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She was in the comfortable breeches she wore around the house, along with a loose sweater with sleeves that were too big, as if it used to belong to someone who wasn’t in her life anymore. Instead of speaking her mind as usual, she was quiet.
I was quiet too.
She eventually left the door and walked into the house, giving a silent invitation.
I shut the door behind me and joined her in the living room. The fire burned in the hearth, and there was a cup of coffee on the table.
With her arms crossed over her chest, she regarded me with her shrewd gaze. “What the fuck, Huntley.”
Both women had figured it out the moment they saw each other. They looked like different people, but their eyes were identical in shape and color. They possessed the same high cheekbones, the same color hair. When I first saw Ivory, I noticed the similarities, but the more I interacted with her, the more I saw someone else entirely. “Mother didn’t want me to tell you. I honored her wishes.”
“Tell me what?” She stepped closer. “You haven’t told me shit, remember?”
“She’s your sister. Half sister.”
Her eyes hardened, as if she knew that was the truth but still reacted to the revelation. “We must have the same father. Otherwise, that would just be disgusting.”
I gave a subtle nod.
“You’re telling me my father is the Duke of Delacroix?”
I moved to the armchair near the fire and took a seat. “Yeah.”
“And…how did that happen?”
I didn’t want to say. Didn’t want to open the vault to those memories. “When Faron took over Delacroix and exiled us to the bottom of the cliffs…he raped her.”
Her gaze remained hard, not giving a sign of a wince.
“We survived the fall, and she carried you to term.”
She drew a deep breath, looking away as she did it. “Now I know why she hates me…”
“She doesn’t hate you—”
“Cut the shit, Huntley.” She turned away and looked at the fire for a while. “I can’t really blame her. I’m not sure if I would react any differently. How is she supposed to have a connection with me when every time she looks at me, she sees the man who forced her? Who took away everything from her?”
I drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It gets easier…in time.”
She turned back to me, her eyes absorbing my stare and my words. “You told me she was in the dungeons.”
“Well, I lied.”
“I thought you didn’t do that.”
“It’s a delicate situation, Elora.”
She moved to the couch and took a seat, her arms still crossed. “You aren’t treating her like a prisoner, so what is she?”
“It’s complicated.”
Her eyes grilled me. “Huntley.”
“She had no idea what her father did to us. When I told her, she didn’t believe me. But once we came down here…she saw the world differently. Her small little world suddenly became bigger, and she lost her place in it. When I told her what happened to Mother, her sorrow was genuine. That’s the kind of person she is… Genuine. What’s going on with us…it just happened. We don’t really talk about it. Neither one of us really thinks too hard about it. I’m not sure of her allegiance at this point, but I know she doesn’t mean any of us harm. Now that she’s seen you, she knows the truth…and that might change things.”
“In what way?”
“She always insisted it was mistaken identity, that her father wasn’t the culprit. Maybe she just said that to make herself feel better, to hold on to the perfect life she once had. But now that she’s seen you…there’s no mistake.”
“He’s still her father.”
“But he killed my father and took our home from us. It’s barbaric—and she agrees.”
She crossed her legs, her face still tight with anger. “I don’t think that’s enough reason to trust her.”
“Not saying I trust her. But I know she’s not like him.”
“You sleep beside her every night when she could slit your throat. That’s trust, Huntley.”
“She wouldn’t hurt me.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“She saved my life. She could have kept going, but she came back for me.”
Her stare continued. “Family is everything. At the end of all this, don’t expect her to pick you. Because she probably won’t. Doesn’t matter if her father is a rapist and a murderer. He’s her blood.”
Her blood. Her family. “You’re right.”
“Damn right I’m right.”
She’d even justified what her father had done in some ways. Because my parents had sat on the throne, while everyone else was abandoned at the bottom of the cliffs. They could have helped, but they chose not to. Our places could have been reversed, and nothing would have changed. She would have been the one stuck down here instead of me.
It was either her or me.
That was what it came down to…in the end.
