Page 11 of Dubious (Darkly Ever After)
“Well, hello there, Princess,” Alaric coos from above me before hauling me up by my shoulders.
His body surrounds me like a military unit protecting an unsuspecting civilian. He’s an intimidating force who doesn’t want me to be comfortable because that would mean he’d lose the upper hand.
My throat tightens, my stomach plummets, and the courage I had in droves a moment ago quickly melts away. “Um, hi.”
“Thought I told you to stay the fuck away from me,” Alaric spits. His words are directed at me, but his eyes look anywhere but.
I peek behind his arms and notice Celeste sitting in the corner, smiling smugly at me. She’s always been weird with the guys. It goes beyond motherly behavior. She’s taken the overbearing parent role to a new and creepy level.
Her black dress is so short that you’d think she was a college freshman attending her first frat party. She lifts the champagne flute in her hand to her lips and takes a sip, crossing her legs and forcing the restrictive dress further up her thighs. Any higher, and I’m sure I’ll have a perfect view of her vagina. You’d never believe Celeste recently lost the man she claimed to have loved so much that she didn’t know how she’d move on.
Ignoring her, my gaze roams to the other side of the bed. River sits there, facing the wall, his eyes focused on the hardwood floor. The stillness of his body is so out of sorts with the guy I know. His slumped shoulders and inability to look my way send alarm bells through me.
I’ve never seen him like this. Usually, he’s full of arrogance to the point he seems incapable of any emotion that doesn’t serve his needs. Seeing him so empty has a wave of empathy raging through me. I cannot imagine what’s going on in his head and forcing him to look the way he does now.
“I—” Words fail me. I don’t know what to say.
I don’t want to have a conversation with Celeste in the room. The way her eyes rake over me sends chills along my spine. She’s always creeped me out. As much as my father gazed at her in complete devotion and insisted on her goodness, I never believed it.
“Ella, so appropriate of you to join us, dear. We were just talking about you,” Celeste purrs. Her fake smile is a desperate cover-up for the chill in her voice.
I raise an eyebrow. “Oh? Would you care to clue me in on the conversation the three of you were having behind my back?”
“I was telling the boys how it would be appropriate for you to get out. You’ve been cooped up in this house for such a long time.”
Celeste’s bony hands, with their long, red nails, move to the bedside table, and she grabs a shiny envelope. Rising from the bed, she walks toward me, the champagne sparkling in the flute in her other hand. My eyes move from her face to the envelope. Taking it, I open it and read the words inside. An invitation. To an ostentatious ball hosted by Benjamin Nevin and his degenerate son, David.
I shove the paper back at her, slamming it into her chest. “No, thank you.”
Celeste smiles, gripping the envelope tightly. “Oh, sweet Ella, you seem to be under the assumption that I wasaskingyou to attend.”
Wait a minute. Does this woman think she can tell me what to do? Who the fuck does she think she is?
“You can’t make me go to something I refuse to attend? Celeste, you seem to be under the assumption I’m not a full-grown adult.”
“Ella.” Celeste takes a warning step toward me, crowding my space and making it hard to breathe.
She doesn’t invoke the same nervous energy as the guys. Celeste carries impending doom, conveying that she’ll render my life unbearable if I don’t do what she says.
But even with this knowledge kicking me in the guts and screaming in my brain not to push this woman’s boundaries, I hold my ground, willing to witness the magnitude of her cruelty. “I’m not going.”
Celeste moves closer, forcing me to retreat. Her entire stance is intimidation, and my mind rages for me to fight against it.
I step forward, relishing her look of shock.My mouth opens to give her a piece of my mind, but Alaric steps between us.
His back is to me as he faces Celeste. His voice is calm, but the tightness of his shoulders makes it apparent he’s having a Zen moment. “I’ll take care of it, Mother. You can leave us and carry on with anything of importance you need to preoccupy yourself with.”
Celeste’s eyes narrow as if she wants to talk back to Alaric. To stomp her feet and demand she get her way. She lifts her hand and pats his cheek, placating him with one condescending action.
Celeste peers around him and her eyes pierce mine, silently warning me that she pulls all the strings and will eventually get her way. “All right, dear.” Her gaze remains on me as she addresses Alaric. “I hope you have a better time with her ungrateful nature than I have. It seems Ella is in need of a rude awakening. She needs to learn what it requires to be a member of this family.”
Celeste walks around Alaric, giving me a final scathing look before she exits the room.
Alaric doesn’t say a word, marching to the door and locking it before turning to rest his back on the wood. “Fucking told you to stay away, Ella. I didn’t want you involved in any of this.” His hands fly to his head, and he pulls at the slicked-back strands of his hair with a groan. “Why the fuck can’t you do what you’re told?”
I nervously put one foot in front of the other as I approach him. Most people would be frightened of Alaric—a tall, brooding man who demands obedience from those around him with every fiber of his being. That and his disturbing and nonsensical Norman Bates relationship with his mother.
Our bodies line up closely, yet I sense an ocean between us. I don’t understand his anger or why he says I need to stay away when he keeps trying to get closer. Persuading me. He was the first person to drag me into this world and make me care about him, Asher, and River when I had no desire to do so.