“How can I love you and hate you in the same breath?” he mutters, gills twitching with annoyance.
“That’s what family’s for,” I say, grinning as Bay’s purple glow shimmers toward us from the shore. “Let’s go. We’ve got a princess to pick up first.”
Roran
Kayla and Chris have been fussing around me for the past hour. One's rambling about some private school guy who follows her around like a lost puppy, and the other is still caught up in stories from her graduation party back in June.
I'm curled up beside them on a wide, cream-colored sofa in Kayla’s upstairs lounge. She’s seated closer to me, Chris on her other side, both of them munching on fruit and chocolate their maid dropped off earlier, like nothing in the world can touch them.
And for a second, I feel like I’ve fallen into some kind of warped reality—where I’m not the daughter of a lunatic, not a walking target, not the broken thing locked behind doors. In this strange little pocket of the world, I’m just a spoiled heiress lounging with her girlfriends, gossiping about boys and parties and the latest trends.
But I don’t even fake a smile. Not when they look so… light. So content. Like there’s nothing clawing at their insides. For a flicker of a moment, I almost let myself sink into it—the ease, the softness of belonging. But the thought of Diana yanks me back,twisting hot and sharp in my gut. She doesn’t get this chance. Not when she’s still under my father’s hold.
The moment stretches, and guilt slithers in. What right do I have to feel this? To sit here, pretending to belong, when Diana’s still in danger?
I can almost see her face—pale, hollow, waiting. My stomach knots, the air turns sharp. It feels wrong to even want this, to imagine what peace might taste like when she’s still choking on his control.
Listening to them talk, hearing how their parents dote on them, something inside me aches with a betrayal I didn’t expect. For years, I thought people like them were monsters—just like my father, maybe worse. That’s why I never dared to reach out, to make a deal, to beg for help. I thought getting close to this world would burn me alive.
But now I’m here.
And it’s not fire. Not yet.
I was never meant to be the girl who lives to see a happy day.
But somehow… I’m still surviving. For me. And for Diana.
“Roran?” Kayla’s voice cuts through my thoughts, her hand gently brushing my arm. I blink at her, confused.
“Chris just asked how your graduation party was,” she says, pointing at her cousin with a smirk. “She swears I would’ve stolen all the attention from the other girls if I showed up to hers.”
She rolls her eyes like it’s nothing, but there’s a genuine smile pulling at her lips.
Graduation party?
“I—” My voice catches before the words can even form. No one’s ever asked me about things like that before. Not good memories. Notnormalmemories.
“I never graduated,” I say finally. “I’ve never even been to school.”
The truth falls heavy between us. I don’t know why I even say it. Maybe because no one’s ever cared enough to ask.
I glance at their faces—both of them frozen, wide-eyed, like the air’s been sucked out of the room. They’re not trying to pity me, not really. But I can see them grasping for the right thing to say, trying not to hurt my feelings.
Why should they even care? Their family kidnapped me. I’m only here because Maleciandro brought me in like some stray he doesn’t want to leave on the street. No one told them to be kind. No one told them to make me comfortable.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” Kayla starts, her voice soft, but I shake my head fast.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say quickly, brushing it off.
I shift the conversation before the air can grow heavier. “Can you let me know when Maleciandro will be back? Or who I should talk to about my medicine? Pedro, was it?”
Kayla presses her lips together, like she’s holding back a laugh. “So formal,” she says. “It’s been forever since I’ve heard anyone call himMaleciandro…”
I tilt my head. “Isn’t that his name?”
She snorts, and something about it breaks the tension in the room. “It is. But everyone calls himMalec. Maleciandro is what our grandparents call him—and they have their reasons.”
Chris immediately elbows her in the ribs, sending a sharp look her way like she just leaked state secrets.
