AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The woman before me stills, and I take my chance to strike, not with my immobile fingers, itching to claw at her throat, but with my words. “You slip into bodies that aren’t yours and warp them, change them into something you assume others will find attractive. You fashion a body based on what you observe, the figures you witness male gazes following—”
“Then you do find me attractive,” she says, and I don’t miss the girlish blush that coats her pale cheeks, peppering her skin with flecks of blood.
“And yet, this is the second time a male you’ve sought to seduce has rejected you. Been disgusted—no, repelled—by you. So tell me, Cinderella, what could it be that you’re getting wrong?”
Silence hangs between us, punctuated by her ragged breaths. I can see it in her eyes, the way she’s chasing a confident retort, a way to make the insult glance off of her and back at me, but every time she blinks, I can tell the words slip through her grasp.
That I’ve hit a nerve.
“You have the form down,” I say, dragging my gaze up and down her body as if I’m at all interested. As if I’m fantasizing about undressing her and not imagining slicing her horrible body to pieces. Like Blaise is simply stuck inside her, and if I only rip Cinderella apart, Blaise will be free. “And the eyes, as well as the mouth…” I rest my attention at each point, and I watch as she shudders underneath my stare.
“And yet I’m missing…?” Her question is meant to come out throaty, but her voice dips and cracks in the middle, betraying her thirst. Her desperation.
A smile curves at my closed lips.
Her demeanor freezes over in response. “Tell me what I’m missing,” she snaps.
“I don’t know,” I say, trying to keep my breath controlled. Calm. Even as I want to heave her across the table for using Blaise’s body like this.
I chance a glance at the runes on the floor, bouncing my gaze across them, searching for something, anything, to clue me in on what I missed when I conducted the ritual. But all the runes are in place, every trace of blood in order.
I realize then that I performed the ritual perfectly, and that is what frightens me most.
“You have to tell me,” Cinderella says, flicking at her long fingernails now.
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“Tell me now what makes you want her and not me,” Cinderella snaps, and I take my time returning my attention to her.
“I could tell you what makes her better than you,” I start, and there’s nothing I wish more than that I could move, that I could advance on her, tower over her in this moment. “I could tell you Blaise can tell a joke that I’m still laughing at hours later. I could tell you Blaise carries herself like she’s the sole owner of whatever room she currently occupies, and that she couldn’t care less that this is the case. I could tell you Blaise scours through books to get the answers to her questions, even though she has to work twice as hard as anyone else to decipher the words. I could tell you Blaise has a heart that dwarfs that of anyone I’ve ever met, that she loves fiercely—and a bit chaotically, perhaps—but when she loves, she holds nothing back.
“So yes, I suppose I could tell you why I like Blaise better than you. But surely you understand that Blaise isn’t the only girl in the world who can get a laugh with ease, who works harder than her peers, who loves unconditionally. Yet I still prefer her above all others. I can’t describe why or how; I just do. Blaise has something. Something I’m afraid you simply…lack.”
Cinderella hisses and launches from her perch on the dais. Her doe eyes have warped into those of a cornered snake, her perfect lips curled into a snarl. “I could make you do anything I wished,” she says, running her hands underneath my shirt, tracing a path of ice and needles across my torso.
I tense, and something like drunken power flickers in her eyes. “I could have you any way I wished. I could make you like it, too.”
Dread knocks against the paralytic magic of her words, banging against my bones, the walls of my limbs, begging me to move, to do something.
“How about on this dais,” she says, her whisper a serpentine slither across my ears. “If it’s Blaise you prefer, I could make arrangements to use her body instead.”
Something like a shard of glass punctures my ribcage at the thought. Images assault my mind of a twelve-year-old Blaise being dragged into a pantry by a man who knew exactly what he was doing, who knew she didn’t have a clue.
“No. No, please,” I ask, and I realize now that in my attempt to stall, I’ve incited her fury. Fury she’ll take out on not only me, but Blaise. “Whatever you want, I’ll—”
A cruel smile spreads across her face as we exchange a look of understanding.
Because I’ll do whatever she wants, regardless.
Panic takes hold of me, constricting my chest and pounding against my ribs as she bites her lip and plays with the hem of my shirt, as if she’s considering taking it off.
No, no, no.
For the first time in my life, I pray to the Fates that the queen will arrive.
She doesn’t.
“Blaise…Blaise…” Fates, I hope she can’t hear me, hope she won’t have to experience this. “Blaise, I’m so sorry…”
