Page 1 of Ellie 3

1

Ellie

“This was definitely not on my BINGO card for this year,” I said as I locked gazes with the person I was meeting.

Aurora Reed gave an elegant snort. “And your disgusting father showing up after decades to try to sell youyet againwas?”

“This year? No, but I always knew Kenneth would poke his head out again and try for me,” I answered as I sat down in the private dining room I’d arranged for this meeting. “He will never change, and the gods themselves cannot get through to him that I am not his property to do with as he wants.”

She gave another snort but let me get out the rest of what I was clearly carrying.

“But I haven’t seen you in centuries and—”

“Not bymychoice,” she said so quietly that I barely heard her.

I opened my mouth to press what that meant or demand answers, but I realized she wasn’t in good shape. Her aura was flashing signs of pain from nutrition deficiencies.

It almost made me feel bad for what I was about to do.

Almost.

I thanked the manager who came in with the cart, giving her a nod it really was okay. “Well, as I said, I wasn’t ready for your visit, especially you showing up to camp out at my condo building. The hospital orders catering from this restaurant allthe time and they were able to swing this for me before they open for lunch. I promise it’s all delicious.”

She nodded and smiled at the manager. “It all looks lovely. I appreciate you taking such good care of my daugh—” She swallowed loudly when I cleared my throat. “Stepdaughter. Thank you.”

“Enjoy,” the manager muttered… And got the hell out of there.

I didn’t blame her and wanted to do the same. Really, I did.

As much as I wanted to jump to the questions I wanted answered and could maybe get the answers to finally since she clearly needed help, I didn’t think I could focus until I understood the current situation. “Why are you so hungry and thirsty? Down on blood? What did you mean that you wanted to see me but couldn’t?”

She finished delicately hurrying to eat the quarter sandwich she’d taken before having a sip of the iced tea. Her eyes flashed shock. “That’s lovely. Blackberry? So refreshing.” She remembered herself and met my gaze, her eyes full of sadness. “Would you believe a word I told you?”

I snorted. At least she was that honest with herself as opposed to before.

Aurora let out a slow breath. “I won’t ever ask for your forgiveness, Ellie. I don’t deserve it.” She nodded when my eyes went wide. “Please, understand now that it’s centuries later—I was achild. I’mfifteenyears older than you. I was thirteen when I was shipped off to be Kenneth’s bride. I menstruated and that was it. Shipped off.”

I held up my hand to her. “You’re right that we do need to have this conversation, and I’m not sure I ever knew you were that young. I don’t know that I can forgive you, but… I do want the details and to understand.” I gave her a minute with that.“But I cannot right now. I have too much on my plate and your pain is distracting. So let’s handle that.”

She sighed. “It’s sort of all tied in, but fine, the raw facts are when you fled I used the last of my squirreled away money to send Theresa away as well. I knew what I was doing and he spent—he took all his anger out on me. I accepted that as the distraction to get you both out of range of his insanity.” She snickered and wiped her eyes. “Inbreeding. Monster.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

“I sent a messenger to my family, a witness that he had wanted to inbreed and I’d had to send you away for your safety. They did nothing.” She snickered again. “Nothing until he lost the coven andthatwas enough embarrassment. They sent guards andreclaimed mesaying he broke the mating contracts.

“That their daughter was to be the mate of a coven leader, not just any pauper. They took what they could…” She let out a slow breath and quickly wiped under her eyes. “I’ve been there ever since. Kenneth wouldn’t sign the papers to dissolve the marriage. I couldn’t be resold. My parents wanted to use me as bait for Theresa so they could have her in their portfolio.

“They knew they had no claim on you, but my mother still wanted me to make contact and—I wanted to contact you, Ellie. If you believe nothing else,please believethat I desperately wanted to check in on you and make sure you were okay. I had no idea how. I couldn’t risk being the reason people found you or you were scooped up.”

I did actually believe that. Mostly because of her aura. Aurora Reed was an accomplished actress, but the defeat and wear on her… I didn’t think she had it in her at the moment.

“What happened now that you’re here?”

She blinked back tears as she met my gaze. “I’m no longer sellable or have any value. The sins I committed that they always knew about were outed and it was deemed that I’m an asset notworth saving. They tossed me out with thekindnessof letting me portal to anywhere and one bag of possessions the butler inspected.”

“After keeping you captive for hundreds of years until they could resell you and get their claws into Theresa?” I checked, disgusted when she nodded. “So you came to me for help to get them arrested?” I frowned when shock lit up her face. “You don’t want to go after them?”

“It never crossed my mind. I’m theirs—I’ve always been theirs to do with—”

---