The Rush (The Siren Series) - By Rachel Higginson Page 0,36

as abruptly. I was used to this. It was annoying, but I was used to it. And at least I wouldn’t have to eat dry lettuce, my mother’s favorite food.

We sat in silence for a few more moments, lost to our own thoughts. Nix’s concentration never softened, and if anything he grew more agitated with each passing moment. He was wound tight with powerful energy, his eyes burning holes into the table as his fingers worked his wine glass in small twists back and forth. My mother seemed to shrink under the force of his intensity and I could only watch with sick fascination, hardly knowing what to expect.

“Ava,” Nix looked at my mother over the small candle in the middle of the table, the dark lighting of the restaurant casting a shadow over half of his face. He pinned my mother to her seat, leveling her with the concentration of his dark eyes. Before he said anything else I knew she would agree to whatever he was about to say, she couldn’t help herself. When faced with a force of nature like Nix, one did not say “no,” one simply shook their head and quivered in promises to carry out his wishes. “It’s important that Honor is put in your custody soon.”

“I know that, Nix,” my mother crooned confidently, but I saw the way she pressed her lips together to hide her nerves. Her attempt at hiding her anxiety was slipping quickly. She needed more wine.

“Honor needs to be your legacy, not Ivy,” Nix continued and I choked on a piece of ice I had been crunching on. Literally, I choked. I flailed my arms, chugged my water and made an entirely unattractive spectacle of myself. My mother and Nix waited for me to gain control of my motor functions and breathing with disapproving glares.

“Sorry,” I squeaked, looking intently down at the beige table cloth and wishing I could crawl underneath the table and hide or find a gun. A gun could solve a couple problems right now.

“Why not Ivy?” my mother asked defensively, showing the first sign of backbone I had ever witnessed. And the first sign of possessive connection to me. “She’s grown into a stunning young woman. She’s everything you want in your legacies and more.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Nix was quick to respond, waving his hand in the air for effect. “You’ve done a fantastic job with her; she’s everything I could ever hope for.”

Except for my mental instability, I thought dryly.

“Then-“ my mother started to ask, but Nix interrupted her.

“I want her for me. I want her in my collection,” Nix explained as if this were typical dinner conversation, as if my world hadn’t come crashing down around me at his words, as if I could still breathe.

My mother looked over the table at me, beaming with pride. Her green eyes sparkled and her shoulders bounced a little relishing the news. I realized too late that she was never defensive of Nix’s opinion of me, her pride had been wounded. She was soaring now, what with a daughter handpicked for Nix’s personal collection, how could she not be? This was what every mother wanted, what every mother dreamed of her daughter becoming….

But what about the daughters? What about what they wanted?

And my heart stopped beating. I stopped living. I stopped existing.

“Nix, I had no idea Ivy had made such an impression on you,” my mother gloated.

“When?” I croaked. The word tumbled from my lips in a hoarse, desperate plea for time.

“When you would have come to me anyway,” Nix explained, his eyes drinking me in with calculating indifference. He wasn’t happy with my reaction, with how my face had paled, and my hands gripped the table to keep myself from falling out of my seat. But this was the best I could give him; this was my last desperate attempt from falling apart. “I won’t ask you to leave your mother just yet. But you will be mine, Ivy.”

His words sunk into my skin like deathly sharp daggers, cutting and slicing open every vestige of hope I held. I bled despair and anguish from every pore, and cried invisible tears of defeat. Eighteen was more important now than ever, but never more unattainable.

The dinner continued on without me present, at least intellectually. Nix and my mother moved onto different, less life-changing topics. But I remained in the soul-wrenching limbo of suffocating hopelessness.

There was no point to breathing anymore. There was no need for