Page 117 of Mama Si's Paradise

Did it matter if he was?

“I am stuck here.”

I said the words out loud as if to taste them on my tongue. I felt nothing different—they weighed the exact same inside my head, too. I was stuck on this Isle forever, covered by a dark cloud and a curse, and soon enough, I was going to be the bride of Romin or Emil or Grey or Tristian. I was going to feed them with my blood, and I was going to sleep in their bed and let them try to put a baby in me. A vampire baby.

A baby without a heartbeat.

A cry escaped my lips, which had never really happened before. Even when I’d cried, I’d done so in silence, but now I was sobbing. I don’t know how I got all the way to the door, but my legs gave and I sat on the floor right next to it, and I just cried. Imourned—not only the person I’d been and the life I’d lived, but the person I could never be anymore and the life I could never live again.

It was as heartbreaking as it was relieving, and eventually, I stopped shaking.

Then… “Please don’t cry.”

Valentine’s voice came from the other side of the door, making my heart stop for a good second.

“I’m in mourning,” I said, my voice thick and hoarse and muffled, but he was a vampire. He’d hear me just fine.

“Don’t mourn, Sunshine. I promise you better days are coming,” he said, and he sounded so honest. So completely different from the Valentine he had been in front of his brothers.

I laughed like a lunatic, slamming the back of my head to the wall. “How? I’m stuck in this place, Valentine. I’m stuck here and there’s no way out and now the Blood Call is coming and which one of them is going to claim me? Which one is going to make me his bride?”

Bile up my throat. Every cell in my body revolted against the idea.

“None of them,” Valentine said from the other side, and by the sound of it, he was sitting on the floor in the hallway, too. I don’t know why that calmed me down a bit.

“None of them will make you their bride,” he insisted, and I laughed again.

“Let me guess—becauseI’m yours?”He said nothing. “Nobody gets brides in the first few years—everyone knows this,” I reminded him. “Besides, even if somehow you’re right, how’s that any better for me? You’re like them. They are your family.”

“Only by blood,” Valentine said.

“Does that mean you’d let me stay in this room forever and never come close to me if I somehow became your bride for real?”

“Yes, if that is what you want.” Fuck, he was good at this. He didn’t even hesitate.

I sighed, shaking my head at myself. “I would have believed you.” Just a month ago, before Mama Si, I absolutely would have, and that just showed how very naive I’d been without even realizing it.

Made me wonder, how naive was I still and perfectly clueless to it?

“Then do,” he simply said.

“I don’t understand you. You expect me to believe that you really have some kind of feelings for me—really, do I look stupid to you, or are you just not used to taking no for an answer?”

Silence for a long moment.

“No. You look broken.”

“Let me guess again—you want tofixme.”

But then, Valentine said, “I was hoping to help you fix yourself.”

My eyes closed and I stayed with those words for a little while.

“I was also hoping to be your audience.”

“Audience?”

“Yes. Downstairs, in the theatre,” he said, and my heart skipped a beat. “What do you say, Sunshine? Will you play a song for me tonight?”

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