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I reach out and grasp her hand once more. “Thank you. That means a lot to me. Will you tell me when I’m being too stubborn or hotheaded? You seem to like doing that.”
Isavelle’s lips twitch. “I don’t dislike it, but I’m afraid you might cut my head off if I keep doing it.”
“Alphas can be touchy about their Omegas talking back to them, but I was never comfortable with the way Omegas are sometimes treated.” I keep a pleasant smile on my face, though I’m remembering the dozens of times that I saw my mother with a bleeding lip or a black eye.
“How are they treated?”
Like they’re the bottom of the heap because, technically, they are. Omegas might be their Alpha’s whole world, but to everyone else, they’re someone’s fancy little plaything. “It depends on how important their Alphas are, but unfortunately, they don’t get much of a say about many things.”
Isavelle shrugs this off. “Sounds horrible, but I’m not one of those, so that’s not my problem.”
I choke on my wine and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. We’ll have to have this talk again when her designation starts to emerge. Omegas are supposed to enjoy the total protection and adoration that comes from belonging to an Alpha.
“How did you come to be with the Brethren?” I ask to change the subject. I know so little about Isavelle, and I’m hungry for more details.
Isavelle’s expression darkens. “When a village cannot meet their tithe obligations, the Brethren take a girl child instead.”
I’m familiar with the idea of a tithe. There was a similar system under my father’s rule, though it was levied in the market towns on goods sold and traded, not on the food that villagers needed to survive.
“So, you were handed over like a bag of wheat or a side of bacon?” I growl, and she nods.
“They wanted my sister or one of the other young girls, but I hid them, so they had to take me.”
Pain pierces my heart. My mate would have been spared all this pain if they’d taken her sister instead. I don’t want to wish Isavelle’s suffering on anyone, but she’s mine, and she’s the one who matters to me. “You hid them and presented yourself?”
“No, I hid as well. I didn’t want them taking me, but they still found me.”
“But why did you help the other girls when they were the ones the Brethren wanted?”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “They were so little and so scared. It hurt so much to see them crying.”
I touch my thumb to her cheek, wiping away a tear that isn’t there. “Didn’t you cry, too?”
Isavelle doesn’t say anything.
She did cry, but not where anyone could have seen her.
“And then what happened?” I ask, an edge to my voice.
Isavelle glances at me and shakes her head. “You don’t want to hear about this. Today’s your coronation and this is a celebration.”
“I want all of you. The good and the painful. I’m hungry to know everything that happened to you before we met.”
Isavelle takes a deep breath. “You remember the man who was at the pyre? The biggest man who was yelling commands. He was the High Priest, and he’s in charge of all the Brethren. The moment I met him, everything became so much worse. He seemed to single me out as a bad apple for some reason. I had to be corrected and punished because there was something wrong with me, but he never said what. The other priests loved to please him and so they were delighted to drag me before him whenever I did something wrong. My parents were never strict about the church’s teachings in our home, so I did a lot of things wrong accidentally. When I finally learned the rules and tried to stick to them so they wouldn’t beat me, they started making up transgressions. Several of the priests would take turns spying on me, even when I was asleep, or washing, or dressing.”
Isavelle shudders at the memory, and pain slices my heart as I remember how upset she was at the idea of bathing in front of me. No wonder it was painful for her. I didn’t know,sha’len. I’m sorry.
“One day I was washing myself…” Her face flames and she says in a rush, “Between my legs. I know some people touch themselves between their legs for gratification and that’s wrong, but all I was doing was washing myself.”
My eyes widen in shock. Since when was making yourself come a crime? I nearly tell her that’s not what the Maledinni believe, but she’s finally confiding in me, and I shouldn’t interrupt.
“The High Priest made me stand on a chair in the middle of the dining room where all the other girls could see me while he gave a lecture on how disgusting and degrading it was to your soul to touch yourself, and only degenerates did that because they were listening to the demons. It was awful,” she trails off in a whisper, rubbing her upper arms as if she’s cold.
The Brethren shouteddemonat me during battle, presumably because of my red eyes. I bring myself off often, so I suppose that makes me a degenerate and a demon. I’d laugh if my poor Omega wasn’t so utterly miserable right now.
“And then of course, I was beaten again. That was one of the worst times because the High Priest was obsessed with stamping out anything dirty. I couldn’t walk for days after.”
I put both my hands on her waist and pull her into my lap until she’s sitting astride my thighs.
