One year later
Thalia grinned as she raced down the stairs, the sound of her tiny feet thumping against each step in her haste to make her way to me. Her mother stood at the top of the stairs, a rare, small smile on her face as she watched her daughter in a moment of happiness.
Those moments were so rare for Thalia and her mother, because even requiring that she not be physically harmed didn’t mean I could control the mood of her home.
Her father was a tyrant, pushing his daughter toward perfection in a way that no seven-year-old girl should have to be. The aging and increasing tension on her mother Neri’s, face led me to believe that she’d taken the brunt of Origen’s inability to punish his daughter.
I chose to think that she would welcome that, given it meant her daughter had been freed from the abuse. Any true mother would.
Thalia’s small figure connected with my body as she flung herself at me at the bottom of the stairs. Her face pressed into my diaphragm as she tilted her head up to look at me. “What have you brought me today?” she asked excitedly.
A grin tugged my lips despite myself, the sight of her white teeth peeking out from her always bringing a rare moment of light to the life I led. Training to become the next head of the Regas family was all-consuming, taking me to places I never wanted to go.
In the time since Thalia had entered my life, I’d killed my first man. I’d tortured and bled and maimed countless other men in the name of the six families. Somehow, she still smiled up at me like I hung the moon and stars in the night sky and gave her light in the darkness.
“Let’s go outside, Little One,” I teased, nodding my head to the back doors so that we could go sit amongst the narcissus flowers. The garden was still her favorite place to chat with me, where the prying eyes of her father and his men weren’t so noticeable and the ears were more distant.
“Fine,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me. I let her take my hand and guide me through the house, her mother’s watchful eyes fading from view. Jeno stood with his arms crossed over his chest at the back door, blocking the path with a harsh set to his jaw.
Considering we were the same age, I wasn’t sure why he thought he could intimidate me. Everything he’d done and learned to become, so had I.
“Move,” I ordered, raising my brow. I didn’t care that it was his home and his sister who I let take me to the privacy of the outdoors, not when I had the other families on my side.
“It’s fucked up that you’re spending all this time with her, you know,” Jeno said. “Why not just wait until she’s older?”
“I’ll be right out, λουλούδι μου,” I said, nodding my head and sending Thalia outside on her own. She looked back at me nervously before shrugging her shoulders and tugging the door open as she maneuvered her way past her brother.
She sprawled on the grass between the flower beds in the distance, the taller grass of the field enveloping her as she stared up at the sky. “The next time you make a comment that alludes to the contract, I’ll feed you to my dogs,” I snapped, turning a glare to Jeno. He paled briefly, his face twisting with fury as he tried to recover from the threat.
“What fucking difference does it make?” he asked. “It’s part of life for her.”
“She doesn’t need to know that until she’s older, and if you care about your sister at all, you’ll make sure she doesn’t. She has the opportunity to be innocent for a few years before the bullshit of our lives corrupts her. Don’t you think she deserves that?” I asked, shaking my head at him. He didn’t seem to care one way or another what happened to his sister, and I couldn’t help but wonder why it seemed like the ones who were given such a gift never realized what they had. I shoved past him, leaving him to stare after me as I set to appreciating the light he’d been given.
Our relationship might become different as she grew, but for the time being I was her protector and the only person in her life who spoiled her.
She sat up as I approached, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders and the sunshine making her amber eyes glow. “Well, what did you bring?” she asked, picking at the blades of grass under her legs.
“What makes you think I brought you anything?” I teased, taking up a seat in the grass directly across from her.
“You always bring me something.” She giggled, holding out a hand expectantly with a smug expression. Rolling my eyes dramatically, I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out the chocolate chip cookie I’d snuck in for her.
I had no doubt her father knew about my tendency to bring her sweets, but the glee on her face as she dug into it was worth every bit of the wrath I might incur.
“How was school?” I asked as she took a bite of the cookie. She chewed, uttering a groan of happiness as she swallowed down the bite.
“Good,” she said evasively. As far as I knew, the girls at school hadn’t given her any trouble since I’d threatened them, but she largely went ignored.
I guessed it was better than being bullied.
“What’s a contract for marriage?” she asked, taking another bite of her cookie while I coughed to cover up the surge of rage inside me. If Jeno had told her, I would fucking kill him with my bare hands.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, trying to suppress my initial response. Maybe it was innocent and meant nothing.
“Girls at school,” she said, raising an eyebrow and seeing far too much for her age. “Missy Galanis said her father signed her contract for marriage to Stephen Lykaios yesterday.”
I heaved out a sigh of relief, handing her the napkin from my pocket to wipe her chocolate-covered fingers on. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering lightly in the chill air.
I slipped my jacket off my shoulders and wrapped it around hers. “Some of the families believe in using marriage as a business agreement. Instead of marrying for love like in your fairytales, they marry for money or power and it’s usually decided when the girl is young.”
“Eew. Stephen is like old,” she complained. Even though he was only a half-dozen years older than me, the unfortunate reality was that made him twenty-one when Missy was only seven.
“I agree,” I said, leaning back to stare at the clouds.
“Will that happen to me? A contract for marriage?” she asked, crinkling her nose, but the shadows in her amber eyes weren’t playful. Thalia knew far more than she let on, and while she might not know for sure that my place in her life was similar, she had to know the day would come.
“No, Little One,” I said, my soul withering with the lie as soon as it formed on my tongue. I knew one day I would regret the words, but for now the most important thing was preserving the innocence of her childhood. “I won’t let your father sell you off to someone who doesn’t care for you.” The addition eased the sting, because I did care for her.
Even if it wasn’t in the way I should care for my wife.
She nodded, the light returning to her eyes. “Promise?”
I nodded, wishing it was a word that I could keep. She deserved to marry a man she loved one day. Instead, she’d be stuck with me.
I gave her the only words I could, sealing our fate with more lies built on childish dreams that had been massacred before they could ever flourish. “I promise.”
