Page 13 of Bound By Roses

I snag a pillow and hold it on my lap as if it were a child’s toy, wrapping my arms around it and clutching it against my chest. I don’t care if the action makes me look weak or vulnerable. Without something to hold on to, I feel as if I might fall apart at any moment.

“I wasn’t told any of this,” I say after a while. “That she was married to another man and prophesied to birth Tideus’ Chosen. I didn’t even know she had a sister.”

“Sisters.”

She said that word far too casually to support the weight of its meaning, and I whip my head around to look at her for the first time since we’ve been alone together. “I have another aunt?”

How much family do I have here? Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents?

“She is gone.”

My face falls and my shoulders sag as a wave of disappointment hits me like a tumultuous sea battering against a rocky shore. This shouldn’t feel as if I’ve lost another person, but it does. It might not be the loss of her, but rather the absence of a chance to have something I didn’t know I could. To feel like my family is bigger than myself. Bigger than Kaylee, and Abby, and all of Rosewood.

I understand Abby’s tears more now after her father died at the hands of that witch queen, Imelda. Not the bastard who sat upon the throne, but the father who watched her grow and protected the secret of her parentage with his life.

“Do not mourn for her. She does not deserve it.” It’s not her words that pull me from the depths of heartbreak, but rather thesudden touch of her warm hand on mine. It was brief, and the touch was so light that I’m not quite sure it was even there to begin with.

Either way, the sensation of her skin on mine is enough to remind me I have reason to be angry at this woman and just because she entered this conversation with the mention of my mother does not excuse her. I pull in a breath and steel myself. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were? Were you ever going to?”

The rough sea churning inside me bubbles into a pool of liquid fire, just like the ones that are said to flow through the land of dragons. I’m her flesh and blood. Whether she thought me an enemy to her people or not, I had a right to know who I was to her.

A right to know what I am to this place and its people.

“I do not know if I would have,” she says, no longer looking in my direction. “It is easier to pretend that I have no family left.”

Her honesty softens me, but it doesn’t quell the storm within. “I had a right to know.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps I also had the right to my secrets, just as you have a right to yours.”

I snort a laugh. “What secrets?” She had me all but beaten upon my arrival here as she asked me questions designed to reveal any secrets I might have had.

When her eyes finally meet mine, there’s something genuine in them. “You have a connection to the dragon.”

“Jade? That’s no secret.” I’m not even sure why she cares.

“It is to someone who does not understand. Merrick refused to explain it to me unless I first told you of our relation.”

So that’s what Merrick was talking about. I’d known his conversation with her in the dining hall had been for my benefit. From the briefest moment where his eyes had met mine when he entered, to the volume of his voice; carefully calculated so thatI would overhear him with my heightened senses. It was clever, but I didn’t understand it at the time.

His words flit through my memory, banishing some of the confusion that veiled them.‘Enough is enough, Aurelia. Jade’s body is healing, but I fear for his mind and soul. He may need you when he awakens, but you know what must be done first. You have to tell them!’

I’m not sure why Merrick put that stipulation on sharing knowledge with her, but part of me is glad he did. Even if my family is none of his business and involving himself is inappropriate on some level, I’ll have to remember to thank him.

“It’s complicated. You’ll probably have questions, but let me finish before you ask them.”

She nods once and waits for me to continue.

“The first part has nothing to do with me. At least not right away. Years before I’d ever met Jade or Abby, Jade and his uncle—Merrick’s father—were sentenced to die. The man was executed. Whipped until death in the city square as the people of Lunae were forced to look on.”

“You said not to interrupt, but I know all of this.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” I wait until she nods once more before I continue. “When it came time for Jade to be executed, Abby intervened. If Merrick has not already told you, then you’ll have to ask him for his reasons, but he struck a deal with Imelda that would spare Jade’s life. What he didn’t know was that Imelda would put a curse on both Abby and Jade. A curse that mimics a mating bond. Abby was compelled to save him, and the two had loved each other in secret for years after. It was powerful magic that even time seemed unable to dilute.”

There’s a rigidness to Aurelia’s face, though she doesn’t interrupt this time.

“Eventually, Jade and Teagan helped Abby escape the abuse of her family. They fled into the woods, but no one could haveaccounted for the monster that hunted there.” I pause and prepare myself for the hardest part of this story. “Me. You see, Imelda had cursed me too, five years earlier. She came to my home posing as a traveler. For reasons I didn’t understand, my father locked her away. I was foolish, and when I’d slipped away to see her one night after everyone else had gone to bed, she manipulated my mind. I freed her, and together we went to my chambers.”

Aurelia’s hands ball into fists in her lap. She’s no stranger to Imelda or her treacheries, but I’m surprised she seems to care so much about my history with her. Enough to warrant this reaction, anyway.

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