floor was no longer under her feet.
It took all of her willpower not to cry out. “Father, what--”
His breath, reeking of whiskey and smoke, feathered over her face. “Don’t call me that, brat.”
Only a couple of hours before, he had called her darling and honey, had been nice and smiling. What had happened to make him this way? Her nails dug in so much that his blood started to trickle down her wrist. What had he found out?
Her mind reeled, her mother’s outraged cries and his angry curses alerting her to something that she hadn’t known, something that had never crossed her mind before.
His furious shout echoed through her mind. She is not mine...
Jamie stared at her mother, realization slamming into her with the force of a semi-truck. “Mother?” she pleaded thinly, her struggles against his hold on her ceasing. “Please...” Jamie had no idea what she was asking for, what she was silently praying for. His hold had tightened so incredibly that her scalp was now turning numb. The delicately painful plucks of her hair, the strands being torn from the root, helped with the numbing — as did the pain in her heart that now settled like a heavy ache.
“James, let her go!” her mother shouted, clawing at him now. The plea in Jamie’s voice must have spurred her on, because she took the hit he gave her with gusto and kept coming at him. The angry cries and shouts echoed in the large reception room. Servants were thankfully absent, their dog in the kennel in the back still. It felt much like a bad movie, Jamie thought.
Her feet finally touched the ground. Her father’s hand left her hair, her body dropping to the floor with a dull thud.
Silence. Stony, intense, horrifying silence. Her mother’s high-pitched scream echoed through the room, the last sound that was heard for what seemed like forever. Jamie curled into a ball, her legs to her chest. Her hand, bloody with her father’s crimson liquid, held her tender head as tears started to roll down her face.
Then the soft hand of her mother touched her. Her father’s polished shoes retreated, silent like a phantom. The door to the manor, the horror house was still closed, the limousine outside long gone.
Jamie had always wondered. Wondered why no one in her family had such dark hair, why no one was as short as she was, why she had always seemed to be...different. But she had wrote it off. There were large portraits made of precious oils, charcole, and anything else that a painter could think of. Scattered around the house, they spoke of a family that came from wealth...and a completely blonde family.
Even her mother’s family had been blonde. And brown eyed. And tall, elegant.
Jamie was none of those, and although her mother promised her that she would be one day, she knew that she was always going to be short, dark haired, and blue eyed. Her skin never tanned, and she could barely walk in heels.
Now she understood why.
A choke came from her closing throat, a sob bubbling its way to her trembling lips. Pain whispered along her heart, her head, her very soul.
The door slammed open, the large mahogany wood seeming to shatter against the wall. Her father’s pounding feet could be heard even from across the room. Her mother tried to drag her to her feet, to the door.
And then the shouting began again — Jamie could do nothing but sob helplessly.
Jamie woke slowly. Painfully. Aching. At first, she thought she was home, or at least in the hotel. But as her surroundings became clear to her, the tears that had already been streaming down her cheeks quickened.
Jamie was shocked, reaching up to touch her cheeks with shaking fingers. The wetness that came away was horrifying, and even more so when she realized that a dark form was sitting beside her.
Her heart stopped.
She met the heated gaze of Talon.
And burst into tears.
The hot rush of them streamed down her cheeks, the tears like cold fire on her skin. The blatant weakness she was showing him frightened her, made her vulnerable, but she could not contain the pain as she recalled the past.
Life had never been the same after that. Soon after, she had moved into an apartment and had visited her mother frequently, but with secrecy. Chris had come along later, and had known her father. For whatever reason, she had not cared. Instead, she had shoved the knowledge out of her