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Her eyes narrowed, and I rose to my feet extending my hand. “Hello, Rhea, I’m Druella.”
She did not take it.
“This part of the house is reserved for those who have been invited.”
“Ah,” I looked around again, and it was just me and her. “Well, when your son reappears, I’m sure he’ll clear up the misunderstanding.”
“Why is it that that my son is your greatest fear instead of love?” she questioned, walking away from me and toward the couch on the opposite end.
“Excuse me?”
She lifted her hand and a glass of blood was already being poured by the old woman, the sweet scent filling my nose.
“Thank you, Martha. You may leave,” she said to the woman who just nodded and held a cloth to her wrist before turning and exiting the way she came. “Well?” she pressed, taking a seat at my side.
I did my best to retain my confidence and stick to the plan. “I can’t answer your question because I don’t understand it.”
She didn’t respond, instead taking sip of her fresh blood, licking her pink lips slowly. The hunger in me started to rise, but I pushed it back down.
“Did my son not tell you that it was I who sent him on the search to find his great love? Unfortunately, that is you. I can see it. However, I cannot see the same in you. How is it you have no great love, and yet have a great lover waiting?”
Her words confused me more not less. I shrugged, trying to joke it off. “My heart is dead.”
She was not amused. Her grip on her glass tightened. “I see no love from you. Yet, I can still see your fear, and my son is your fear. That displeases me.”
So, she could see love and fear? Not love and hate?
“After all these years, you haven’t figured out how to live with things that displease you?”
“No, I kill those things,” she stated, and with eerie coldness, her head tilted to the side.
“I d—”
“I have never made a mistake of someone’s love or fear. I see them both clearly, and yet with you— You are nothing but fear.”
“I don’t know.” My voice became softer, and I hated that I felt like I was losing this battle with her. Get it together, Druella. “But as I have told your son, and every other old hard-headed vampire I have come across, I am the maker of my own destiny. Whatever you see, think, or say is not me. I define me.”
“Such words remind me of so many mortals before they die. Stubbornness is a folly for sure.”
“So are most mothers-in-law,” I shot back. “I was hoping to come here and meet Theseus’s family, see him relax among them, figure out what is happening to us. I didn’t know what to expect, but since he all but described himself as the problem child, I assumed you all would be welcoming. I’m really disappointed instead to have an issue with you.”
“You are disappointed?” she snapped, her grip on the glass tightening to the point that it started to crack. “Theseus is my child. He has gone through hell many times over, and he has survived. All I’ve ever wanted for him is peace and joy and to be loved as he deserves. So, when I saw you all those years ago, I finally believed his time had come. Only to meet you and see even you, too, are incapable of caring for him.”
“Please do not guess my emotions.” I did care about Theseus; I just wasn’t sure if I loved him. I just met him.
“Emotions? Do you have any? Why is my son is doomed to meet such selfish women? I can see it, too. You will bring nothing but pain to him—”
“You have no right!” I hollered, feeling the ground shake under my feet. I wanted to get away from her, but she ended up flying backward instead.
“Mother!”
“Rhea.”
Before her body had even landed on the other side, Ulrik, Melora, and three other vampires I didn’t recognize were at her side. Feeling someone close to me, I turned to see Theseus at mine.
His eyes filled with concern. “Druella, it’s alright.”
“I did not come here to be bullied!” I yelled at him. “Since you have come into my life, I have lost my job and my home. I’ve been dragged from city to city, talked down to, and made fun of, but I let it all go! I didn’t blame you! Now your mother is blaming me because I didn’t jump you at first sight! Screw that! I was better off alone!”
