It was all Aira could do not to lash out in anger. It was all she could do to sit there and listen to her mum wail over trash that she had personally disposed of.
It was all she could do not to yell about it being her fault that her brother and father were dead—since, for all she knew, she led the vampires straight to them.
But still, Aira decided not to jump to conclusions. Who would knowingly set vampires on their family? she thought to herself even as she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.
"How did you know to leave with Liora?" Aira asked, doing her best not to seem as aggressive as she actually felt.
"How did you know to leave at all?" Aira asked, burying the anger she felt at not being considered loved enough to be taken.
"What? Oh..." her mother gasped even as she continued to silently cry, using the back of her hands to wipe her face.
"Lord Dangrey had asked for the details of hunters. I tried getting more, but I couldn’t, so to help him get more favor from the king, I had to give up all of you!" she said, her tone passive in a way that felt disturbingly unbothered.
Aira, on the other hand, was the opposite of unbothered. She looked like she was barely keeping it together even as she breathed in and out heavily, her chest rising sharply.
"I had no choice! The advantage was too good to pass up!" she continued, even as Aira slowly and carefully nodded her head while meeting her mother’s gaze.
"Are you aware that father and Eiran are dead?" Aira asked, her voice breaking ever so gently even as she fixed her gaze on her mother.
"Are you aware that they were—"
Only for her mother to interrupt her with another shrug as she spoke over her.
"Yes! I figured that would happen. Lord Dangrey said I could only save one person, so I chose Liora! We got separated though, which displeased him!"
At this point, Aira could not remain seated, going ahead to put some more space between herself and the person she had once called mother.
It was all she could do not to roar at her as she slowly began to pace beside the bed, not daring to immediately speak for fear of what she might say.
Coming to a stop, she fixed her gaze on the wall instead of her mother, who—unlike before—suddenly felt the need to continue speaking.
"It was for the best! I just hope it was a—"
But Aira didn’t let her finish, aware that if she did, she might choke the person seated on the bed to death.
"How did you meet him?" Aira asked, the bitterness in her voice large enough to drown out anything else, knowing that whatever came next would determine how the rest of the conversation would go.
Turning to look at her mother, she stood by the bed with a heavy-lidded expression on her face even as her mother began to speak, a soft smile slowly forming on her lips.
"I was being treated as nothing. A caregiver, a cook, a cleaner... I was nothing more," she began.
"Getting affection from my husband was akin to asking it from a stick. We already had children! There was no need for any intimacy—he practically hinted!"
"...all he cared about was hunting and teaching my son to defend himself! He was panicked too about anyone getting too close to us, finding out we were hunters!"
"...this meant that no matter what I did... I couldn’t make friends. Bring them over or stay too long! I lived in a village, but I was practically isolated!" she cried, and Aira couldn’t bring herself to feel any pity as she listened.
Wow. So that was enough to make you wipe out your entire family? Aira thought, needing to know the exact moment her mother had lost her mind to Lord Dangrey.
Her eyes flashed red, knowing that if she willingly led the hunters to them, then she would go ahead and kill her mother if that was what it took.
"One day I needed to get food. There was none in the village since the harvest was poor, so I followed a few women. I was to return the next day!" she said with a sigh, a smile on her face that showed she remembered every detail.
"I was in the market when I spotted him, and I was stunned when instead of passing right beside me, he looked right at me!"
"He looked smug, but I didn’t care. His gaze was intense, and for the first time in a while, I felt something in my belly. I felt like a woman!"
"So you cheated!" Aira snapped, hating how long the story was taking even as she needed to understand how Lord Dangrey came to know her mother could be important to him.
"Yes, and it was divine! He liked my red hair! Thought it was a surprisingly unique color that wasn’t always seen among humans!"
"He said I could belong to him, and I didn’t hesitate! I agreed," Selira said with a sigh.
"After what he showed me all night, I was willing to let my past go!" she said with determination in her voice as she met Aira’s gaze.
"He asked for all my secrets, and I told him—even as he told me his own. I might have been a slave, but it was a willing one!" she said with red-tinged eyes and a solemn expression that showed just how deeply her heart had broken over the man she now knew was dead.
"I loved him, and he loved me too!" she said with utmost conviction—and all Aira could think of was how hard she could beat her mother until there was only an inch of her life’s breath left.
But at that moment, all she could think of was how to make her suffer.