Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
My adolescent years did not always lean toward the wisest responses, especially when faced with someone I loathed so deeply. “It’s my job to clean every room, sir.”
He barked an order. “Take your hair down.”
That one caught me off guard. “Sir?”
“Your hair. Take it down.”
He’d looked as if he was about to get up and do it for me. All bravado replaced with confusion, I looked around, unsure of what I was supposed to do.
“Well?”
Hesitant, my hands slowly moved to the knot at my nape. One at a time, hair pins were removed, some falling to the floor as the coil unfurled.
Half done, I gingerly stepped forward and set a handful of pins at the edge of the polished wood, then went back to unfurling the standard issue coil.
When it was done, hair brushed my lower back. And I had never felt more naked.
I knew I was blushing, that my speckling of scales would be glittering from the blood flow, and I couldn’t conceal how uncomfortable I was. But I cleared my throat, glanced at some random thing on his desk, and asked, “What now, sir?”
Without a word, he produced a thin braid of long brown hair and laid it out between us. Hair similar enough to mine, but not quite the same. Mine was a bit darker, a bit coarser. Sylvia’s hair was softer, and if it hadn’t been twisted into that sad little rope, it might have still had a little bounce.
The general watched me, eyes flicking over my unbound tresses as if searching for the clipped edges that might match.
And then I knew. She had given this to someone. To a sweetheart.
The next part was easy, because it was the right thing to do for a sister. “I confess. It was me. I did the fornication with a boy. It wasn’t rape, because I gave him permission to kiss me. Therefore, you can’t kill him.”
In a blink, the man went from wild and glaring to exasperated and exhausted. A groan of, “God, help me, Lorieyn. Who does the braid belong to?” followed.
Never would he get that name out of me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. That’s my hair.”
He pushed back his chair and stood. Leaning forward, scary as hell, he stated, “I need to confirm if they are mates before I can decide if he lives or dies.”
I didn’t have a clue who the boy was, but I absolutely knew Sylvia. She was like a sister to me. And we all knew better than to trust the general. “I already told you. It was me. I accept the punishment.”
Leaning farther over his table, Cyderial ordered, “Let me see your hair.”
Grabbing the mass behind my back, I pulled it over one shoulder.
“Closer.”
I came forward and held it out for him to observe, yet it was all the more obvious the little braid did not come from me once he held it up to compare.
“Lying to your commanding officer is a serious offense.” The hand holding up the braid, the backs of his fingers brushed my hair as he lowered it.
“It was me.”
Sitting back in his chair, unsmiling and austere, he warned, “I will find out who she is.”
He may, but not until I’d given her warning to lighten her hair with the chemicals we used to remove blood stains from our uniforms.
Determined to get even with me for insubordination, I was then tortured for five awful minutes.
My punishment was to endure an explanation of what the word fornication meant and a vague description of how it was performed. From the general… while I turned beet-red.
My very sincere reaction at the age of sixteen had been ewww.
And I finally understood what he’d been so worried about. “So, rape is when a boy does that without permission?” Making out in that closet had been fun, letting a boy touch my boobs had been a bit weird, but the idea of someone doing that to me was completely repulsive. “That happens here?”
The general did not answer my question. He had one of his own instead. “Are you still going to lie to me about whose hair this is?”
Deeply disturbed, I would not and could not meet his eyes. “Yes. That’s my hair. I did the fornication.”
Picking up the hairpins from his desk, the general passed them to me. “Go back to bed, Lorieyn.”
After being escorted to the female dorm and locked away behind the vault door, I disobeyed the general. I did not go back to bed. Instead, I secretly helped a strangely woozy Sylvia lighten her hair just enough that the shade of the braid would never match. They still found her out. By that evening, she was summoned to the general's office.
She did not return.
I missed her terribly.
After that, there was no more walking the halls at night nor kissing unknown boys in the dark.