I sat on Delmare’s bed. She turned to me. “I heard you were sick.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Ethan’s taking care of me. I’m concerned about you. Stefan is worried.”
She gave a frustrated sigh. “He probably thinks I’m fucking nuts, running off like that bawling.”
“He just wants to help,” I offered. “Can you explain why you freaked out like that?”
She swallowed. “I was having a good time, until my mom showed up. I overheard her talking to her new boyfriend— different one than last time, you know. He asked her if she had any kids, and she said no.”
My guts curled in sympathy. “What the hell? That’s fucked up, Mare.”
“That’s not even the worst part,” she continued. “I was holding it together, then I saw that Stefan had overheard, too... he just looked at me like he couldn’t believe my own mom wouldn’t acknowledge me. I was so embarrassed. I just fell apart. I had to get out of there.”
“I’m so sorry.” My tone was honest. “Your mom’s a total shitbag.”
Delmare gave a harsh noise. “Yeah, well, she wouldn’t be the first to deny I was her kid. I’m used to it.”
“What do you mean?” My heartbeat had picked up. This sounded truly awful.
“My dad didn’t want a sorceress child,” Delmare started. “He wanted a shifter.”
My eyes widened. I knew Delmare’s dad had left, but I didn’t know he had rejected her.
Delmare’s look was distant as she said, “My dad comes from a long line of prestigious warrior dragon shifters. Big money, mostly male. I was the first girl to be born in a very long time.”
“Shouldn’t they celebrate, then?” I asked.
Delmare gave a skeptical noise. “No. He wanted a son. Women are for breeding in their family. That I was female and his firstborn was incredibly disappointing to him. To the point of being offensive.”
“What does it matter if you weren’t born with a dick?” I snarled. Gods, this guy sounded awful.
“He desired someone to carry on the family name. A shifter he could raise to fight. My dear old dad didn’t believe women were capable of waging war.” Delmare sighed. “And my mom did everything she could to keep him. But it didn’t work in the end. He left.”
Delmare wouldn’t meet my eyes as she continued. “He was so ashamed of me he wouldn’t let me have his last name— even after my mom gave me the name Irena, after his grandmother, in an attempt to please him. That’s why I call myself by my last name. I don’t want anything he gave me, and Delmare is the surname of my mother’s family, not my father’s.”
Her tone became cold, becoming distant with each passing syllable. “He ditched us before I was even a year old. My mom... she couldn’t handle losing her mate. She tried to replace my dad, She threw herself at men. I remember growing up she’d bring a new one home every night. She used to sing— she was a famous actress on the Malovia theater circle before she got dumped. After that, she never got another role. She sacrificed herself and who she was to find a husband. Her career, her hobbies, they all fell to the wayside to get love. None of them stuck, though. She got too clingy, or too desperate, and it ended up chasing them off.”
Delmare wiped away a tear that had fallen down her cheek. “She did what she had to, to keep me alive, and that was about it. She resents me, you know, because she thinks I chased my father off. Like I could help being born a girl.”
“Delmare...” I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say.
“I mean, she made food and everything. I had a place to stay, and she never hit me or anything like that. If I needed something, she got it for me. I was able to have friends over and go to parties. She never stopped me from doing anything, she just... didn’t care.” Delmare shrugged. “When I got to be old enough to take care of myself, she’d run off for weeks at a time. Just leave money on the counter for groceries and go.”
She hugged herself. “To be honest, I don’t ever think she screamed at me. I wasn’t important enough. I remember when I was really little, I took this jar of paint and I spilled it all over the rug— on purpose. I thought it might get her to notice me, and being yelled at was better than being ignored. But she saw it, and just said we had to hurry to the store and buy another rug to cover up the stain, because her new man was coming over in an hour, and she didn’t want him to see the carpet and think less of her.”
Delmare scoffed. “I never forgot that. I was the reason men thoughtless of her, because it isn’trationalfor a woman with a toddler to have a messy house, right?”
The harsh laugh that came from Delmare’s lips hardly seemed real. “Come to think of it, I was never there when she brought her flings around— I was always either at a sleepover, or being taken by the sitter somewhere. If someone couldn’t watch me, she’d lock me in my room and tell me I had to stay very quiet. She’d give me brand-new paint sets to keep me preoccupied, you know, because I loved art. I thought it was because she loved me. Then I put two and two together and figured out she was just hiding me. She knew shifters wouldn’t want her if they found out she had a kid with somebody else.”
Delmare’s vulnerable tone changed into the tough, hard exterior she usually gave off. “Do you see why I can’t be with Stefan? It’s not going to work.”
“Delmare, you are not your mother,” I said softly. “And even though Stefan’s a dragon, he’s nothing like your dad.”
“But Iloveart so much. I would die for my work,” she said. “I can’t imagine who I would be if I couldn’t create.” She gestured to her paintings, her sculptures and her poems. “I want to be an artist. A real one. And I can’t be if a man is getting in the way.”
“Why can’t you have both?” I suggested.
“My mother gave up everything to try to make a man love her. And she never succeeded. I don’t want to become some desperate woman clinging to a man’s approval to convince myself I’m worth existing. I need to keep my identity,” Delmare said. “I don’t need a man to make me happy.”
