Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Feeling marginally relieved, Aleena made her way up the stairs past her stepmother, who gave way with extremely poor grace. She followed her father into his study and got ready to state her case. However, any hope of privacy she might have had was dashed, for Grindelia and Faleesha followed them in. The two of them seated themselves on the plush purra leather couch with its fat brown cushions and gleaming golden buttons, leaving Aleena no choice but to stand.
Well, she hadn’t wanted to sit anyway, she told herself. She was too nervous to sit.
“Now what is it you want, child?” her father asked, going to sit behind his vast tikka wood desk which had been polished until its dark blue wood gleamed. “As I said, we’re all quite busy at the moment.”
Aleena took a deep breath—there was no delicate way to say this.
“I need fifty thousand credits to pay for my mother’s medical treatments,” she said bluntly, not trying to sugar coat it. “She has a rare blood disease, as you know. If she isn’t able to continue treatment, she’ll die.”
Behind her, she could hear her stepmother sucking in a shocked gasp of air.
“Did you say fifty thousand credits!” she exclaimed, before Aleena’s father could say anything at all. “You think we’ll just hand you that kind of money, you little beggar?”
“It would just be a loan—I’ll find a way to pay you back,” Aleena said desperately, still speaking to her father. She knew he had the money—her stepmother’s breast net alone had probably cost in the neighborhood of fifty thousand credits. If he could afford to let her deck herself in such splendor on a daily basis, he must have the money to save the life of his disavowed wife.
But her father frowned and sucked his teeth. Clearly he didn’t want to make his current wife angry—not even to save the life of his disavowed wife.
“Please, Father—she’ll die!” Aleena hated to beg, but this was her last chance. It was either get the money for her mother’s treatment here or sell herself on the streets and let a stranger change the color of her eyes.
“Lies!” her stepmother snarled. “I’m sure she’s not that sick!”
“She is!” Aleena rounded on her. “If she doesn’t get her next treatment, the sickness in her blood will spread to the rest of her body! She’s barely hanging on as it is!”
“Why should we care?” Grindelia demanded, her pale blue eyes flashing. “A disavowed wife is nobody’s concern—especially not the man who disavowed her!”
“My father only disavowed my mother because you lured him away!” Aleena cried, forgetting her plan to be calm and even-tempered. “She’d be safe and well and have as much treatment as she needed if it wasn’t for you!”
“How dare you? Get out of my house at once!” Grindelia pointed at the study door, her arm stiff and her eyes cold.
“No! I came to talk to my father—not you!” Aleena turned to face her father again. “Father, please—I’ll find a way to pay you back—I swear it!”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Faleesha sniffed. “Are you going to parade up and down the street and sell yourself to strangers?”
“Faleesha!” Grindelia sounded shocked. “You’re not supposed to know about such things!”
“No—it’s a fair question. Would you prefer that I sell myself?” Aleena demanded, still looking steadily at her father. “Would you like it if I went down to the Public Square and let some stranger change the color of my eyes to earn the money for mother’s treatment? I could always tell them I’m your daughter—perhaps I’d make more if they knew my father is a Statesman in the Ruling Council.”
“That will be just about enough of that!” Grindelia rose from the couch and grabbed Aleena by the upper arm, her cold fingers pinching through the ragged linen sleeve. “How dare you try to blackmail us in such a shameless fashion, you filthy girl?”
“I’m not filthy—I’m still pure and you know it. The color of my eyes attests to that.” Aleena looked at her stepmother challengingly. Her eyes were still the pure, pale purple of a polished amethyst—a rare color that she’d inherited from her mother. Some said her eyes were like jewels and she considered them her best feature. It broke her heart to think of letting strangers use her body and turn them dark as soot but she loved her mother—she would do whatever she had to in order to save her. And her eyes would tell her story.
If she lost her virginity to just one man, they would only go a shade darker. But if many men had the use of her, then her eyes would be coal-black by the time they finished. Disgraced women could always be told by the color of their eyes.
“Please, Father,” she said again. “I know you can afford it! I don’t know why you stopped loving mother and me, but the least you can do after casting us both out on the street is to pay a little money to help save her life.”