Page 27 of Temptation
She smiled at me, almost as if to reassure me that she wasn’t going to hurt me. Only then did I notice she carried clothes in her hands—black pants, a red shirt, and a pair of boots on top of the clothes carefully folded and held in front of her body.
“You’re awake,” she almost whispered, and I gripped the blanket tighter as if it could save me if she tried to harm me. She placed the items on the table in front of me and pressed her hands together in front of her stomach, staring down at me. “I’m not going to hurt you, Skylar. I’ve been waiting a long time to see you in person, and my God…” she trailed off, her eyes misting. “You look just like her.”
“Just like who?” I asked, eyeing the door behind her, and calculating if I would be able to escape if I had to.
“Your mother.”
“M-My mother?” I stammered, looking at her with wide eyes. “Joanna?”
Her soft laughter should’ve been soothing, but the way the shadow fell over her features, cast by the overhead light, told me that whatever she was about to share with me wouldn’t be pleasant.
“Joanna isn’t your mother, Skylar. But I think you already knew this.” She walked toward the armchair on my right side and sat down, folding her hands in her lap. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, and yet, I still don’t know how to tell you everything you need to know.”
“Start from the beginning, maybe?” I snarled, hugging my knees over the blanket. “Or just start making some sense, because I’m starting to think that I’m either going crazy or that I’ve stepped into the twilight zone.”
Her eyes lingered on me—on my hair, my eyes and my face—and for some reason, I didn’t feel threatened by her. I felt safer with her than I’d ever felt with Joanna.
I guess that what she said shouldn’t have been such a surprise to me. Kane himself said that I wasn’t a Blackwood, but it still felt surreal to me. It still seemed like somebody was playing a bad joke on me. Yet what happened last night couldn’t be just a joke.
I looked at her hands and the runes running all over her fingers, all the way to her wrists and disappearing beneath the long sleeves she wore. The red cape on her seemed familiar, and it hit me why.
“The people that brought me here last night wore the same cape.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Our Red Maidens brought you here.”
“Red Maidens?”
“Yes, Red Maidens, Skylar. We are the order within the Order. We are the chosen ones, the pure ones they handpicked for the leaders of Black Dahlia.”
“I’m sorry.” I laughed. “Order within the Order? You can hear yourself, right? Are you going to tell me now that I’m going to join you guys?”
“Oh no, my child. You are far more important than any Red Maiden in the Order. You have been chosen to join our new High Priest, way before you were born.”
“What?” None of this made any sense. None at all.
“Your mother was a Red Maiden, Skylar. Your mother was chosen to be a concubine for our previous High Priest, Master Judah.”
My mind started spinning, my vision getting blurry, and I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say.
“Are you saying my mother was part of the Order?”No. “My real mother?”
A small movement of her head was the only confirmation I got before everything inside of me collapsed.
Some small part of me liked to believe that Judah kidnapped me, or that Joanna was my real mother but that Judah wasn’t my father. Some teeny tiny part of me wanted to believe that the blood in my veins had nothing to do with the Order, but I was wrong—again. My eyes shuttered closed, the bile climbing through my throat, and I just wanted to disappear.
“Listen,” she barked, the authoritative tone in her voice a complete surprise. I opened my eyes and saw her kneeling next to me. “We don’t have much time, but I need you to know that your mother didn’t want to be here. Red Maidens were not born into the Order—we were brought to the Order. My father sold me when I was just a child to serve in the Order, because he didn’t want another female child and it was easier to get rid of me. Your mother, Eleara, was kidnapped.”
“Eleara?” I asked, my eyes widening. “My mother was Eleara?”
“Yes. I didn’t know her last name, I never asked, but I know that she wouldn’t want you to be here.” Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. “She was chosen to be Judah’s concubine, to carry his child, because his wife couldn’t have any more children. They wanted her to give birth to a female child because Dylan needed his mate. He needed to have someone to rule next to him, and Eleara’s genetics were the next best thing.”
“I-I… I can’t—”
“It’s okay,” she murmured and took a hold of my hand, holding it in her own. “I just need you to listen because we don’t have much time. Master Dylan will soon come here and I don’t want him to interrupt us before I tell you everything.” She took a deep breath and tightened her grip on my hand. “Eleara fell in love with a different man and got pregnant in the process. He loved her too, but both of them were terrified of what the Order was going to do once they found out. So I helped them escape.”
“W-Wha—”
“Shh, I’m talking now. You’ll have time for questions later.” I nodded, letting her continue. “Unfortunately, the Order got to them, otherwise you would’ve never been brought back to Winworth. You would’ve never been here if Judah hadn’t found them. He killed them both, Skylar. Your mom and your dad fought to protect you from them, to hide you, but the Order was stronger than them. But I know that neither one of them would want you to be here. They didn’t want this kind of life for you, which is why when I heard that Dylan’s sister was coming tonight, I knew we failed you.”
