AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cain drew her close and curled his arms around her. Burying one hand in her hair, he tucked his face into the crook of her neck. A deep sigh eased out of him, but the tension in his muscles remained.
She smoothed her hands up his back and just held him, patiently waiting for him to speak. Okay, maybe not patiently. But she waited rather than pushed—that was what counted in her opinion.
Finally, he raised his head. “My mother is here, as are two of Abel’s children.”
Wynter would have jerked back in surprise if he wasn’t holding her so tightly to him. “Uh, say what now?”
“They arrived early this afternoon. They told quite a story.”
She squinted. “A good story or a bad story?”
“It could be considered good for some but bad for others.”
She listened quietly as he gave her a very detailed rundown of his conversation with the Aeons. “Wait, Adam would so easily kill your mother? Seriously?”
“He has no affection for her. I don’t know if he ever loved her. He claimed her as his consort and insisted she be loyal to him and take no other lovers, but he wasn’t loyal to her in return. He even had children with other women. A few were born before Eve conceived any of her own.”
“But she stayed with him despite all that? I’m not judging, I’m just . . . I personally couldn’t stay in a relationship with someone who quite clearly didn’t respect, care for, or be loyal to me.”
“She was born in a different time. It wasn’t uncommon back then for the males of our people to seek pleasure outside of their relationships. Which does not whatsoever make his actions excusable—double-standards never are. I am merely explaining why she accepted such treatment. They did eventually separate, but . . .” Cain hesitated to continue, his gaze boring into hers. “I will tell you some of what happened back then. But there will be holes in the story. Holes I will fill in another time.”
Pleased he was willing to share something personal, no matter how brief and incomplete the account might be, she easily said, “All right.”
“Although they remained together for a while and shared the same home, they were separated in an emotional sense. He didn’t want her, but he refused to relinquish his claim to her, even when they later lived in separate houses. And so none of the other males would dare touch her, which was his objective. Adam didn’t feel that she had the right to find happiness with another.”
Already hating this dude, Wynter asked, “Why?”
“Because the hypocritical fuck thought she deserved to be scorned for sleeping with another man. In his mind, his gender ‘have needs’ and so it’s only natural that they see to those needs and sleep with whomever they choose. Women, however, should only have sex with their consorts in his fine opinion.”
“What an absolute, motherfucking dick.” Wynter had known plenty of guys who upheld such a philosophy, and she’d found that they were all very entitled and misogynistic.
“He wasn’t hurt that she’d slept with another man. He was embarrassed by it. He felt that she’d made a fool of him. For Adam, it was all about how the whole thing reflected on him. Things only got worse when . . .”
“When?” she prompted.
Cain gently squeezed her hip. “That we’ll discuss at a later date.”
Grr. “Fair enough.” She tipped her head to the side, searching his eyes and carefully scrutinizing every line of his face. “You don’t seem at all happy that your mother’s here.”
He gave a small, fluid shrug. “I don’t really know her. I wasn’t given the chance to bond with her. Adam took me from her when I was a baby, confined her to their chamber, and only allowed her to see me once every few weeks.”
“He what?”
“Cruelty was always something that came easy to Adam. He will cross many lines, and he will feel justified each time. I’m not saying he’s without a conscience. Only that it rarely bothers him to ignore the voice in his head. He tells himself that people have earned their punishments. In his view, Eve deserved to be punished however he saw fit for as long as he felt it was necessary.”
“It didn’t bother him that, because of his chosen punishment, you’d be without a mother most of the time?” It was bothering Wynter. Like a lot.
“People are easy to discard for Adam. He already had five sons at that point to various women. He had no more interest in them than he had in me. He kept me in the family home, but he had little to do with me. I was put to work when I was young.”
Outrage bubbled in Wynter’s stomach. “He treated you like a servant? Eve didn’t do anything about that? She’s your mom, for fuck’s sake.”
“She was also essentially a prisoner in her own home.”
“And no one cared about that?”
“Back then, women were considered chattel to do with what their consort wished, and Adam wished to keep Eve confined to their chamber. No one questioned it. She could have left him, of course, but he made it clear that she wouldn’t be allowed to take me or her daughters with her—another thing nobody would have objected to.”
She blinked. “You have sisters?” He’d never mentioned that before.
