Chapter 4: The Mating Moon Ceremony
{Elira}
~**^**~
This was the only time I got to sit at the table and eat like the actual part of the family I was, and not the servant Regina and her mother made me.
Uncle Marc had once said, "Elira is still family."
Lady Maren hadn’t agreed, but she hadn’t argued either. She had just narrowed her eyes like the word family tasted wrong when applied to me.
Uncle Marc sat at the head of the long table. His presence was warm, but quiet.
But watching him speak to Regina and Lady Maren felt like watching someone try to keep a garden alive in a drought. He tried. But nothing bloomed.
Lady Maren sat beside him, composed and elegant as always, her hands draped delicately over her silverware. Across from me sat Regina, all smiles and sugar-coated poison.
She still had it in her to keep up pretences after burning my back and treating me like a plank a few hours ago.
And there I was, literally perking on my chair, trying to appear invisible. The bruises on my back pulsed with every movement, but I kept my posture perfect.
I couldn’t eat much. I rarely did. Not because the food wasn’t good—it was—but because eating while under their eyes made everything taste like guilt. And then there was the scene of Lady Maren forcing me to eat spoilt food from the wastebin.