blackmail him to come to this dinner so you could try and muscle your way back into the social scene?” She curled her lip. “It’s not going to work. The second you see Vincent, you’ll go crazy again. They’ll cart you back to the mental hospital and leave you there.” She grinned, tossed her ponytail, and waited for me to respond.
I couldn’t. The flash of memory smashed into me, plunging me back into the horrors of the past.
Itwas my biggest fear—the nightmare that plagued me every time I fell asleep. I felt the blood drain from my cheeks. My heart thudded in my chest, knocking against my ribs painfully, jerking as if it was suddenly trying to escape.
My biggest fear was to be stuck in that place again, with no hope of ever getting out. Trapped in a beige prison with linoleum floors and no door handles. The constant screaming of patients, day and night, shouting obscenities, recounting real-life trauma, true horror stories. The terrible thoughts that escaped my fuzzy, drugged-up head, spikes of desperate panic, not knowing what was real and what was a hallucination. Heavyset women with terrible hair who stood with their arms crossed, watching me use the toilet, every single time. Bespectacled men with buck teeth asking me again and again about my deepest secrets, my most personal thoughts.
No chance of ever getting out. It was the fourth circle of hell.
I swallowed. Juliette grinned at me, delighted with what she’d done.
The door opened, and Donovan stalked back in. He saw my face, and his eyes iced over. “I grow impatient, Ahdeannowyn.”
“Fair enough.” The professor let out a long sigh. “I think that will do it, anyway. Come with me.”
Chapter
Nineteen
The professor led us to his study, Bonbon leading the way, swinging his massive butt ahead of us. “I don’t understand why we had to go through all this rigmarole,” I said, my voice still a little shaky. Juliette’s barbs had hit me hard. I spent a good amount of energy trying to forget the year I spent in the psychiatric hospital.
The idea of ever going back felt like torture. I curled my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.
Donovan glanced down, picked up my hand, and uncurled it again. Just then, I noticed a sharp tear in his shirt sleeve. “What is that?”
He grimaced. “Banwyn. They are swarming outside. Eryk and Nate were battling a dozen at the gates. Cress, at the rear of the manor house, was nearly overwhelmed. I had to step in.”
“Oh, no? Is she okay?”
“No.”
I gaped at him. “She’s not? Donovan?—”
“I had to help her. Cress is a warrior of legend. The fact that I had to intervene is a mortal insult to her.” His grimace deepened. “She will sulk for days.”
“Oh. Well… uh… nobody was watching, though, right?”
“No. Of course not.”
“So just don’t tell anyone. Nobody needs to know.”
“Her pride is wounded,” he muttered. “She will be impossible to live with for the next decade, at least.”
A pang of jealousy thrummed in my heart, adding to the sad cacophony caused by the already-plucked-and-vibrating strings of anxiety, grief, and depression inside me.
Mentally, I picked up the whole pathetic guitar and smashed it on the ground. I couldn’t be jealous of Cress. It was a waste of emotion. It was as pointless as a slug being jealous of a butterfly. Donovan’s protective-date act was exactly that. Just an act.
“Don’t worry about the banwyn. They cannot enter my Domicile.” The professor skipped alongside us with an enthusiasm at odds with his elderly appearance. “My security is top-notch.”
