I gnash my teeth. “I know.”
Kellen leans on one hand, elbow propped on the counter as he studies me. “Are you going to do something about it?”
“She is being unreasonable,” I grumble. “She’ll get over it eventually.”
Peony has not been upset with me since the dinner disaster, and I detest how it feels.
“Hmm.” Kellen rises from his chair. “Well, I hope you’reright.” He pauses before leaving the kitchen. “I ought to tell you, Mr. Edgewood, that I have decided to engage in an…officialrelationship, as well.”
I stare at him. “Really?”
“His name is Ignacio. I’ve discussed it with Ms. Austin, and I will invite him over tomorrow night so they can meet during the dinner with Stella.”
I let out a hiss between my teeth. “You too?”
Kellen shrugs. “I consider Ms. Austin a friend, and she expressed interest in meeting him. I’d thought that perhaps, my other friends”—he gives me a meaningful look—“might also want to introduce themselves.”
For goodness’ sake. Now it’s coming from Kellen? He should understand better than anyone.
Getting to my feet, I shove my stool under the counter so it makes a loud noise against the floor.
“Stop it,” I snap. “Just… stop. Bring him over if you like. Introduce him to Peony. But I will not be there. You know what I look like. It’simpossible.”
With that, I storm away back to the east hall, infuriated with both of them. They know how I feel, how I don’t want to show myself. It would be a disaster. And yet they ignore my wishes! They push and prod me, trying to force me to change when I have no interest in changing.
Peeved, I hole myself up in my rooms for the rest of the day, and no one bothers me. Around dinnertime, there’s a knock at my door, but when I answer it, Kellen’s already retreating down the hall and my meal sits on a plate on the table.
My chest tightens as I snatch up the plate and bring it inside. When there is no word from Peony that night, either, I grow angrier.
And angrier.
Is this how fickle she is? That she would give me the cold shoulder because I don’t want to meet her awful relative? Because I don’t want to end up as a science experiment?
Fine. If I mean so little to her, then that’s how much she’ll mean to me. I don’t need to regret anything. I don’t owe her an apology. And I certainly don’t owe Stella Austin my time or my presence.
I go to bed early that night, but I can’t sleep. I’m so used to holding Peony in my arms as I drift off that instead, I feel a nervous energy, as if something important is missing. With a growl of annoyance, I shed my clothes and leave the manor through the side door. Then I’m off into the woods on all fours, salivating for whatever creature I might find out there.
Eventually, after loping through the forest for most of the night, I discover a nest of rabbits. When I grab one around the throat, it screams like a wailing infant. Then I bury my teeth in it, and it falls still and silent.
I’m covered in blood when I get back to the manor around sunrise, and I take a long, hot shower to get it all off. I’m so tired that eventually, I fall asleep, sprawled on top of the blankets.
peony
I hear a horrible scream in the middle of the night that wakes me up from a dead sleep. I search for the source, but there’s nothing around save for the darkness and a sliver of moonlight coming in my window.
Still, it unsettles me. Was the scream inside my dream?
I reach out subconsciously for Rupert, to touch his softfur and wriggle into his arms for reassurance, but he’s not here.
Right. I’ve been sleeping alone in my room, irritated at him.
I know he has perfectly good reasons for choosing not to show himself. But Stella is the only family I have left. I want to get to claim Rupert as mine and show Stella that I’m happy here.
It worries me, too, about our future. If he won’t come out for anyone, what does that mean for me? When I have friends over, will they look at me strangely because he won’t meet them? Will they also think that he believes himself too good for them?
A memory of my life with Andy trickles in, of the way he insisted on moving to Tennysville, far enough away that it would be an inconvenience for my friends to see me. When I did go out with them, which was rarely, Andy and I never went together. Even if I took our one car, he would stay home, saying he didn’t care for the people I surrounded myself with.
I don’t want to be isolated and separate like that again, as if we’re living two parallel lives.
