The woman’s gaze swept the room, taking in the bare walls and the absence of expensive trinkets, before sliding to Isadora and finally settling on me. Her lips curled in open disgust.
“Mother,” she said coolly. “Compelling an incubus? How very crude of you.”
My mind snagged on the word. A sharp echo of wrongness flooded my veins—
—and then vanished, the discomfort slipping away as quickly as it had come, taking the troubling thought with it.
Isadora didn’t respond. Instead, she glided toward her daughter, arms opening as if inviting a warm, motherly embrace.
The woman didn’t move. Her eyes tracked her mother’s approach, her jaw tightening, something ticking there as if she were bracing herself.
The reason became clear the moment Isadora stopped in front of her.
Isadora placed a delicate hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
A heartbeat later, the crack of flesh on flesh rang through the room as Isadora’s open palm connected sharply with her daughter’s cheek.
The force was enough to send her daughter sprawling to the floor, black hair spilling across her face as her hands shot out to break the fall.
A small voice in my mind screamed,This isn’t right!
But again, the feeling flickered and vanished almost instantly.
The woman’s hands, splayed against the hardwood floor, whitened at the pads of her fingers, as if she were trying to gouge herself into the ground. Then they relaxed. With eerie grace, she pushed herself up onto her knees, calmly gathering her hair and tucking it back behind her ears before rising to her feet. She faced her mother once more, arms crossing loosely over her chest.
Her expression was perfectly unreadable. If not for the vivid red handprint blooming across her cheek, she might have been standing there as if nothing had happened.
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch into the faintest curl of admiration.
It deepened as she glanced down at her pointed blood-red nails, brushing away a speck of imaginary debris with deliberate care.
“I take it there’s a reason you dragged me all the way out here to your—” She glanced around the room, one perfectly sculpted brow arching. Her gaze flicked briefly to me, then settled on the nearly bare shelf beyond my shoulder. “—very empty hovel,” she finished, her voice dripping with disdain.
There was something almost provocative in it, as though she were daring her mother to strike her again—just to prove how little it mattered.
Indeed, Isadora’s fingers flexed at her side. But her daughter’s display of resilience seemed to have the desired effect, because Isadora did not strike again.
Instead, she lifted her hand and brushed her fingers across her daughter’s face, caressing the swelling handprint with a tenderness that made my skin prickle.
In an eerily maternal voice, she said, “Priscilla, darling, I don’t ask very much of you, do I?”
Priscilla’s eyes narrowed, suspicion sharpening her gaze, but she said nothing.
“I don’t ask much of anyone, really,” Isadora continued. “But what I do ask, I expect to be completed to the utmost of your ability.”
Her hand dropped to Priscilla’s chin, pinching hard. Priscilla didn’t so much as flinch.
“And I’ve recently discovered just how pathetically—” Isadora paused, lips curling. “—and perhapspurposefully, you’ve failed me.”
Priscilla’s expression didn’t change. Her fingers flexed once more at her side, bracing for another blow. Almost bored, she said, “Mother, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Her gaze flicked to me, as if I might somehow be the source of her supposed betrayal.
Isadora’s gaze followed Priscilla’s to me, her lips curling with malevolence as she turned back to her daughter.
“How rude of me,” Isadora spat. “I haven’t introduced you to my new...” She paused, considering. “Well. I haven’t quite decided what he is to me yet.”
Priscilla’s mouth twisted. “How did you manage to coax an incubus to your lair?” she asked coolly. “Lay a trail of sex toys?”
