Page 14 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
My mother strokes back my hair. “I promise you it’s better this way.”
Swiping away angry tears, my words are a tremulous whisper.
“I don’t understand how it could possibly be better to grow up without a father.”
My mother’s eyes glisten. “Darling... One day, you’ll understand.”
I don’t understand any of this, and I’m too angry and heartbroken to care because the result is the same.
Tears stream down my cheeks as she presses a kiss to my forehead, and my lower lip trembles. “I hate him.”
“Don’t say such things. You have more in common with him than you think.”
“Take it back! I hate him, I do. He treats you horribly, even though he’s supposed to be yoursoulbound, and just because I’m a youngling doesn’t mean I don’t see that you deserve better.”
My mother’s expression tightens.
“I read in a book that where syriths come from, I wouldn’t even have to wear this ugly fucking dress. I would get to run through the forest, almost naked, with magical jewels in my hair, and the bones and teeth of my enemies hanging from around my neck.”
Even to my pre-pubescent mind, it’s clear the look on my mother’s face is nothing short of heartbreak. Even greater than that of my father’s absence,thisis the wound my mother refuses to acknowledge. Her eyes glisten as she wipes away the furious tears streaking my cheeks.
“Why can’t we just go live with the other syriths? It’s not like my father would miss us. Don’t we have family? Where are they?”
The wordfamilycauses my mother to withdraw entirely. The tears in her eyes dry, along with any vulnerability. She stands, looking down at me with grim resolution.
“Safe.”
The chime of the doorbell feels like a bucket of ice water being dumped over my head.
Smoothing down her dress, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the gold conch-shell necklace my father gave me when I was too little to remember. She drapes it around my neck and fastens the clasp. My skin prickles beneath, making me itch. She always makes me wear it anyway, so I don’t bother arguing.
“When I grow up, I don’t want asoulbound.”
Her words are a sad whisper, more to herself than anyone else. Eyes full of grief, they reveal the detritus of her broken heart. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
Shaking my head, the ever-present lead weight of disappointment in my belly sinks further. “I don’t know why you wait around for him.”
My mother gives me a pitying smile that tells me I know very little of reality. “Nothing I do is for him, Violette. Everything I do is to protect you... And your father is mysoulbound.I couldn’t be with anyone else even if I tried.”
Shutting the door behind her, she leaves me and my nine-year-old brain to stew over information I can’t fully grasp yet.
Peeking around our bedroom door,I find my parents standing in front of our old, lumpy couch speaking in hushed, urgent tones.
“—belongs nowhere near Sinsól. Especially when you’re off waging a war with every continent in the realm.”
The furious look on my father’s face makes my stomach clench in fear as his lips curl over his teeth. Before he can reply, my mother’s eyes slide to mine.
“Raia, come give your father a hug. He brought you a gift.”
She only ever calls me by my first name alone in front of him.
My father’s expression immediately shifts into a mask of calm.
My stomach is in knots as this male—the God of the Sea—finally turns and sets his eyes on me. Their pools are a dark gray veined with silver that reminds me of a storm above a cold and unforgiving sea.
It makes my skin crawl.
How is my mother soulbound to this male?
