Page 26 of Her Vicious Beasts: The Beginning
Aurelia
Ishould have known Uncle Ben was trying to warn me with the meatball thing.
Not two hours later, I’m sending more messages to my father’s assistant, demanding to speak with him, when Aunt Charlotte knocks on my perimeter shield. I let her in and skulk to the door.
She stands on my welcome mat with my four-year-old cousin, Trixie, who’s jumping up and down with excitement, her blond curls swinging. I raise my brows at the black dress bag Charlotte’s holding.
“What’s this?” I say carefully.
Charlotte jerks her chin to tell me to allow her inside my house and I oblige, frowning at them both. She’s dressed in a stylish red dress and her hair is freshly curled, as if she’s going to an event. Her other five kids are at school. My father demanded the serpent population have as many children as possible to repopulate after the 70’s purge.
“It’s so exciting, Lia!” Trixie squeals. “I wishIwas getting married!”
A dagger of white-hot horror pierces my core. “What?”I cry. At that moment, two snakes stroll up to the door, female scouts,both with unsheathed daggers angled at me. One of them runs her tongue over her bared teeth as she looks me up and down.
“We’re to make sure you’re dressed appropriately for Halfeather,” she says through a smoker’s throat. “Hurry up, you have twenty minutes.”
Aunt Charlotte huffs and sweeps into my bedroom without another word. I wouldn’t have followed, but Trixie grabs me with her little hand and hauls me after her mother, humming a wedding march under her breath.
Shit.
I mentally kick myself. I should have left immediately. I have a bag packed and everything in my closet—all the essentials, my entire stash of savings, passport, underwear, tampons,everything. This is happening too quickly. My father is a brilliant tactician. He’d probably guessed about my plans and known that me running was a possibility. The smartest thing for him to do is to secure this marriage straight away.
If only I’d been more clever.
Trixie unceremoniously shoves me into the bathroom, tapping her bare wrist as if she has a watch on it.
I shower, rapidly trying to think of an escape route out of here. I could easily turn into a rat or mouse or possum and get out of my window. But how long would I last out in the world without my phone and money and clothes? I am well and truly screwed.
Trixie opens the bathroom door and shouts excitedly at me and I hastily get out and towel off. When I arrive back in my room, there’s a dress hanging from my curtain rail. I stop dead, looking at the long length of thin black silk.
It’s a traditional serpentweddingdress. Slinky so that it will cling to my body and thin so that it leaves nothing to the imagination. In the Old Way, everything needed to be on showfor the groom and his family to see exactly what they were getting.
Dear Wild Mother, I’m going to faint. I grip the edge of my door, sagging a little while Charlottetsksand rummages through my drawers, completely invading my private spaces. I thought this was a formal engagement or something, but they’d only dress me up like this for an actual wedding.
“Hurry up!” comes a gruff shout from behind me.
I flinch violently and turn to glare at the two serpent females of my father’s court smirking at me. Scowling, I step inside my room and slam the door in their faces. Their cackles come through the door, grating and wild; a herald of my doom.
“Hurry, Lia!” Trixie said. “Look, I’ll even turn around, see?”
Charlotte slides the dress off its hanger and brings it over to me. She sniffs as if this is all very beneath her. “No underwear. That’s how we all did it. That’s the proper way.”
“I need a bra though,” I say, trying to get around her to my underwear drawer.
“No,” she says sharply.
I stare at her, mouth agape. “My nipples will show right through that!”
She gave me a droll look as if to say,that’s the point.
The Old Laws can get fucked, honestly. I don’t even have any pasties or tape of any kind.
I snatch the dress from her and drop the towel, ignoring her completely as her piercing brown eyes sweep comparingly down my naked body.
If only she knew that I’d had my five mates staring at my naked, writhing body just last night. Her eyes arenothing.
A pang of sadness cleaves at my heart at the thought of my mates.
