Page 25 of Cursed Shadows 2

Daxeel snatches the sweater from the floor and, with his back to me, tugs it on. He says nothing as he moves to sit on the edge of the bed, then pulls on his boots.

He doesn’t look at me, not once since he finished on my belly has he looked at me. And not even as he moves for the door does his gaze slide to me.

He leaves with one word to hang in the air, to bring tears to my eyes.

‘What happened to the male I love?’

“You.”

8

††††††

I don’t allow myself long to rot in bed.

With the first passage around the corner, there are things to be done, even with the bargain locked in. So I quickly run off for the washrooms and lather up as best as I can to wash Daxeel’s scent off my body.

Can’t risk father smelling him on me.

It’s no secret around here who I spend my time with, and that Daxeel is sometimes there, but to wander the halls after how strongly he scented me last night, that’s something else entirely.

I scrub myself raw before I’m clean and brave enough to meet father at the infirmary.

My face falls when I see Pandora has joined him.

She reclines against the thick white door, her arms folded.

The way she leans back has her stomach pushed out more than usual, and it’s now that I actuallyseeit. For the first time, I see the pregnancy in my sister, while I suffer the consequences.

It’s a small bump that pushes out against her brown leathers, but it’s large enough that I notice it, and I falter. Firm and round, not a food belly, not true weight—and I think of that moment at the table in our home gardens before I signed as her second; how I assessed her belly then, wondered on her weight gain, and still pressed that quill to the parchment.

Fool, fool, fool.

The realization of it hits me with the violence of a wave crashing against a cliff. I nearly stagger on the spot from the force of it.

Was she pregnant then, when I signed my life away?

Burns of nausea itch at my throat and chest.

I swallow the sensation down and fall back into step.

The clopping of my boots on the hardwood floor alerts them to my presence. Pandora looks up but makes no move to push from the door.

Her expression softens.

Father is the one to move for me.

His stony face reveals nothing. He takes two steps then reaches out his hand for mine. It’s not an offering, it’s nothing of warmth or comfort—it’s a command.Come.

He wants to make sure I attend the healer appointment, that I fulfil the physicals needed for the Sacrament. Thinks I’ll turn and run. Not a hint of worry revealed on his schooled expression.

My mind flickers to Taroh—and I suspect now more than ever that father won’t help me there. He loves me, but I only exist because he decided on a child with a future he could control, and better for him that I was born female, because I became a valuable daughter to sell to a husband.

Now he sells me to the Sacrament.

Snubbing father’s command, I soothe blooming aches with a flattened hand on my breastbone and rub, as if to massage out any of the knots of hurt fastening inside of me.

I don’t meet their gazes as I wander in through the open door. My shoulder brushes the toned bicep of Pandora’s arm.

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