Page 37 of His Eternal Claim

Guilt is a heavy coat, and he is shivering underneath it.

The other six are men and women I don’t recognize, but their suits are tailored to hide the bulge of holsters. They are the bad men’s muscle, or perhaps my Mother’s new praetorian guard.

“She’s here,” the woman at the head seat says.

The eight of them stare.

A man is a small thing in the face of the law; standing before this table, I am a butterfly pinned to a board.

“Don’t just stand there, Selene,” my Mother’s voice rings out from behind me.

She glides past me, her red silk dress a splash of arterial blood against the grey stone of the room. She takes my hand, pulls me with her, and I let her, because I can’t trust my legs.

“Sit, darling, with Aris,” she commands, gesturing to the empty chair. “We were just discussing your future.”

She takes the head seat at the other end of the table.

Every muscle is screaming run, but I anchor myself to the performance. I sit. The velvet of the chair is soft, but the atmosphere is rough.

To my right, the woman named Aris continues to dissect me with her eyes, her red lips curved into a smile that doesn’t reach the weathered skin of her face. The six strangers resume their low murmurs, but their attention remains anchored to me, a collective weight that makes the room feel pressurized.

“You look pale, Selene,” Aris says, her voice a polished stone. “But the dress… it suits the fragility we’re cultivating. Doesn’t it, Hannah?”

I keep my eyes on the white linen, on a stray thread fraying at the edge. I try to tune them out, to retreat into the dark, iron-wrought corners of my mind where strangely Zagreus still lives, but their voices are oily, slipping through my defenses like venom.

“She certainly has the Vitale look about the eyes,” one of the men remarks, his gaze lingering on the curve of my neck. “That haunted, high-bred stare. It’ll fetch a premium from the right buyer. Or perhaps a very effective peace offering.”

“She’s grown into quite the masterpiece, hasn’t she, Vane?” Aris purrs, her voice like sandpaper on silk. She reaches out, her cold fingers grazing my fingers on the table. I stiffen, but I don’t move.

“The bone structure is exquisite. She has that… pliable quality now. Like wet clay. You’ve done wonders with her, Hannah. The girl we saw years ago was a feral cat. This? This is a… well-behaved kitten.” Aris continues as shivers run down my spine.

A ripple of low, cruel laughter circles the table. It feels like hands crawling all over me.

I don’t understand why they’re talking about me like I’m not sitting here.

“A kitten with a very expensive pedigree,” Vane adds. He leans back, his eyes roaming down the length of my blue silk dress, lingering where the fabric clings to my hips. “I wouldn’t mind being the one to hold the leash for a few nights. Teach her some real manners. She’s got that look… and I love girls with that look. You know I’ve always wanted her in my house. As daughter-in-law or my own mistress.”

The bile rises in my throat. I want to scream.

I want to take the steak knife and see if his blood is as black as his soul.

But I am a statue. I am a painting. I am a specimen in a jar. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Vane,” my Mother says, her voice light, playful, as if they were discussing the vintage of the wine and not my desecration. “She’s spoken for. The Italians will pay through the nose for a ‘miracle’ this beautiful. We’re selling a fantasy, remember? The virginal daughter returned from the dead.”

“Virginal?”

Corvin finally speaks. He’s staring into his glass, his knuckles white. “She was with Zagreus for months, Hannah. Let’s not pretend she’s untouched. We all saw how he looked at her. He didn’t treat her like a saint or lover. He probably fucked her day and night, desperate to put a child in her.”

The table erupts in a fresh wave of snickering.

“Even better,” Aris laughs, the sound dry and rattling in her throat. “Men love to think they can scrub another man’s scent off a woman.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart hammering a frantic, violent rhythm against my ribs.

His scent.

He’d never let anyone talk this way about me. He’d never let anyone look at me that way.

He loved me in his own twisted way. But he did love me.