Chapter 11 : Dark Secrets

*Gemma* I didn't know whether to tell Raisa "congratulations" or "oh no," so I just brought her into a hug. She stiffened. I quickly drew away. Her teary eyes went wide, and her lips parted in shock. I didn't peg Raisa to be someone easily surprised by anything. "What?" I asked nervously. "You haven't been hugged before?" She swallowed hard and whispered, "Not in a very long time." "In that case." I scooted closer to her and pulled her into an embrace. She was stiff for another moment before collapsing into my arms and sobbing into my shoulder. I rubbed her back, reminded of all the others I'd comforted. My own mother, Cari, Lynn, and even some of her younger siblings. It was such an intimate thing, being someone's anchor. "I take it these aren't tears of joy." Raisa sniffed and drew back, putting on a brave smile and straightening her shoulders. Even distressed, she was poised. "This news is… overwhelming." She rested a trembling hand over her belly. "I don't… I'm not… I don't know what—" "Raisa," I said firmly, "you don't have to explain to me if you don't want to. You've been the nicest—and only—wolf who has been nice to me. You've already saved my life. Let me help you now." Her eyes searched mine for something specific, and when she didn't find it, her perfect brows knitted together in confusion. "Why would you want to help me? We don't know each other." She gasped in realization. "I can't believe I told you I'm—" "I won't tell anyone, Raisa. It's your secret to tell, not mine." I laughed once humorlessly. "How am I supposed to tell anyone? It isn't like I can go chat with Con—the Alpha." She quirked a brief smile. "You're right about that. Listen. I want to explain what happened last night." "Okay." She pointed a sudden finger at my face, sea glass eyes sharpening. "I don't want to see even a flicker of pity for me." I realized another difference between war-ruled countries and at-peace ones. The few Westerners I met lived on a thin line of survival and would do or say anything to keep themselves from falling. They couldn't show weakness or be seen as timid; it could be used against them as a way to abuse them. I assumed it wasn't always selfishness when they saw it as self-preservation. Putting even the smallest bit of trust in someone must be a big gamble. I may be a sheltered village girl, but my intuition was surprisingly good. I nodded. "I promise." Raisa hesitated, still searching my face for some kind of hint that I couldn't be trusted, but finally, she sighed, "Each of us consorts has a designated day. Sometimes he forgets our names and calls us by that day. It's some kind of obsessive, fastidious fetish to only bed us on that schedule. I always wonder how he's not exhausted, f*cking a different girl every single night even when all he wants is an heir as soon as possible. Anyway, he never skips except when he's out conquering the rest of the world or whatever." Her candidness pleasantly surprised me. So quickly she'd dropped both acts I'd seen from her: gone was the composed elegance; gone was the cold indifference. "He always makes sure there are exactly seven females in his harem. When one of them is finally impregnated with his seed, he moves them out into the nursery wing on the sixth floor. No less than two weeks go by before another innocent girl appears." Raisa took a deep breath to continue, "Marise and Ayuna have been allowed to stay because Connor is, apparently, struggling to find anyone he finds appealing." "What do they look like?" "Oh, that's right, you just met them. Marise has gold hair, Ayuna's is reddish…" My heart did a little jump. Then it was Marise who judged me harshest. She wasn't pregnant—at least as far as I knew, but if she wasn't—she had assumed why I was here. She thought I was one of their replacements. Raisa's fervor cooled. "Ah. You figured it out." "I'm going to become just a day to him," I breathed in dawning horror. "Yesterday was Ayuna's day, and Connor won't bed her, so… yes, you are her replacement." "That is so… sick." Raisa nodded once grimly. "This is our reality. Connor was angry that I prevented him from bedding you as a consummation of that. We argued. I told him you weren't ready. To make him believe me, I… let him have a quick go with me." Moon Goddess help us all. She let him f*ck her just to spare me. "Raisa," I whispered, my voice breaking. "You shouldn't have…" "But I did," she interrupted kindly, cupping my face with her hand. "I told you. We take care of each other here. It's nothing I'm not used to already. Besides, he was drunk, which makes things go faster. Drunker than I'd seen him since…" She withdrew her hand and cleared her throat. "Since Aeryn died. But that's a story for another time—" "He called me that. Who was she?" I surprised her once again. After a moment, she relented, "His mate. She died giving birth to a son–who was stillborn. Sometimes, he drinks to forget her; sometimes, he drinks to remember her. Either way, I'm there as her subpar replacement." It was jarring news. A monster like him had a mate? It also made unfortunate sense why he needed a consort—or as he believed, several. He needed a male heir, but no one had been able to give him one. "It's tragic," Raisa murmured, looking out at the distant sea. "After all these years, I still hate him. I can never forgive him. I still think about slashing open his throat while he sleeps, but… sometimes I find myself… sympathetic. He was completely devastated by her death. Losing a fated mate… I can't even imagine the pain. Losing a pup at the same time...." She looked at me. "But I'd be a damned fool if I believed it to be an excuse for his crimes. I've learned from him alone what love can make any of us do. There's always a choice when it comes to grieving love. He always chooses darkness. I won't be a victim of it." *** Raisa and I returned to the fortress, where she led me to the room across from the dining hall. It was a small library. One bookshelf had seven shelves, but each one only had a single book as thick as my calf. Raisa hoisted one over to the writing desk stacked with loose paper. When she opened it, the spine groaned, fanning out its pages, more loose leaf fluttering escape. "Records of each girl," Raisa