Her heels had her peering slightly down at me, and her eyes zeroed in on mine.
I hated to admit it, but I felt like a child standing in front of such a legendary woman. However, it didn’t matter what I felt. I glared at her and waited. Though unreadable at first, her features softened, and I failed to unscramble what was emerging in her expression and tense body language.
Those big brown eyes of hers scanned me leisurely before linking back with mine. Was it pride I was seeing in her? I couldn’t have been more confused if the word was imprinted on my forehead.
“It’s almost mind-blowing how fearless you are. You’ve never allowed it to be a disability, have you?”
At those words, my fucking nerves went into a frenzy, wondering how she knew my damn business. Arjen’s head whipped in my direction, no doubt wondering what the hell I was keeping from him.
When Silvia lifted a hand to touch me, Arjen yanked me behind him and stood face-to-face with the devil. I peeked around his sturdy shoulder, and there she was with a big proud smile on her face.
The shit kept taking weird turns, enough that it had looped my thoughts into a circle. My confusion about this situation was in overdrive, causing me to shut my eyes and pray that I would wake up to Arjen and me at home and in bed.
“You’d die for that beautiful woman, wouldn’t you?” she questioned Arjen in a low, even tone like he hadn’t just challenged her.
“Fucking right, I would. And she’s not just any woman, she’s my wife.” His strong words reverberated throughout the room. I had all but forgotten we were surrounded by guards and were more than likely the targets of multiple points of death.
However, like my husband, I wasn’t going to cower in the face of death, no matter how out of character Silvia was acting. We had barked at the devil and were standing in the pit of her domain without a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving, so why not go out as fierce warriors.
Corvel hadn’t moved from his seat on the couch, riveted to the scene in front of him. The sight of him sipping on what I believe was his third glass of alcohol added to the weirdness of the situation. Silvia maintained a smile that kept Arjen and me glaring at her.
“I couldn’t have picked a better match for my daughter if I had tried. You two are good for each other, and I respect this union.”
Daughter. Daughter. Daughter.My brain had dumped every other word but the one that wouldn’t stop echoing inside my fucking aching head.
“Come again. She’s your what?” Arjen asked, his strong stance wavering a bit, weakened by the same word that had me dizzy. I stepped around him on shaky legs, my mouth hanging open, but eager to hear the answer to Arjen’s question.
She reached out, and I was too stunned to do anything about her placing a caressing palm against my cheek. Arjen went stalk still, his eyes rotating back and forth between us. “Holy shit,” he said as his neck continued to swivel between us.
“You grew into such a beautiful woman, despite your father’s recklessness. I should have killed him years ago when he allowed you to get hurt the first time.”
Her hand brushed down my shoulders, but I eased away from her touch. A mix of anger and confusion had my face clenched so tight, I was grinding my teeth.
“Did you just say I’m your daughter?” A hollow laugh escaped. “You’re my mother?” My head was shaking in the negative, more willing to believe her words had somehow gotten crossed up in my brain.
My eyes threatened to close, and my brain swam in my head, attempting to grasp onto the revelation. It would certainly explain why Arjen and I were still breathing. It also explained why Corvel was always so accommodating with me. He was my fucking uncle.
Wait.I couldn’t possibly believe this shit. My head started to shake and it wouldn’t stop, even when she resumed talking.
“I sent you to live with your father a few months before your fourth birthday because any child of mine would have been kidnapped, stalked, tortured, and marked for death their entire life. For the first four years of your life, we had to pass you off as one of the maid’s daughters, but I saw you every day, and tucked you in and sung to you every night. My decision to hand you over to your father was one of the worst mistakes I have ever made. I wanted to take you back when I realized you would always be surrounded by danger no matter who you were with.”
Unshed tears glistened in her eyes, the sight of them was as shocking as the wicked reveal she had unleashed.
“When I forced Raymond to send you away to boarding school, I thought it would stick because you were so smart. Yet, after one semester you refused to return, and I understood it better than anyone that the streets had gotten into your blood. There was nothing you wanted more than to learn how to conquer the streets.”
She reached out again, and I yanked away from her this time.
“I pray that you could someday forgive me, my sweet Mecca.”
The information had overloaded my brain and caused my eyes to fall close while I attempted to process the wicked reveal.
“I should have kept you near, protected you. I never wanted you in this life. You were my paradise in the hellish world I was born into. I told Raymond what you meant to me, forced him to send you to college. After seeing how well you were doing, I was certain you would leave the streets behind and go off and live a nice, normal life.”
The notion that I was someone’s daughter had so many thoughts fighting for dominance that they were bottled necked at the entryway of my brain. I wasn’t just anyone’s daughter either. My mother happened to be one of the most powerful women I knew. She was one I had attempted to emulate my whole life. I shook away the heat flowing off my overworked brain.
“You mentioned my father. He died and I ended up with my uncle, at least that is the story Raymond fed me. Is my father still alive?”
My ability to speak complete sentences was restored, which meant I was getting my luster back.