Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
It was only then that Meg realized the shower overhead had turned off. She tried to situate herself more firmly against the headboard, thinking hard. She didn’t have siblings, and though part of her had always wanted them, her rational brain was all too happy to provide a bullet list of reasons why she was lucky her mother had chosen not to have more children.
But if she did…
Meg shook her head. Her family wasn’t like Theo’s or like his mother’s. They weren’t close. There was no magical bond holding them all together no matter what life threw their way. Her aunt and uncle and their respective children lived the next town over, and she’d only seen them roughly once a year at a very uncomfortable Christmas dinner. They were simply people who happened to share blood by virtue of birth.
That said, she knew all about carrying around a chip in her shoulder a mile wide. Hers was a different flavor than Alexis’s, but ultimately that made no difference. She understood the other woman, at least in part.
Theo strode back into the room. He wore a pair of sweatpants and a white T-shirt and his hair was wet and slicked back. The man always looked good enough to eat. It was downright criminal. “My aunt was dripping her poison in your ear, I see.”
“I get why she is the way she is.” She obviously cared very deeply about her sister and grief and guilt had turned into hate. In her position, Meg couldn’t say that she’d have reacted any differently. “What I don’t get is the relationship or lack thereof.” She motioned between Theo and the rest of the house.
“Come on.” He helped her stand and kept his arm around her as he guided her up to the bathroom upstairs. Only once he’d closed the door behind them and flipped on the water did he speak. “Let me help you.” He touched her dress and grimaced. The blood had long since plastered it to her skin and dried. “I’ll buy you a new one.” He ripped it down the center and helped her slide the sticky fabric off her body.
Meg very pointedly didn’t look in the oval mirror over the sink. She stepped into the glass shower and bit back a cry as the hot water hit her skin. Safe. We’re temporarily safe… Probably. She wrapped her arms around herself and ducked under the spray, letting it work the blood from her hair and body. It swirled around the drain in red and then pink, and finally clear. Only then did Meg shampoo her hair and wash her body as best she could with one arm.
Through it all, Theo stood just outside the door, ready to jump in if she needed him.
“If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay,” she said softly.
He sighed. “As much as my aunt blames my father for my mother’s death, she blames me, too.”
“Why?” Mary Fitzcharles had died something like twenty years ago. Theo couldn’t have been more than ten when it happened—far too young to be held responsible.
“Alexis holds to the belief that my mother used my father to get out of her abusive relationship, but she never had any intention of staying, until they realized she was pregnant with me. Which is when my father married her, apparently despite the fact she was still married to her first husband.”
To blame an innocent kid for something like that… “That’s bullshit.”
“Maybe.” His phone beeped and he paused. “Galen’s got our stuff and is on the way back. It’s time to go.”
13
Pressure built in Theo, a great crushing monster he couldn’t deny. Seeing Galen walk through the door, whole and hale, helped. A lot. But every time he looked at Meg, too pale and determined to power through the weakness caused by her injury, he wanted to break something.
This was his fault.
Galen hustled Meg out to the car—a different one than what he’d left with—and Theo went to find Alexis. His aunt stood in the backyard, smoking a cigarette, her eyes on the clouds overhead. “You’re determined to see this through.”
“I don’t have another option. I never did, despite what you want to believe.” Once Phillip got a taste of power, he’d never stop. He might be content to play the puppeteer behind the throne now, but eventually that wouldn’t be enough. Theo’s brother and sister were vulnerable now that their father was gone. He was raised as the heir, with no veil over his eyes when it came to how things worked. They were sheltered and kept coddled. When Edward hit eighteen, that would have changed, but their father died before he could ease them into the realities of being part of Thalania’s ruling family.
Theo couldn’t abandon them any more than he could abandon his country.