Page 5 of A Bond in Blood

I’d heard the stories of my birth.

The rough torrential rains that morning. The dark skies that had lingered over our island as my mother had wailed through the hours of the day and into the night.

How the blood moon—an anomaly our world only experienced every millennia—had appeared early. Starting one hundred and fifty years of a fog of red every night. And how that night, the moon had risen over the island, brightening the fjord as though it had been filled with blood itself.

My father stood from the bed, approaching behind me.

“Our ancestor, he didn’t think anything of the deal. The blood moon hadn’t occurred in millennia, so he agreed.”

“He sold me for a kingdom?”

“You didn’t exist in his mind, my dear,” my grandmother replied.

“But I existnow,” I countered. “I was supposed to go to the Seelie lands! I was supposed to be married!” My tears fell while I covered my face with my palms. “And you both are going to just allow him to take me? With no questions? No protests?”

My father’s hand landed on my shoulder. “I can’t fight against the Unseelie King.” He gave me what felt to be a reassuring squeeze. “There’s more.”

I shirked off his touch. “What?”

“It’s only for a year,” he replied.

I twisted in my chair, my brows crumpling with confusion. “Ayear?”

He nodded his head. “Thirteen months. That’s all.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That was the deal,” my father responded. “All he required. Our family got their kingdom, and the Unseelie King would get the service of a daughter for one year.”

My skin pricked. “Service?”

My grandmother let out a boisterous laugh. “Bren, my dear, I’m sure he didn’t mean sexual service.”

My cheeks warmed at her voicing the place my mind had gone to and my eyes went back to my father. He shuffled his feet, shaking his head.

“I—” He cleared his throat. “He didn’t specify what service meant.”

“So, I’m meant to be his whore?”

“Brenna!” my father yelled.

“What?” I shouted back. “Somemanin our family sold a woman to a king. I can think of countless tales where that usually ends up as the woman whoring for said king.”

“I will cut off his head if he makes you his whore,” my father snapped.

I stared back at him, sitting straighter in my seat. “You should have cut off his head the moment you learned you had a daughter. You should have sailed to his kingdom and killed him on the spot. You should have protected me even if it were the last thing you had done.”

He held my gaze, before his head dropped. “I know,” he muttered.

“Why now?” I asked, turning my eyes out my bedroom window, tracking the white bears cresting over the hill.

“Because I disobeyed him,” my father replied. “I allowed you to be betrothed. It was the last part of the deal. He would claim your year of service whenever he pleased.”

My vision blurred with my tears. “You’ve spoken to him?” I whispered while betrayal ran through me.

“No!” my father yelled out. “When I say I disobeyed him, I mean he was disobeyed in general. This secret, Bren—it was passed to me on my Father’s death bed as it was passed to him and so on. For generations. I didn’t believe it. I thought it was an old myth.”

I thought back on my life. Of the years walking through our small palace, never leaving. Always the dutiful daughter doing as I was told. Always at my father’s side, nurturing our people like it was my life’s purpose.

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