Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 62488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I ignored his question.
“When I was four years old, I got my first job. It was beating the rugs out at my parents’ place. There was a line of them that stretched over thirty feet long. I did it for five hours a day after I did my schooling,” I told him.
He cocked his head.
And it was then I realized that Nikolai was there, too.
I knew he wouldn’t let Keifer yell at me.
He’d let him explain what he felt he had to, but he wouldn’t ever let Keifer hurt me. My feelings were a different thing, and I hated that Nikolai was siding with Keifer on this.
He’d held back some, staring at what was going on.
I turned back to Keifer.
“When I was eight, I graduated from the rugs and moved to the kitchens, where I cooked the morning, noon and evening meals, as well as baked the next day’s bread for over a hundred other people,” I explained. “I was one of about four girls that were in my age group in our Amish community. So, for sixteen years, I followed order after order, and worked my ass off all because I was a girl. And I left because I was told to leave. But I didn’t go back, do you know why?”
I crossed my arms, glaring at the man that was now my ‘King.’ Even though I’d never sworn any fealty to him.
“I did a woman’s work. I did what I was told. I went where I was instructed. I read what I was given. I was a fucking slave,” I hissed. “And now, here I am, a fucking slave again. I go to sleep when I’m supposed to, since the lights are turned out at a certain time because I share a fucking house with fifteen other people. I work where I’m told, because I’m needed. I don’t leave because I’m told I can’t. I haven’t been able to order a single fucking thing off of the Internet because of some blackout to my account due to somebody out there looking for a way in at me. I’m being paid by my mate for services rendered because whomever is supposed to pay me doesn’t. And to top it all off, I am now mated to a man that takes the side of his brother rather than his mate.”
I was good and pissed now.
In fact, I wanted to throw something at both of their faces.
My shoe, perhaps, since when I looked around that was the only thing I could see that would make an impact.
I didn’t, however.
Instead, I pulled what little courage I had left, and volleyed one final blow at not Keifer, but at my husband.
“I left that place because I knew they were going to marry me off to a man. A man that’d already told me he would brook no disrespect to his family or mine. I was to obey him. No matter what. And so I left, because that’s not how I wanted to live my life,” I snarled. “And look where I am...being dictated what I can and can’t do. By you. By him. And who’s watching out for me? No one, that’s who. Because even my own fucking best friend takes the other side.”
With that, I gathered the darkness around me, something that I’d learned from Perdita, and I disappeared.
Well, seemed to disappear.
Really, I just sat on the picnic table.
“Shit,” Nikolai hissed. “Shit.”
Shit was right.
***
Nikolai
“She’s right,” I said to my brother once we were back inside.
“Just give her time to cool off. She’ll see the error of her ways,” Keifer muttered dismissively.
I didn’t think she would.
In fact, I thought that this was worse than ever.
Usually she was a pleasant buzz in my brain…a hum of awareness.
Now…nothing.
She’d disappeared into the shadows…a trick that I’d shown her because she’d asked.
Now I was staring at where she’d been with worry.
Perdita, where is she? I asked.
If anyone could find her, it would be Perdita.
Although she couldn’t always see through my veils, she always had a hint of where I was.
I don’t see her within two hundred feet of where I am. Why? Perdita answered quickly, sounding distracted.
She was mad at me and disappeared into the shadows, I answered.
I’ll keep an eye out for her, but she can’t get off the property without me knowing, and if she needs time, let her have it. You’re suffocating her.
Words that Brooklyn had practically spat at me moments before.
Wonderful.
I kicked the dust at my feet, annoyed that I’d done exactly what she’d accused me of.
I’d taken my brother’s back out of habit.
We’d been together for a very long time, and we’d promised to always have each other’s backs.
However, here I was, taking his back over my mate’s and I’d seriously pissed her off.
I watched the darkness for the next two hours.
And I wasn’t really, truly, worried until the first hint of dawn started rising over the trees in the back yard.