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What if I jumped? Would anyone care?
I flinched as he yelled into my face. It wasn’t the first time a man had directed his temper my way. It wouldn’t be the last. And I’d learned that it was easier to surrender than fight. “I’m sorry.”
Did he even care that they were asking me to be used as payment for a debt? That they were asking to trade his daughter like that coffer of coin? Or was the anger simmering in his caramel eyes simply because his orders were being questioned?
These men were bartering for us like we were crops.
My fate was not my own, and my future would be determined by these men.
I’d spent twenty-three years taking orders from men who thought they could dictate my every move. And I was done.
But what if I was tired of being kept? What if I didn’t want to rely on a man to be my rescuer?
The only person who was always going to fight for me was me.
Was it me? Was there something I did, I said, that made people inherently not trust me?
“Praise is for the bedroom, Cross. Not the training ring.”
“I didn’t ask to be married to a stranger and shipped across the continent. I didn’t ask to come to Turah. I didn’t ask to be jailed in a wilderness treehouse. Those were decisions made for me by the whims of men. So you can threaten to take away my freedom all you want, but I will fight you. Every step of the way. Until my last breath. And I will not go quietly into a cage.”
I wasn’t used to testing doors. I’d learned a long time ago that they were always locked.
He searched my eyes the way I searched his. For answers. Salvation. Mercy.
“Please don’t leave me in the dark. I have been pushed to the side, dismissed, and overlooked my entire life.”
It wasn’t that he’d chosen Jocelyn. It was that he hadn’t chosen me. Why was I never the first choice? Why was I always the consolation prize? With Father. With Margot. With my tutors. And now with Zavier.
What was wrong with me that I wasn’t enough?
Love shouldn’t come with this many lies.
“You are mine.”
“You’ve ruined me.”
