Page 13 of Omission

Of a cold night and warm blankets while sipping hot cocoa and looking out onto the fae lands. Of happier times when I had someone to lean on. When I felt safe and free. Young and carefree.

Before I was old enough to be taught “lessons” or forced to comply.

A smile tugs at my lips then and I slowly open my eyes, and almost gasp, but not out of fear. Standing before me is a shadow watching me with the warmest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. There’s no malice in them or his touch as it slowly reaches out and cups my face with one firm hand.

I shouldn’t be able to feel its warmth, but I do.

I shouldn’t be able to feel its sweet breath on my skin as it bends low enough to place a chaste kiss on the tip of my nose, but I do. It tickles a bit and I squirm, a giggle slipping through, and I’m gifted another small peck.

Just those two before those blues orbs dull and I feel a pang inside my chest. Sadness. Emptiness as the warmth from a second ago disappears along with the shadow, and behind it enters an artic-like frost that makes me shake. My teeth rattling, but I hear it.

Faint.

A male voice.

“Soon.”

I jolt in bed as the realization that I’m actually cold hits home. I’m freezing.

It’s the kind of temperature drop that sets off alarm bells, unleashing the kind of bone-deep shivers and goosebumps that force me completely from my sleep. I come to almost painfully so, each sensation becoming harsher as the second tick by—the feeling settling deeper—and with it, comes my complete alertness.

“It was just a dream,” I mutter as other things become apparent, forcing me to push away the memory of my moonlit walk through the garden. There’s time to decipher and question and even consider myself crazy, but now isn’t the time. Not when I’m dealing with a different shock to my system; a knowing that I’m not home, and it’s confirmed when I force my eyes to look around the room through a half-loopy yet sharp gaze.

I’m in a modern, yet simple bedroom that lacks the ostentatious decor my father insists of all his properties. That’s another thing. I’ve never been here before.

Not my room. Not my bed.

“Goddess, where am I?” This isn’t a place I recognize, and my skin prickles as anxiety slams in. At once, the rush of a million ants crawling under my skin begins, and a choking gasp gets stuck in my throat. A throat that’s coated in a bitterness, I can’t quite place yet. “How did I get here?”

Nothing in this room is familiar to me; the style or layout and the sharp light coming from what looks to be a bathroom doorway not far from where I lay. Moreover, the last thing I remember is going to bed late after spending most of the day atoning for my sins against the crown. Embarrassing our father during an important meal with our elders would never be forgotten, and he’s let me stew—walk on eggshells for days on end—until he was ready to deal with my insolence.

It was his word. His way.

And the king’s reasonable punishment was misogynistic at its core. Meant to show me my place. For nearly ten hours, I’d been forced to kneel while facing the wall inside a special room designed to deal with the females of his family.

My mother suffered in that room. I have, too.

Made to quietly accept a physical strike of a belt or the lash of my father’s powers, but this time, I experienced something more demeaning. Brice decided my fate. He gave me a glimpse of what my life under his heavy hand would be like after asking me to turn and face him…

Day Of Punishment

…

“I’m going to give you a choice, ma princesse,” Brice says from his seat across from me while my father and brother watch from the opposite side of the room. They’re both wearing matching expressions: pride and amusement at my subjugation. Their auras are dark and oppressing, and I almost flinch back. It takes every bit of the strength I allow myself to access—use for protection—to hold me steady. “You can have five strikes by my hand on any body part of your choosing? Or would you rather have no food for a week?” He pauses then, tilts his head to the side, and then nods. Not once do his eyes waver from me; I can feel their heavy presence while I concentrate on a speck of dirt near the edge of a Parisian rug older than I am. Father would be furious if he knew it was there. That’s what I hold on to, a way to ease my anger while focusing on his compulsive demands for cleanliness while the room around me seems to shrink and beads of sweat fall down my back. “Either choice will be respected, Anaya. Think of this as another gift from your intended.”

Bile rises and the taste nearly makes me gag, but I breathe through the nausea. Exhale slowly through the tumultuous emotions fighting for dominance with me, from ire to fear to a desperate need to defend myself, but doing so will hurt any chance of an escape in the future.

If my father knew of my powers, he’d never let me go. I’d be hunted.

It’s that knowledge that has me lifting my head just enough to give Brice the smallest of smiles, ignoring the hiss of protest from my brother. Because to him, as a woman, I should never be allowed to meet a man’s eyes.

He’s a chauvinistic pig. Learned from his idol.

“Thank you.” The words taste like dirt on my tongue, acrid and wrong. “May I have a minute to decide, please?”

“You may.” Brice is leering down at me from his position, lip curling over his teeth while his stare darkens. I’m not an idiot. I’m aware of the position I’m in and the ideas floating through his mind, more so when his gaze rakes down my face and neck, stopping at the swell of my chest that’s accentuated by another ridiculously frilly dress from over a century ago.

Father rarely allows us to use clothing that isn’t from an era he considers to be the height of his reign—when he took control of all species— an empty accomplishment as he didn’t eradicate those he feared. He’s lied to those who blindly follow his doctrine and celebrate his legacy.

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