In love with my StepSon

Chapter Ten

Briston

"Mama, don't go."

I heard my own voice before I was fully awake, and for three seconds the warmth under my head was real, the gentle weight of familiar hands was real, and my mother was alive and nothing had gone wrong yet.

Then the three seconds ended.

I kept my eyes closed because opening them would end whatever this was. I was not ready, not back to this house and this room and my father's claws and eleven years of her being gone. I lay still and focused on the warmth and told myself it was enough, just for another minute, just one more minute of pretending.

But the warmth under my head did not move.

I opened my eyes.

The lap I was lying in belonged to Melissa, she was asleep sitting upright against the headboard, her head dropped to one side and her breathing was slow and even. I stared at her for a long moment before the full reality of what I was looking at finished assembling itself.

I sat up fast and the pain in my shoulder detonated immediately, tearing through me sharp enough to make my jaw lock, the room tilted sideways until I planted both hands flat on the mattress and forced it to stop.

Melissa jerked awake beside me.

"You are awake," she stammered, blinking, her eyes moving over me quickly the way someone checks for damage before they speak.

"What the hell are you doing in here," I demanded.

"I was making sure you were alright, you had a fever and you were shivering badly, your wounds needed cleaning so I stayed to bring your temperature down and make sure you were…"

"Shut up!"

She stopped.

"I was what," I continued, turning to look at her fully. "Why can you not mind your own business, why is that concept so difficult for you, I told you specifically to stay away from my door."

"You would have died," she replied, and her voice was quiet but it was not retreating. "Your father would not call the hospital and you would have bled out alone in this room. I was not going to sit in my room and let that happen."

I looked at her and the fact that she was not performing, not trying to make herself look noble, just stating it like a plain fact, made me angrier than anything else she could have said.

"At least I would have gone to be with my mother," I told her.

The words landed and I watched them land, watched her face go completely still and her mouth opened slightly. Then, they went close again without producing a single word, she looked at me with something in her eyes that I refused to name so I turned away from it entirely.

"I will leave," she said after a moment.

"Leave," I told her, and pushed every available ounce of coldness into my voice despite the fact that my head was splitting and my shoulder felt like it was still open. "Get out of my room and do not come back."

She stood without another word, smoothed her clothing and walked to the door with the quiet dignity of someone who had been hit enough times today that one more did not even register anymore.

The door opened and closed softly behind her, I sat in the silence she left and stared at the wall and pressed the heel of my hand hard against my forehead.

"Guards," I called out. "Someone, anyone."

I immediately heard footsteps in the corridor and the door opened.

"Get me something to eat," I told him. "Tell the kitchen right now, I am starving."

The maid arrived ten minutes later with a tray and I ate without tasting a single thing on it, working through it mechanically because my body needed fuel and that was the only reason. When she turned to leave, I called her back before I had fully decided to.

"What was my actual condition," I asked her, keeping my voice even. "Before anyone came in here through the night, what exactly was my state?"

She hesitated in the particular way that meant the answer was not good. "Your Majesty, you were shivering very severely and your temperature was dangerously high, your wounds from the, from earlier, they had not been treated at all. You had lost a significant amount of…"

"When did I get back from the hospital," I cut in.

She went quiet.

The silence told me everything before she opened her mouth again.

"Your Majesty, the hospital would not dispatch anyone without the Alpha's direct authorization," she replied carefully. "And the Alpha did not provide it."

"Typical," I said.

"Yes Your Majesty," she answered, the fact that she did not even attempt to frame it differently told me the staff had stopped pretending a long time ago.

"So who treated me," I said, even though some part of me had already worked it out.

"The Luna, Your Majesty, she came and requested warm water and lemon balm herself, she brought your temperature down, she cleaned your wounds and dressed them as best she could with what was available, she stayed through the entire night to make sure you stabilized before she allowed herself to rest."

I looked down at the neat plaster on my shoulder and did not say anything for a long moment.

The maid stood there uncertain whether she had permission to leave.

"That does not change anything," I said finally, more to myself than to her. "She is still a gold digging w***e who walked into this house on my father's money."

"I beg your pardon, Your Majesty," she replied carefully.

"Go and get me more food," I told her. "Just go."

She left quickly and I pulled myself to the edge of the bed. I sat in front of the wardrobe mirror and looked properly at what my father had done to my arm and shoulder in the space of thirty seconds, the gash cleaned and covered now, the bruising was dark against my skin.

The rage that lived permanently somewhere behind my ribs came up hotter than usual and I let it burn because there was nowhere useful to send it anyway.

I raised my hand and slapped my own face once, hard enough to feel it.

I hated him.

I genuinely, completely hated him.

But what I could not get past, what was sitting in the back of my skull refusing to be ignored, was the fact that when I was lying there half conscious and burning up, my mind had reached for my mother and found Melissa instead, my mouth had opened and called her "Mum" out loud like a child who did not know any better.

I stared at my own reflection and said nothing, not believing what I had just done.