Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 127722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
We left her house and walked to our favorite pub, a place we’d been going to since I could remember. Ian was usually with us, but now that he was stationed elsewhere, it was rare for the three of us to be in a room together.
We took our seats at the bar and ordered our rounds.
Elora immediately took her glass, tipped her head back, and downed it in a single swallow. “Keep ’em coming.”
I hadn’t even touched my glass yet, so I cocked my eyebrow as I stared at her.
“Just a warm-up.” She grabbed the next full glass from the bartender then pivoted on the wooden stool to look at me head on. “So…how’s the wife?”
My eyes immediately dropped down to my open palm on the table, where the scar was still visible in the skin. It would always be there, a token of my marital commitment, the only physical sign of my connection to Ivory. “Angry that I left.”
“Left the house?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm…” She took a drink. “Sounds a little high-maintenance.”
“My baby just doesn’t like to share me—with anyone.”
“My baby?” she asked incredulously. “Really?”
I called her that so often that I forgot she had a real name. “That’s what she is.”
“What happened to her being a pain in the ass?”
“Oh, she still is.” I gave a slight smile. “But I can handle it.”
She took another drink. “I thought this was just a marriage of convenience. I didn’t realize you actually liked the girl.”
The feelings were slow to develop, like the ice that began to thaw at the arrival of spring, but it still took until summer for the snow to become a stream. “She’s hard not to like.”
“Really?” She swirled her glass. “Her family took everything from you. I’d say it’d take a lot for you to tolerate her.”
“Elora, she wasn’t even born when everything went down. You’re treating her like a criminal when she hasn’t committed a crime.”
“I’m treating her like a threat—because that’s what she is.”
“She would never betray me.”
“Oh, did her magic pussy tell you that?” She threw her head back and downed the contents again. Then she motioned for the barmaid to refill her glass. “Thanks, girl. I really need this tonight.”
“She wouldn’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re smarter than this, Huntley.”
“She has the most magical pussy in the fucking world, but it hasn’t clouded my judgment. In every moment of uncertainty, she’s proven her loyalty. You’ve respected my judgment up until this point, and there’s no reason you should stop respecting it now.”
She gave me a hard stare before she rolled her eyes—real slow.
“Elora.”
“What?” She slammed her glass down. “You really expect me to believe that someone would turn their back on their family like that? Isn’t that the least bit concerning to you? Even if he is a rapist and a murderer, he’s her father. And she would just cut ties?” She snapped her fingers. “Like that?”
“If Mother were just as evil, I’d turn my back on her too. In a heartbeat.”
She dropped her gaze down to her glass and began to swirl it.
“She asked me to spare her father—and I agreed. So she hasn’t completely turned her back on him. She’s not as heartless as you think. In fact, she has more heart than anyone else I know.”
Elora was quiet for a while, more interested in her glass than me. “I’ll kill her if she hurts you, you know?”
“I know.”
She lifted her gaze and looked at me. “I’m not joking.”
“Trust me, I know.” I took a drink and let it burn all the way down to my stomach.
“How’s your mother handling it?”
“Our mother.”
“That bitch ain’t my mother, and you know it.”
“She is. She just…struggles with it.”
“I haven’t spoken to her in three months, Huntley. I don’t think that’s a normal mother-daughter relationship.”
“Well, I don’t have a good mother-son relationship with her either. She gave my wife to the Teeth, and I had to march there with an army to get her back. She’s threatened to break our marriage with magic, and I’ve threatened to marry her over and over again so she won’t bother. Grass is always greener on the other side…”
“But Mother loves you. Me… She couldn’t care less what happens to me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Come on.” She slammed her glass down again. “She couldn’t care less about me, and that’s perfectly fine. I’m not up in the middle of the night crying that my mother doesn’t love me, that my father was a jackass.” She took another drink to wash down her bitterness.
I didn’t support my mother’s behavior, but I did understand her thought process better than anyone else. I was the one who was there. I was the one who had to watch her watch me, had to watch all her pride and dignity be stripped away in the vilest way possible. She wanted that part of her to die in the past, but it couldn’t, not when new life resulted from it. “I’m not saying I agree with her behavior, but give her some sympathy.”