“I wasn’trummagingthrough anything,” I grumble, a flash of awkwardness and anger burning my stomach.
Masten approaches me, leaning his weight on a long cane, with a metal wolf’s head at its handle under the palm of his hand. I back myself into the console again, unable to sense his intentions.
“My friend is quite generous, wouldn’t you say?”
I look over his shoulder at Aurick, who shares the same look of conviction. I grip the table digging into my lower back and nod reluctantly.
“But this glorious society we live in is built on pristine presentation. And if he cannot present a pristine houseguest, well then, he should not be living in it, correct?”
He’s lowering his concrete gaze at me, waiting for a nod of understanding.
“I am not hiswife,” I say between my teeth. “You cannot treat me like this.” How is Aurick letting this man speak to me this way?
“But if you’re living here, then you might be one day,” he informs me the way one would inform a child of their petty mistake. He looks over his shoulder at Aurick, who is now leaning against the windowsill with his arms crossed.
“This is why daily discipline for young women is prudent. Their hormones and monthly cycles make them most similar to wild animals.”
Masten shoots his arm forward, snatching the hair from the back of my head in his hand, bunched against my scalp in a wad. I yelp and squeeze my eyes shut as his fingernails dig into me, clenching each strand of hair until my follicles scream in pain.
“Do you understand that by undermining Aurick’s authority, as master of this house—you have undoubtedly embarrassed him in front of company?” Masten huffs into my face, his breath reeking of bourbon and roast beef.
My legs buckle, trembling as Masten invades my space, and my heart rattles inside of my chest like a drawer of loose hardware. I can’t believe Aurick is letting Masten put his hands on me. Rebuttal boils and hisses within the walls of my throat, but nothing escapes. The urge to reach for a shard of glass from the broken vase is there, begging for me to fight back, like a voice of power heavy with armor behind my weakness. But I could never hurt someone else. Not even if they are hurting me.
“I understand.” I moan with a strained neck.
“And you understand how lucky you are that your friend and gracious host of this estate doesn’t strike you across the face or introduce you to the paddle for this indiscretion?”
The paddle?What the hell?I haven’t done anything!Is this something I’m going to have to look forward to with Aurick?
I nod again against his firm hand.
“Good,” he says, releasing my hair, taking a step to the side to pat me on the shoulder. “Always a pleasure, Aurick. I will see you at sunrise, friend.”
Masten disappears into the stairwell, leaving me to stare in Aurick’s direction in horror. I don’t know what to think of him. Is he no different than my father?
“Go start your lady-doll treatment. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the night.” Aurick pushes off the windowsill and goes back into the room he came from, slamming the door.
He might as well have just slapped me across the face or tossed me into an ice bath. Instead of comforting me or explaining what happened, he’s dismissed me like a pet or a misbehaving child.
Scarlett, if you’re listening, please protect me. I won’t survive another man like Jack.
34. Soul mates
“Do you believe in soulmates or not, princess?”
I decided to start my morning off with Niles to distract my current river of paranoid thoughts. What happened with Aurick and Masten was—confusing. I don’t want to walk into Dessin’s room with this on my mind. I have to bury it.
Soul mates… I think on the subject like it’s a foreign topic I haven’t explored yet.Soul mates?I’m not even really sure what that means, what it entails. Is it a fairy tale, a myth, a fact of life? The goal in life? I look back at him with innocent eyes, pondering over the thought.
“I’ve never thought about it,” I mutter partly to him, partly to myself. I am curious to hear his opinion on the matter.
“Allow me to paint you a picture.” He sets his tea down. “When we are brought into this world, our bodies are cages, inside we have a spirit, a soul that is greater than the sinfully tempted flesh that embodies us. That soul was created with a twin, so to speak, and those two souls are divinely bound through life, through death, through as many obstacles as existence can bring upon us. When we are born, we begin our paths to find our other half. It’s a subconscious action we are not in control of. It’s a force greater than this body.” He grips his white shirt with a soothing passion.
“The love that is born between the two cannot be mistaken for anything else. It’s not something you can choose or resist. It’s beyond our willpower.” He loses himself in thought.
“How do you know if you found that person?” I ask.
He sighs, caressing the back of his hand in deep thought. “Because, once you find them, there is no life without them.”
