Page 33 of Mated By Twilight

“I mean, I was turning eighteen that year,” she hedged carefully. “Er, that’s how old you have to be to be considered an adult on Earth. It wasn’t like I was actually a child. But even if I was legally an adult, it wouldn’t have mattered. My father would still have had control over me. I wasn’t allowed to have a job or have my own money or anything, so it’s not like I could have gotten away from him.”

Sollit and Tillos shared a look but said nothing. The dismay and disturbance they felt at the idea of someone having control like that over another didn’t need to be spoken aloud. Leah continued, her eyes down on her lap where she was playing with the blanket again.

“Dad already had someone picked out for me to marry too. He was a guy from church. He was ten years older than me, and he’d already been married once. But his wife died in childbirth. We, er, our church didn’t believe in going to the doctors, especially for things like that. A woman was supposed to give birth totally naturally. Some were even saying that those who were truly devout and faithful wouldn’t even feel the pain of childbirth, so there was no need for a doctor. So, it was kind of common to lose your wife.”

Sollit’s heart was pounding. Death? Bychildbirth?! Just how primitive was her species?! But he didn’t get to do more than be aghast over that information as she was continuing.

“The guy dad wanted me to marry told me that singing was sinful. He said that singing was a path towards vanity and pride and that it stole glory from god and to do it was wrong. Especially in church. So, he wouldn’t allow even that.”

Sollit couldn’t help but draw back. Wouldn’tallowit?! This male,that her father chose, would deprive her of something she clearly loved? Maybe it was because religion was such a small thing on Yeluka Akuley, but it seemed to be such a frivolous reason as well.

“But I really loved singing,” Leah smiled. It was a ghost of an expression, haunted and wan, speaking to a pain deeply buried. “So, I was going to finish the school year strong with one last performance, and then do the audition for the college – though itwas really just a formality. They said as long as I showed up, I’d get in. But then… then, er…”

Her eyes started to swim, water pooling as she smiled such a pained, fragile smile, it hurt his own heart. He could see the hurt on her and he both didn’t want to but needed to hear what she’d say next.

“For the last performance at school, I had a solo. My family came. They convinced a lot of the men from church to come. And when it was my turn… they began booing me. They threw things at me. They shamed me. Right in front of everyone. I-I couldn’t even finish. You couldn’t hear me, even with the microphone.

“When I got home that night, dad beat me. Told me I was sinful and shameful, and I’d embarrassed him in front of the church. He locked me in my room and kept me there. They didn’t let me out until the audition passed. Then, they kept me in the house until the school year passed, just in case. Every time I started to sing or hum or anything, dad would beat me again. They made me scared to sing, and by the time I was allowed out, they’d already planned my wedding and were getting ready to move me in with him.”

Sollit had to draw on his not inconsiderable skills to keep his expression tender and caring. It was difficult, considering how angry he was. And it wasn’t just from the news that her father would harm her or force her into marriage, it was the ease with which she said it. Like it was completely natural and normal.

“You didn’t end up bound to this male though,” Tillos said, frowning. “Did you?”

Leah bit her lips before shaking her head. Sollit tried just as hard not to let his relief show. Not that he was opposed to fighting off a weak human male who dared to think their mate was his, but itwould probably make a mess for Leah, and that wasn’t ideal. So, it was just better that it didn’t happen.

“The day of my wedding, they finally left me alone,” she said, now obsessively straightening the blanket over her lap. “Just for a minute. My mom went to sit in the church, and my dad hadn’t come to walk me down the aisle yet. So, it was just me. For just a minute. And I… I just ran…”

Chapter 15

Leah

It was kind of weird, revisiting these memories. She had been so determined to put them away, to refuse to think of them, for so long, it almost felt like they weren’t even hers anymore.

But they were.

She could still remember the heat of the summer day, even more oppressive in the stuffy, modest wedding dress she’d been forced into. The itchiness of the bouquet shoved into her hands. The way the shoes pinched her feet. The spear of light hitting her in the eyes from the high windows. The nausea in her belly. The sense of impending doom.

And that one thoughtless moment where she turned and just ran. To this day, Leah had no idea what made her run. All she could remember was the panic. The despair. The helpless sense of being crushed between two solid brick walls.

And the sky. The bright blue sky…

She’d never disobeyed her family before. She’d never thought about escaping the life she’d been born into. She was probably just as surprised as her family would have been that she’d taken flight, running out the front door and onto the street.

Leah didn’t know how long it took them to realize she was gone. However long it took them, it was enough for her to make it to a woman’s shelter that she’d volunteered at once as part of church. A young, eighteen-year-old girl, panting, in a wedding dress, makeup covering some old bruises had shown up on their doorstep, and they’d quickly taken her in.

“The next few months are a blur,” she finished telling the guys. “They helped me make a bank account and learn how to be an adult. I was still there when I signed up for True Match. They had, like, this program for the women in the shelter. We got the scan super discounted if we were willing to actually go through with it. And a lot of us did. I think we all just wanted the chance to get out, you know? I was out of the shelter and living in an apartment with a couple roommates when I got the phone call that I’d been matched.”

“And your family?” Sollit asked, looking like he was just as willing to fight her father as he would some unknown male that thought she might be his.

“They looked for me initially. At least, some of the other ladies at the shelter told me that they did. I never saw them myself. The other ladies, they, er, looked after me. We all looked after each other. I think my parents eventually just gave up and banished me from the family. Not really that uncommon in our church, actually. I was an adult when I ran, so they had no legal way to drag me back, so all they could do was cut off all my support and friends and make sure I was alone.”

It still hurt.

Some of the ladies at the shelter had been vehemently anti-religious. Some had never been religious in their life but had felt the sting of religious persecution. They hated her church onprinciple. And while she could certainly understand where they were coming from, she felt that they were the ones that didn’t understand her.

As much as she knew, intellectually, how bad her family was for her now with hindsight, that didn’t actually lessen the love she had for them. All the times her mother held her. The times her father played with her. All the memories with her brothers and sisters.

It hadn’t all been bad. It hadn’t all been fearful. And that’s what people had so much trouble understanding. She may have left the church and her family, but she did it for survival, not because she didn’t love them anymore.

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