“Mommar?” he stuttered, terrified by the monster straddling him. He struggled against his mother, but her hold was like steel. Her grip tightened, and he clawed at her arm. “Please.”
“Why would I give you any relief when you gave me none?” she crooned.
Something warm dripped onto his chest and stomach. He glanced down as silver blood seeped from her now ragged gown and onto him, warming his skin.
“Why didn’t you save me?”
Neve choked, struggling against hismommar. “I tried,” he wheezed, tears flowing down his cheeks. “I tried to save you.”
“You let mesuffer,” she hissed, her grip tightening. “I asked you for relief. I begged you for death.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to dismiss the memory that rose.
His mum in his arms, her head so heavy in his small lap.
The blood that stained their skin.
Her unintelligible words and gurgles.
The way she pleaded with her eyes.
When she’d curled his fingers around a long rusty nail.
The way he’d shaken as she’d bared her neck to him.
All hope fizzled away.
Only agony and suffering.
A broken, dying body in his arms.
“You remember,” hismommarwhispered, her rancid breath wafting over his face.
Neve forced his eyes open. “I was just a child! Only eight winters old.”
Her black lips pulled back from her rotting teeth. “We raised you to be stronger. You’re a frost giant. You dishonored our family by your weakness.”
Tremors began to wrack his body as her grip tightened.
It was his darkest secret and shame.
Hismommarhad asked him for mercy as the humans had broken her body to the point of no return. She didn’t have the strength to do it herself. Neve hadn’t been able to do it. Instead, he held hismommar, blood soaking his clothes and skin, until her body gave a final convulsion and cooled.
Neve peered up at the creature above him. He stopped fighting and cupped her icy cheek, even as dots danced across his vision. “Lo bietelle,” he wheezed.I am sorry.
“No, but you will be.” A rusty nail appeared in her left hand, and she stabbed him in the neck.
Pain exploded through his body, and everything went black.
He woke,shivering in his shower room. The walls shimmered with opaque crystal, but that wasn’t what demanded his attention.
Neve blinked the water out of his eyes and gazed at his littlesaloeswife who rested underneath the spray in the middle of the shower. Her back was to him. He swallowed hard, his gaze running over the cuts and bruises that covered her creamy skin.
Something in the back of his mind told him something was wrong other than the obvious.
He stepped down the last stair and moved to the middle of the shower, pausing to kneel behind hisloviaye, the mosaic tiles biting into his knees. Neve reached out with a trembling hand and gently touched his bride’s spine, tracing the bumpy ridge until it reached the dimples above her pale, round buttocks. She lifted her head and spun to face him, reclining on her rear.
Neve’s hearts lurched when she smiled at him, her cute flat human teeth bared. He soaked in the sight of her. While she was covered in bruises and cuts, sporting a black eye and split lip, Lia was still so beautiful. When had he stopped seeing her as an oddity and an inconvenience? When had she become a priceless treasure? His mate was stunning.
