Page 33 of Claimed By Shadows

“Me too.” She nibbles her lip again, then takes a deep inhale, as if coming to some sort of decision. “Can I join you?” She points to the table I was sitting at and a smile tugs my lips upwards. We used to spend hours together, confessing all our dreams, secret crushes, and hopes for the future. I’ve missed having a girlfriend to do that with.

“I’d really love that,” I reply, my breath leaving me on an almost sigh.

“Fab. I’ll just get something to eat and come over.”

I walk back to my table while she grabs some pastries that are also on my plate, as well as a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. That girl always had taste. She brings them over, placing them next to mine, and then sits down, wincing as she makes contact with the seat. I have to swallow hard, trying not to let thepain of suspecting what might have caused that reaction show on my face.

“So, how was finishing school?” she asks, and I can’t help wrinkling my nose, a small laugh falling from her lips.

“It was…boring as fuck, to be honest.” We both chuckle. “They had us learning all about setting up dinner parties, being the most gracious hostess, and how to run a household.” She grimaces and I can’t blame her. It’s very old-school, and she knows I had dreams of setting up a fashion brand, not settling down and becoming a housewife. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I’m pretty sure raising children must be the hardest job in the world, but I always wanted something else, and it was hard to be denied my free choice. Just another thing to add to the list of unforgivable shit my dad did, I guess. “How was college?”

She takes a sip of her orange juice. “It was good…but then Dad took me out.”

My brows shoot up. That seems unusual. Her dad was all about getting a decent education, even if he was pretty distant with her after her mum died.

“Dad remarried, and they thought it best that they homeschooled me with my stepbrothers.” She looks down and I glance down too, seeing that her fingers have pulled apart the rest of the croissant. Brushing the flakes of pastry off her fingertips, she glances up and huffs a laugh, no doubt at the burning curiosity in my expression, which I’m clearly not hiding well. “Four older stepbrothers, to be exact.” My eyebrows shoot up, remembering the time when we were teens. I went through a phase of being obsessed with romance books between step-siblings.Oh, just ask, Iris.

“Are they hot?” I blurt out, then cover my mouth with a gasp, unbelieving that of all things I could ask her, this is what choosesto come out of my mouth. She bursts out laughing, and I can’t help the way it’s infectious and has me giggling too.

“The most gorgeous men I’ve ever met,” she tells me, biting her lower lip as her cheeks flush a rosy colour. She pauses for a second, taking a deep inhale, then shrugs as if to say ‘fuck it.’ “They, that is, we, are together. They are everything to me. I’m not sure how I would have coped with Dad passing and…everything, if not for them.”

My lowered brows replace my initial surprise at her confession, and I reach out and grip her hand, hearing the pain in her words. “I’m sorry about your dad, Ember.” Squeezing her hand, tears prick both our eyes. “I know he was important to you.”

“Thanks,” she whispers before clearing her throat. “How’s your dad?”

I feel my entire face shutting down at her innocent question. It’s normal for her to ask. She knew I was close to my dad, that he doted on me.

“He…” I trail off and swallow, then close my eyes and just focus on breathing for a few moments, trying to not let the pain of everything that’s happened since the day I got his pathetic apology text message overwhelm me. “He left.”

I can’t stop the slight tremble that takes over my body. I want to tell her everything, but I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to give all the sordid details yet.

“You don’t need to talk about it, Iris,” she assures me, but I shake my head, opening my eyes. I feel the moisture that clings to my lashes as a lump forms in my throat.

“I want to, need to get it out, otherwise it’ll fester. That’s what Dr Michaels, Julia, says anyway,” I rasp, taking another inhale, my fingers gripping hers tightly like she’s my anchor right now. “It’s complicated.” I laugh, but it’s painful sounding, not joyous,and hurts on the way past my throat. “He sold me to the Russian mafia for a business debt.”

“That’s…” She’s lost for words, her mouth opening and closing, and I can’t blame her. I would be too if someone just told me their dad sold them like a piece of fucking furniture.

“Fucked up? Yep,” I say, but then a small smile tugs my lips upwards as I remember the silver lining in all this. Well, one of them anyway. “But Nikolai was there, so it wasn’t all bad.”

“Nikolai, Sergi’s son?” she questions, and I recall all the times I bored her with talking about him when we were kids and how obsessed I was as a young teen. God, I used to blush so fucking hard when I confessed how much I watched him. “The good-looking one?”

I chuckle. “Yes, that one. He…helped me, then got me away, took me to Hunter and his Shadows.” My cheeks flush at the mention of Hunter, and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head.What are the odds that we’d both be in some kind of poly relationship?

“You been messing with the Shadowman?” she teases, and we both giggle. We used to love watching Disney films together on Sunday afternoons, uncaring if that made us look uncool to the rest of the rich brats of our high school. “You knew them from before though, something to do with Hunter’s sister?”

“Willow, yes, I helped her get away after…” I don’t finish, looking away for a moment and wondering if I’d known about Serene Haven back then, whether I would have suggested it to Willow. It also hits me that now Willow and I have something else in common, aside from loving Hunter, and I fucking hate it.Why do women have to be at the mercy of cruel men so fucking often? Why can’t we live without fear of them taking without asking first?“Anyway, Nikolai took me there and they kept me safe.” My eyes slam shut and my lips tremble, trying to not let that awful night when Sergi took me overwhelm me as it so oftendoes. Although, I suppose it’s better than the many nights that followed. They are the memories that keep me up. My hand, not in Ember’s grasp, floats down to my stomach, brushing the flat surface over the top of my hoodie, my mind swirling. “Until the Russians found me again.”

She reaches over to take my hand from my stomach, holding and squeezing them both. Hot tears pool in my eyes, knowing deep in my gut that we’ve experienced some of the same pain at the hands of others. That we both have scars which may never fully heal, trauma that will haunt us for years, if not for the rest of our lives.

“My stepbrothers couldn’t save me either,” she confesses, and my eyes open, tears falling down my cheeks. “Couldn’t s–stop what happened.”

“Oh, Ember.”

Then I pull her to me, and we’re crying and trembling in each other’s arms, letting out all the anguish at a world that would allow such terrible things to happen to innocent women who just wanted to find love and be loved in return.

Ember and I are still catching up when Johnny strolls in, pressing a kiss on Rufus’s cheek on his way past, which has the inked-up gangster flushing like a schoolgirl.

“You really are mean to him,” I say as he approaches our table, his eyes on Ember and a smug smile tilting his plush lips.

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