Page 66 of His To Claim

I’m stunned and silent by this admission. Does he mean to say my mother was a student at Servite Academy? I know nothing of her background so it’s not entirely far-fetched to believe she could have lived here at one point, but this place is nothing like where I imagined Lilith ever growing up in. “My mom came here?”

Servite releases his hold on me but doesn’t pull away. “No time for answers. Tomorrow when you arrive at the manor for the party, you will need to find a way to sneak away from your friends and up to my study. It’s on the third floor at the end of the right corridor. You can’t miss it.” He pauses as he paces around me, his hands folded behind his back. “You will wait for her, however long it takes. There will be a package inside the left drawer of my desk. Pretend to go through my things until you come across the yellow envelope. Inside will be ten thousand dollars. Once she sees you’ve procured the money, she will come for it, and I will be close by ready for her.”

“What if she doesn’t show?”

He reaches his hand toward me again and I avoid looking him straight in the eye, afraid of what he’ll do. Once again, his hand grips my chin, and he pulls it forward forcing me to look up at him. My eyes meet his, a cloud of something I can’t quite figure out covering his blue and green marbled eyes.

“She will. You’ll make sure of that.”

I look deeper into his eyes and see that same look he gave me when he first came to the mobile home, then again at the fosterhome, and every time I’ve seen him since. Lust. Desire. Anger. He licks his lips, making me shiver.

“You fear me, genuinely scared,” he says, sounding amused. “Good, you should be. You have no idea the things I’ve done, what I’m capable of should you cross me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I whisper.

“Good little angel,” he says, releasing my chin.

I turn away about to step off the stage and get as far away from him as I possibly can when he grabs me by the arm and turns me toward him. My chest collides with his as he places both his hands on my lower back.

“One more thing,” he says, bringing a hand up to tuck a loose tendril of dark hair behind my ear. “You need to stay away from my nephew. I’ve seen you have that Drake boy to keep you warm at night. Stay away from Ace. I recognize the way he looks at you.” Servite looks down at me licking his lips once more. “And I can see why. You and your mother are like a deadly disease. Quick to catch, impossible to cure, and leave a large amount of destruction in your wake. Regardless, you’re a distraction and my nephew cannot afford any of those. He has such a bright future ahead of him. You must avoid him tomorrow as well. I’ll admit when it comes to you, he’s reluctant to act on orders, but even he needs to learn that being near you can be a dangerous thing.”

I’m appalled by the insinuation that Ace feels anything more than hatred and spite toward me, but worse that he’s so subtly threatened to hurt him if I don’t keep away. “Are you threatening him? Your own blood?”

“Of course not, dear. I’m not a monster,” he says with a wicked grin that scares the hell out of me and proves otherwise.

Twenty-Three

SCARLETT

“You stupid, ungrateful little bitch,” my mother yells as her hand slaps across my face, the force of the blow causing my head to snap back barely missing the wall behind me. My vision blurs as the sting causes water to pool in my eyes. I will not cry because of her. I bring my hand up to my cheek and feel the burning heat.

“You’re weak just like him. I knew you would be. A constant reminder of the mistakes I’ve made. I should have never had you. I should have listened to him, ended you when I had the chance. You’re not an asset, you’re a burden. I can’t wait till I can get rid of you.” She slams the door of my room as she storms out.

A few moments later I hear another door slam and I know she’s gone for the night. Jade creeps back around from behind the dresser. I turn to her and see her eyes looking to the ground, almost sorry for me. That’s until she remembers it was her face last night that took my mom’s rage.

It’s been four months since Chaz got arrested, and my mom’s been sober all of three days. Tonight, it was me not wanting to eat the rotting leftovers from three nights ago. Which made me ungrateful. Of course,she’s a wonderful mom, drunk all day, gone all night. At least the less I see of her, the fewer chances she has of beating me. I turn back around to Jade as she sits back on her bed, putting her earplugs on and lays down closing her eyes.

“One day, Scar, we’ll be free of this hell. I promise,” she says, and for a second, I almost believe her.

I awaken startled and sweating,from the dream I was having. I’d call it a nightmare, but it’s just a memory embedded in my subconscious, a reminder of the tragic childhood I had.

But this one truly felt like it was happening again. Thinking back to the dream and the words she spewed at me I can’t help trying to figure out what she meant.

You’re weak just like him. I knew you would be. A constant reminder of the mistakes I’ve made. I should have never had you. I should have listened to him. You’re not an asset, you’re a burden. I can’t wait till I can get rid of you.

She never spoke to me about my birth father. Said he was a one-night stand, that he didn’t even know she’d gotten pregnant. Not that he’d care. Apparently, he was a lowlife drug dealer she’d met at a college bar. She was underage of course, so she didn’t have enough cash for whatever her drug of choice was that night, so she used another form of payment, and that’s how I was conceived.

In the back alley of a dirty bar, likely as a payment for a line of coke. Yet I was ungrateful. Some life they brought me into. But the one question I can’t answer is, if he didn’t know of my existence, then who told her not to go through with the pregnancy?

I get out of bed and wander out to the living room where Stella is opening some styrofoam boxes in the kitchen. The sweet smell of syrup and bacon envelops the room and my stomach growls in response.

“What smells so good?” I ask as I sit on one of the chairs in the small eating area.

“I ordered breakfast from Scottie’s, the diner downtown,” she says as Jade and Ruby emerge from their rooms, likely also drawn in by the savory aroma of bacon.

“Pancakes, bacon and eggs,” she says. “And of course, hash browns for Jade.” Jade is obsessed with potatoes. She’ll eat them in any form: fried, baked, mashed, tots.

“What’s the occasion, Silver?” I ask, reaching for the box.

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