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“Do you think your people are stronger than my people?”
At hearing the hope in her voice, he shut the water off and grabbed the dishtowel. “What do you mean by stronger?” he asked, turning and leaning against the counter. Even with her injuries, he saw her face was perfection. Almost unreal. Like a mini goddess. A young one. Sickness and fury turned his stomach to think she was married at such a young age and abused on top of that. No doubt sexually abused by that same bastard.
“They will fight. To get me back. Even if they don’t like me or want me, this is their custom.”
He made his way to the table and pulled the chair out several feet and sat slightly angled away from her. “We’re strong enough to make sure what’s right is done.”
Her brows pulled together. “You are strong enough to change our customs?”
So the problem wasthatrooted. “It’s a custom to beat wives there?”
She shook her head. “He thought I disobeyed, and punished me.”
Insta-fury bit his muscles. “By beating you in the face?”
Her brows drew together harder with a nod. “He thought I looked at my reflection in the water, but I hadn’t.”
That strange info froze him. “Why can’t you look at your reflection?” he asked, not wanting to scare her from the conversation.
“The spirit of vanity waits for me there. To take me.”
There was something else in her tone besides plain facts. Doubt, maybe. Or he was imagining it. Wishing it. “Do they have this belief with everybody?”
She shook her head. “Just me.”
Wow. He nodded, pulling his knife from his boot and removing his current whittling project from around his neck, needing something to do while hearing the bullshit coming his way. “Why just you?”
“My mother was cursed with vanity that caused many men to sin. She died bearing me and passed the curse to me. But as long as I don’t look at my reflection, the spirit cannot have its way or hurt me. But…”
He paused, his carving, not looking at her.
“Even though I have never seen my reflection, they look at me as if I have the spirit. They believe I looked, but I have not,” she whispered, the quiver in her voice raking over the rage barely contained in his blood at hearing this. “Not ever. But then I saw you see what I see.”
He angled his gaze at her, curious. “What did you see?”
“I saw their reflection. In your judgement. And it matched what was in my heart and mind. You think they are seeing me wrong.”
“I don’t think,” he corrected, locking his eyes on her now. “Iknowthey’re seeing very wrong. The only people with an evil spirit are them. Not you.”
“You speak the truth,” she whispered, sounding shocked and sad.
“I always speak the truth.”
“Yes,” she said, as though seeing that too.
“How old are you, Mia?” he forced himself to ask while knowing the answer would put an endless fire in his rage.
“I turned twenty-three this fall.”
He stared at her again, her truthful tone stinging him in an odd way.
“You don’t look at me like…I’m…”
“A woman? No, because you barely look sixteen.”
She let out a gasp and he eyed her, finding the barest hint of a smile on her face. “But…am I hideous?”
He put his hands in his lap, staring at her.