explained. "Why are there so many pages?" I asked in fresh horror. She clarified, "Each 'day,'" but that didn't make it much better. "With them comes information about their pack and its entire history. Connor collects trophies, which include stolen females and knowledge of where they stole them from. This is my 'day.'" She paged not too far into the records. Her name was scrawled on top of the page, and below that, her age and a very in-depth personal description. After that, and for the next several pages, a complete history of her pack, Duskfall. I managed to glimpse more at the bottom of the last page, but Raisa slammed it shut before I could read past "Her breasts are…" "You will be in here eventually. But I doubt you'll have more than two pages. Oceantide won't fall as easily as Duskfall did." She put the book back and sat in the chair at the desk. "We're here now to write your schedule." *** It only consisted of, in more official terms: breakfast, meander, lunch, meander, dinner, sleep. I hadn't been assigned a "day" yet, but I knew eventually "be f*cked by Alpha" would appear between dinner and sleep. So that's what I did for an entire week. I spent each day looking over my shoulder for Connor, but he was nowhere to be seen. Somehow I missed him every time he came to the harem floor. I didn't see Cillian Cade, either. The other six girls wanted nothing to do with me, and Sharen made herself scarce. I learned there were more than two dozen Epsilon guards protecting the fortress, an equal amount of servants, and five close shifters Connor kept as a war council. Raisa, who I spent most days and nights with when she wasn't elsewhere, explained that Hazelstone was only one of his residences. She hadn't left in the eight years since she'd arrived, so she didn't know what the rest of the kingdom looked like that he and his forefathers had built. She guessed he had an entire city. I explained how big Lyrehaven was; she said Hazel Coast's hub was twice the size. That was disconcerting. *** On the third night of the second week, I woke from the second dream where the mystery male made an appearance. It went exactly as the first dream had gone: a beautiful beach, a beautiful moon, shared laughter, and only my name whispered into the breeze. But this time, I woke because a sharp cry pierced the air. I bolted to the door and pressed my ear to it, double-checking that the bolt was locked. I learned that having a lock on the inside was a luxury because most of the doors could only be locked from the outside. "Go the f*ck to sleep!" I flinched at Connor's roar. Not half a second later, a door slammed. Then Connor's heavy footfalls stormed closer. I backed up, straining my ears over my heartbeat. A door slammed open and Raisa screamed, "You ungrateful bastard!" "Call me what you want, Raisa," he boomed back, sounding dangerously close to my room. "I'll agree to that when I'm dead." She screamed wordlessly in frustration and slammed the door closed. My blood raced through my veins as Connor's curse-laden mutters came closer… then passed. I waited for a full two minutes before slipping out and padding quickly down the hall. I didn't fail to notice no other girls coming to see if she was okay. Either they were too afraid… or this happened often. Either way, I rapped on her door and whispered her name, testing the handle. It was unlocked. So even she didn't have the luxury of an inside lock. I didn't think to tell her it was me before slipping into her room. "If you want to live, get the f*ck out of here right now." I whirled at Raisa's growl. The tip of a knife was inches from my face. I held my breath, watching the reflection of her bedside candle flickering on the spotless silver surface of the blade. "Raisa, it's just me." "I know," she seethed through gritted teeth. "I'm trying to f*cking save you from the Goddess-damned hell." "I don't understand." "Of course, you don't." Raisa dropped her arm, sheathing the knife in a short sheath around her upper thigh. "You heard what he said?" "Something about a deal," I answered hesitantly, noticing a large bag on the floor. Raisa snatched it up and started stuffing clothes from her dresser into it even as she was wearing nothing but a scrap of underwear and a sheer bra. "Yes. I thought I'd try my hand at bargaining with him. But he was stone-cold sober, and now I've pissed him off. So. I'm leaving." "What?!" "Quiet!" she hissed, storming over to me. In the dim lighting, her eyes shone with angry tears. "Yes, I'm leaving. And you should come with me." My mind was suddenly reeling. I lowered my voice. "I like you a lot, Raisa, and I didn't think you'd—" "Be crazy enough to do this? I know. Eight years I couldn't wrack up enough courage to do this. But that conversation we had the other day?" Raisa stalked over to her vanity and scribbled something onto a notepad. "I said I won't be a victim of his darkness. Because of this." She held out the notepad for me to see what she wrote. 'The pup isn't his.' I was so shocked I could only gape at her. She was the picture of defiance. Jaw set, eyes blazing, chest heaving with breath. If she was an Alpha, I'd pledge allegiance to her. "Who?" I mouthed. Raisa ripped the paper up and shoved it under some clothes in one of the dresser drawers. "If Connor finds out," she whispered by way of answer, "he will kill me and the pup. Or worse, he'll just kill me and raise it as his own—if it's a son. Goddess forbid it be a son…" She was pacing now, fingers dragging through her hair, and it really hit me: I shouldn't have come. This is too much. "Raisa," I reasoned, stopping her from wearing a rut in the wood. "Who's the father?" Her lip trembled. "My mate. We're supposed to escape together." Goddess damn every door on this continent, I swore to myself as there was a knock on it behind me. I whirled, trying to put Raisa behind me even though she was a foot taller. I saw her bend down to grab her knife in case it was Connor. Instead, it was Sharen, who looked indifferently at me, then at Raisa, and then the bag and the disheveled dresser. My heart was pounding. She could tell Connor without hesitation. "You're expected in the throne room," was all she said before turning and leaving, shutting the door behind her.