“Are you ready to cooperate now?”
Her voice held no hint of guilt or remorse. Only mild irritation, as if he were an unruly weed she had found growing in the garden.
Though he gave no agreement, verbal or otherwise, the assault ended as abruptly as it had begun. The throbbing pain faded to a low hum, and a wave of heat spread down his back as the skin knitted itself back together.
Breathing heavily, he climbed to his feet on shaking legs. Weak, exhausted, and quickly losing the will to fight back, he asked a question instead. Something he had wondered about his whole life.
“Did you ever love me?”
“Really.” The word was said as a complete sentence, a whole thought, and it oozed both contempt and disappointment. “Don’t be so dramatic. I fed you. Clothed you. Made sure you got an education.”
Mother of the Fucking Year. Did she want praise and a gold star for doing the bare minimum?
Valerie sighed. “We really don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”
Invisible shackles fastened around his wrists, snapping his hands together and pulling his arms out in front of him. This time, when she started moving, the magical tether jerked him off balance, leaving him no choice but to follow.
As they neared the exit, the double doors sprang open, seemingly of their own accord. He was dragged past two brutal looking guards into a marbled corridor lined with columns, warped mirrors, and bowl-shaped wall sconces on both sides.
“To be honest, I never wanted to be a mother.”
“But you’re so good at it,” he mumbled under his breath.
“It was your father who convinced me to keep you when we found out I was pregnant.”
There was no love in her voice, no fondness for a man she had once shared her life with. Sammy had never met his father. According to Valerie, he had died before she’d given birth, but she had never offered specifics. She hadn’t kept pictures of him or old videos. No love letters or trinkets.
All Sammy really knew about him was that his dad had been a changeling, and he’d been named after him.
At the end of the hallway, a panel in the wall slid to the side, revealing a dimly lit stairwell that spiraled upward and out of sight.
“Then he went and got himself killed,” Valerie added as she led him up it. She spoke with the same level of care as one might use to describe the inconvenience of a flat tire. “Honestly, what was I supposed to do?”
Adoption. Social services. Orphanage. Boarding school.
He could think of several options that didn’t involve selling her only child into servitude.
“Oh, shoot.” She tutted, her frustration sharp, as they exited the staircase into another expansive corridor. Glancing at the antique grandfather clock on the opposite wall, she stopped abruptly and shook her head. “We’re going to be late.”
Spinning him to face her, she looked him up and down with a critical eye. Then she stepped back with a pinched expression and flicked two scarlet nails at him.
In the next heartbeat, the scratchy hospital gown vanished.
Sammy shivered as a sheer button-down materialized, collar plunging low, and black leather molded to his waist and legs. A pair of matching combat boots, adorned with multiple buckles and lacing halfway up his calves, anchored his feet to the floor.
Behind his mother, the glass face of the grandfather clock reflected a stranger back at him.
His long waves had been trimmed into an edgy, asymmetrical cut that didn’t suit his face, and the soft rose gold now gleamed a startling platinum. Dark liner made his eyes look too big, and the gold powder on his lids disappeared into his pale complexion.
He looked like a prop in someone else’s story. Worse, he felt ridiculous, humiliated.
Before he could protest, another guard came striding down the hall toward them. Average in height but built like a tank, he appeared calm and unhurried. His eyes—wide and darting—told another story.
“Ma’am,” he said, looking past Sammy to his mother. “Mr. Delacour—”
“Yes, yes.” She pushed Sammy forward with a shooing gesture. “Take him and put him with the others.” To Sammy, she added, “Please try not to embarrass me.”
Considering he looked like an extra in a bad vampire movie, he figured embarrassment was kind of inevitable. He said nothing as he watched her hurry away down the corridor.