Not here. Not in this house full of shadows and ghosts. They marked every inch of it with memories that I can’t ignore when they are burned into my every breath. Twenty-five years of heaven of peace and so much love I knew was too perfect to last, yet I foolishly clung to it. To them. I believed the lies my heart kept telling me.
But the answer is unmistakable as I stand with the cold iron bars of the railing cutting into my palms. I came into this world with them in my life. It’s only right that we leave it together. That I follow them to our final resting place where nothing can tear us apart again.
My feet balance on the lower loops. The wind catches my hair, claws at my face. I can’t tell if it’s trying to pull me over or back.
“Lenora…”I ignore the sandy hiss of that voice scratching at my skull.
Like everyone else, it doesn’t understand. No one will ever understand.
I hook a knee over. The twisted iron scratches skin and I can feel my fingers slipping. My gaze drops to the stone path below, the one I have traveled hundreds of times to reach the gardens.The same one Eliah first kissed me on, right under the shadows of my terrace. The very one I cling to now.
“I’m sorry,” I sob. “I can’t stay here without you.”
My toes skim the stone on the other side. I nearly find purchase.
Strong arms lock around me. The impact knocks the wind from my lungs and tears a scream as I’m hoisted back. My heels smack into rough stone and I’m dragged forcibly into the room I destroyed, legs swinging and kicking as I shriek like a feral creature.
The hold only tightens and a gruff, male voice bellows over my chaos.
“Enough, Lenora.”
I ignore the warning and lash out. I kick and punch. I rain my fury on the man doing nothing to stop the blows I land. His compliance only increases my pain. My misery. It fuels my swirling clamor into madness.
Without a word, Uncle Marcus bends at the knees and tucks a broad shoulder under me. In that same motion, he hoists me off the ground with me still screaming. The world spins as he turns to the door.
I’m hauled from the room. His strides are angry, stomping through the halls. His shoulder digs into my gut, sending punches of pain through me.
“Put me down!” I growl, beating the hard cords of his back with both fists.
“Tais-toi!”
The command to be quiet is followed by the harsh swat of his palm across the curve of my backside. A jolting sting that flares heat across my injured flesh. And my cheeks.
That bloom of mortification intensifies when I catch glimpses of feet and nightgown hems through the heavy curtain of untamed curls swinging over my face.
They blur past before I can decipher the owners — but can only be the Pyms— yet the embarrassment stays even when we reach our destination and he kicks the door shut with the heel of his bare foot.
Like my room, the floors are gleaming layers of glossy mahogany, interrupted by a plush Afghan. I should have expected the jerk and swing before I hit the mountain of feathers. My weight sinks amongst the folds of fabric and Uncle Marcus’s soap. I barely have a chance to gather that I’m in his room. On his bed. When my hips are grabbed and I’m flipped onto my stomach.
My nightgown is tossed over my back, exposing my simple, white panties and bare bottom.
“Uncle Marcus…?”
The smack steals the air from my lungs.
Chapter Two
Lenora
Theburnblowsacrossmy right cheek. My fingers curl into rumpled sheets. Sheets tossed back like he’d been beneath them before my spiraling madness.
Another crack collides with my left cheek. My body instinctively tightens and shifts. A familiar ache blazes through my core that I know isn’t normal.
I sob with the third. By the fifth, I’m weeping into the sheets, body shifting with a restless need I recognize but know is wrong in this context.
Behind me, Uncle Marcus’s every heavy pant echoes over my sniffling. It reflects in his eyes, in the hard slant of his jaw when he turns me over and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror fixed to the ceiling. Thick slabs that extend the length of the room, down the walls. The entire room is a giant hall of mirrors all capturing my humiliation from every angle.
But I can only focus on the looming figure practically vibrating over me, silver eyes nearly opaque with barely restrained rage.
