Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“Undress here?” I ask her. My pulse has no spike. No fear. No danger. It’s a flatline.
“Is that a problem, dear?” she asks me, equal challenge in her eyes as she tries to regain power in this room. Regain control.
It’s a tug of the rope, and I let her have it.
“No.” I hold her gaze and smile. “Not at all.” I slip off the straps to my pink satin dress, and it pools effortlessly to the floor. No bra, but I do wear a lacy black thong.
Claudia’s cheeks go concave, as if she’s sucking a lemon. I am not bashful. I’m not tucking my arms against my body. “These, too?” I ask, fingering the hem of my panties. I don’t wait for her response before slipping them off.
Completely naked, I face Claudia and give her a wicked smile. I am the wild thing your son let in.
Her eyes are wide saucers. Then with a finger-flick, she instructs the tailor to dress me. Blue fabric slides over my curves, cinches at my hips, and plumes out in a sea of tulle. I don’t think about where the tailor’s hands touch as he fusses over the garment on my body. I’m just a mannequin.
A shell.
The tailor pulls the silk laces of the corset.
Claudia bumps him away. “Let me.” She takes his place at my spine, then yanks, and the force nearly doubles me over—but I right myself quickly.
Our eyes catch in the mirror as she wrenches the laces over and over, tightening them to the point of pain. “We need this nice and secure,” she tells me.
Anther tug, and my ribs shriek. “I think that’s enough,” I tell her. Air becomes brittle in my lungs.
Claudia ignores me. “You look much prettier in this one.”
I touch my chest. “I can barely breathe.”
“Beauty is pain, dear.”
She yanks once more, and more fire flares in my ribs.
“Enough,” I snap, oxygen in short supply. Lights start dancing in my vision. I’m going to pass out. I can control a lot of things—but I’m not immortal. I need fucking air.
And if I faint, Rocky isn’t here.
No one is around me. Not yet.
Claudia ignores me again, still tugging and purposefully causing the stabbing pain.
My nose flares. “I said enough!” I yell and jerk away from her. Stumbling off the podium, I try to orient myself with my vision full of spots. But I only intake sharp, uneven breaths with the corset this constricted.
“I’m not wearing this.” I reach behind me to try and untie the silk laces myself.
Claudia is fast and angry and so done with me—she struts to my side in an instant, clamps my wrist in a tight hand, forces my arm to my side, and swings her flat palm at my face.
I see it coming, and yet, I let her hit me.
The soft flesh of my cheek stings, and I immediately steal a glimpse of the tailor. His gaze cements to the floor.
“Leave us,” Claudia barks at him.
He’s so quick to bolt from the room, and I understand. I’d be hightailing it out of here, too. “I can’t breathe,” I grit out to Claudia.
“I don’t care,” she says sharply. “You’ll wear this dress.”
“I won’t,” I argue.
She scowls. “You are an ungrateful, whiney, horrid thing.” She drops my hand roughly, and I use the time to hurriedly try and loosen the laces at my back.
I think of Jake’s sister in this moment.
I wonder if she was here at one point.
I wonder if this is what she endured from her own mother. My mom might’ve deceived me, but she’s never been outright malicious. She’d never even think to lay a hand on me.
Claudia crosses the length of the room. Stopping at the unlit fireplace.
I get dizzy as she nears the family photo that Everett placed. But she disregards it and plucks a candlestick off the mantel. As she returns to me, I have just enough time to release the bindings to inhale a regular breath.
Claudia seizes my wrist again, and if this weren’t a job, I’d have evaded it and likely decked her in the nose. But this is a job—and I have my role.
She forces my hand higher and drags my palm near the flame of the candle.
“What-what are you doing?” I stammer, letting fear into my eyes.
“You will respect me in my house.” She lowers my palm to the flame. Agh, the sting is mild, then sharpens into something less tolerable. She’s burning me. I pull on instinct, and she grips me tighter. “You understand?”
“Claudia, that hurts.” I jerk my wrist harder. She’s strong for her age, but not stronger than me. I bury the urge to body-slam her to the ground.
“You will wear the blue dress.” Her gaze is cold and lifeless. I’m just a horrid thing that has spoken and rebelled. For her, it’s the worst kind of thing. “Say it, Phoebe.”