Stars Reversed

Chapter One

Cait

I’m going to get the f**k out of here.

I repeated my mantra as a maid splashed cold water over my body, scrubbing every inch of me with a coarse towel. This miserable, damp room with a spigot that seemed to come straight from a stream of glacial run-off.

“I’m sorry ma’am, truly.” Apologized the maid as she carefully cleaned me, examining every inch of my skin for dirt. “I know it’s cold, and I know this towel doesn’t feel good, you have the skin of a lady.” She continues to prattle on, the kind tone sounding foreign after the past few days of unforgiving travel and slowly accepting that my father is dead.

She massages the deep, angry red welts from the ropes used to keep me restrained after multiple attempts to escape made it necessary to completely tie me to the cart.

I study the room, it’s single door and high grated windows. It looks more like a tall root cellar than the makeshift bathroom it’s being used as.

“My name is Mia.” The maid continues, her tone sweet. In any other situation, I’d probably really like her soft, easy demeanor. Unlike my maid-correction, former maid-Althea, she is warm. She probably would actually appreciate my dirty jokes. Mia gently wraps my shaking body in a soft towel.

“Caitlyn, my friends all call me Cait.”

I chuckle at the sheer insanity of how domestic, how normal this exchange is given my current situation. Guess I can still do that after all.

Mia pulls a small tin out of her skirt pocket, smiling at my response. She opens to reveal a creamy pea green, nose hair burning, ointment. She softly rubs it into the inflamed skin.

“The master, the Lord Blackwood, has decided he wants to meet you. He will not be happy about these.” Mia fusses over the raw flesh, exhaling deeply in frustration. I cringe as she massages the sore, broken skin with the ointment. It stings almost as much as it reeks.

“Fuucckkk…” I hiss between my grinding teeth.

“Trust me, it’s worth even the smell.” She reassures in a gentle tone, not even acknowledging my foul words, as she continues to administer the ointment. Once she is satisfied with her application, she wraps my wrists loosely in soft linen and gestures over to a small stool resting in the corner, stacked with a folded green plain dress and flat black shoes. “Do you need help dressing?”

“No.” I snap out, wincing at my own cruel tone as the words echo and bend with the cavernous ceiling.

“I’ll leave you to it, then. Knock when you’re done.” Mia says, disregarding my tone as she pads out the single door. As the click of the door echoes through the room, I shudder out a sigh and slowly step to the dress. Setting aside the warm towel, I work to pull on the thin and practically useless undergarments, both a little too tight to be comfortable around my ample chest and hips and too scrawny to give any real support.

Cheap bastards.

I scowl internally as I pull on the moss-green plain dress and slide my feet into the flat shoes that are hardly more than slippers.

I carefully finish toweling off my hair, then rake my fingers through the long, dark, ash brunette waves of my damp hair. As requested, I knock on the door and Mia promptly opens it.

“Follow me” She smiles like she’s not actively taking me to my newest in a short line of captors. We wind through an open, large stone kitchen that bustles with activity and a roaring fire, into a short hall that opens to a large white and gray marble main hall, lined with floor to ceiling with tightly drawn windows on both levels and a sweeping staircase that leads to another staircase that likely leads to the front door. Once we pass the first flight, Mia turns left, guiding me to an expansive wing of closed doors and quiet darkness, save a set of double doors that lets in enough light in the wing that we can walk to it.

“Shhh…” Mia warns as we approach. “The master has company. We will wait until they depart.” Mia stands silently beside me as we near the door and stand, waiting our turn.

“I have brought you a peace offering- an olive branch as they say, nephew.”

I peek through a small crack of visibility in the doorjamb, peering into the office. The room is oddly bright for the rotten soul that utilizes it. Pale ivory walls, with lively family portraits displayed cleanly on the right, giant windows with vertical diamond panes on the left; each window open and letting in fresh, floral, garden air and brilliant light. A towering, large fireplace, arched high and roaring with flames, centers the back wall, flanked with ash oak bookshelves, laden heavily with tomes of varying colors and sizes. A large dark walnut desk anchors the room, two plushly cushioned green velvet settees angled in front with a large commanding green velvet chair directly behind it, with a man sitting behind it.

My center of gravity shifts and time stills for a long, lingering breath as I gaze upon the lord and master of this darkened home. The Royal Spymaster’s nephew, Lord Godrick Blackwood sits in silence, eyeing his uncle from under long lashes with sharp emerald green eyes. His mouth was the picture of rugged indifference, set in a noble jawline. His dark ash blonde hair, tied back neatly, further brooks a firm air of elite indifference.

“She is a divine rose, but she will need many thorns…extracted. It seems her father let her run wild. She may prove to be a challenge. However, under the correct manager she will bloom exquisitely and make a handsome sum.” The Royal Spymaster’s voice drips with sticky sweet manipulation. Surely no one would believe this drivel, right?

“You bring me a challenge and wrap it as a reward, uncle?” Lord Blackwood politely volleys back, resting his elbows on his desk, entwining his fingers. His dangerous eyes glisten, absorbing every detail of his uncle’s behavior and movements with unnerving focus.

Rage blooms and curls in my stomach and my fists clench and un-clench as I remind myself not now, not now. These men can’t be serious about training and selling me- right?

“Surely there is no challenge you cannot tame. Many will pay handsomely for her because of who her father is, but she will need to be unblemished. Our customers won’t want marks on their canvas.”

“I have other methods to bend wills, all I really need is the fear that pain is inevitable with insolence.” A small smirk-hardly even there-curls Godrick’s lips. Shivers dance with crackling energy down my spine. “If she’s half the beauty of her mother, she will do well on the marriage market-with the correct training.”

My jaw literally drops, and my mind runs wild with the new information I’ve just received, frantically trying to plug together a plan, an escape from this Hell.

“Just remember, no marks.” The Royal Spymaster reminds.

My mind screeches to a halt and my mouth audibly snaps shut.

Just because I’m supposed to behave doesn’t mean I have to. They may think I’m about to be about to be sold to the highest bidder to be a perfect, obedient wife. With how much my father was liked at the end… I’m going to find a way out of here before that happens. But, until then, I can do anything and nobody can do anything about it without answering to the Royal Spymaster… and with how much of a cocky asshole Lord Blackwood is…

This is going to be so much f*****g fun.