Yes. I would give him more. For as giddy as I felt, there was something beyond it, waiting. Or rather…coming. Something I could sense just beneath the surface of my desire. The whistling of some sound in my ears. And the trembling of every muscle in my body. It was meant to be mine. And Alexander could not give it to me. He could only draw it out. He could only call its name.

Freedom.

Episode 102: The Morning After Freedom Was Found

I awoke in a garden bed at the Rennington Estate, a shirt I had never seen before beneath my head as if it were a pillow.

“How dare you not invite me to whichever party did this to you?” Royce Rennington scowled down at me, his arms crossed. “Here I am, sauntering back home on two legs and perfectly upright, a couple of neat holes beneath my neck kerchief. And what do I see? My perfectly prim little cousin strewn out amongst the cabbages with blood dried on her chest.”

I sat up far too swiftly, my brain knocking about in my skull, and wrapped the shirt around my shoulders to hide the blood from the night before. Curse Royce for being the one to find me in such a state.

He scoffed. “What spirits did you imbibe last night, and how do I get some for myself? Do not withhold, Aurelie. I demand to know.”

Withhold? Oh, I did not withhold the night before. For once I realized what the moon had to offer, there was no turning back. It sang the wildest song over us all, and there was no option besides to dance. If one could call that dancing. It was more…alive than any dancing I had ever witnessed before. In fact, my legs were so sore that I worried they might never bend again.

Royce did not offer his hand as I stood, which was best, for I would have slapped it away. Once I was on my own two feet, I realized what a long walk it would be to arrive in my bedroom. No wonder I stumbled into the garden bed to rest. I looked around, relieved that I could not find my pyre, though I had the sense he had only just left when he sensed Royce’s approach.

Royce sneered. “You have leaves in your hair. And  twigs ! Why do  I not have twigs in my hair? I shall not be outdone. Not by Isther’s stooge. You are meant to be a project. A way to please our father into giving Isther to that pompous idiot she so admires. Not my competition in debauchery. I’ll not stand for it!”

He cursed and turned back to the paths leading to the main entrance of the manor. “And here I was worried about Al showing me up.”