Chapter 318: Grateful or Resentful
Dahlia’s eyes fluttered weakly as she tried to focus, her hair hanging low, obscuring her face.
While my mind was still stuck on what my mother had said earlier, Dahlia had already stirred awake. She groaned, her voice hoarse as it spilled from her dry, cracked lips. Slowly, when her head moved along with the rest of her body, she weakly cried out in pain.
The silver chains still dug into her body, after all, and the burns were only getting worse. As she moved, the silver did too, allowing the chains to touch different parts of her skin, opening old ones and searing new ones into her flesh.
When her eyes finally opened completely, they widened even further when she caught sight of me. She immediately began to frantically try to squirm her way out, the smell of burning flesh filling the room as I winced, taking a step back. If not for the gag in her mouth, Dahlia would no doubt be screaming expletives as though there was no tomorrow.
To be fair, she might not live to see it.
"Oh, look at her go!" my mother immediately chortled excitedly, coming forward.
She grabbed Dahlia’s face almost tenderly, her hands cupping her cheeks as she looked at her left and right. The werewolf merely growled, thrashing back and forth but making no difference in my mother’s iron grip. She tightly held onto Dahlia, disallowing her from moving too much― not that she could. The silver chains limited Dahlia’s movements to no more than an inch or two of where she originally was.
"It was so difficult to find her," my mother said to me, keeping her eyes on Dahlia, admiring her as though she was a new luxury purse she had just purchased. "But this is truly nothing for hunters. With Gus’s help, it is an even simpler task."
"Where was she hiding?" I warily asked, grimacing as my mother adjusted the silver chains, pressing them further into Dahlia’s skin.
"Your searches wouldn’t have borne any fruit," my mother replied. "She had escaped into the sewers, begging sweet Augustus for help, thinking that a vampire would whisk her away to safety as promised."
Gus laughed when his name was mentioned. "If only she knew that she was sending herself to the predator with a metaphorical bow tied on her head."
As he spoke, Dahlia’s eyes went to him. Betrayal and hurt flashed through her irises, and most of all, fury. She looked like a broken doll, cracked and shattered in all places, but her gaze remained firmly on him.
Gus turned to me and grinned.
"She was even more trusting than you ever were," he said before admitting, "It was quite a surprise. I thought you would be more gullible, and she smarter."
"Perhaps the first step of hunters and werewolves building bridges would be Thunderstrike landing in the hands of a near-human alpha," my mother said, laughing gleefully, seemingly thoroughly entertained by the idea. "It might be even better for them this way, seeing how if it landed in the hands of this princess here, it might have simply crumbled without us having to do anything about it."
"She places her trust in the oddest of people, after all," Gus finished, nodding his head. "First Damon Valentine, then me."
"And the reason why is simply because she allows her heart to guide her," my mother said. She looked pointedly at me. "She should’ve used her head. Pretty boys can hardly be trusted."
My mother pulled back from Dahlia Elrod suddenly, so much so that Dahlia hadn’t braced herself properly and fell forward. The chains dug into her skin as they pulled her back, and she groaned against the gag, her eyes pressed into two thin lines as she huffed through the pain. I took in a sharp gasp of air, unsure what to do or say.
Instead of looking at her, my mother crossed the room to a corner. She picked up a small piece of metal, and upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a branding iron. However, the metal shone a clean, bright silver, and I was sure it was made exactly of just that.
Pure silver.
She handed me the rod, holding it out for me to take. When I didn’t, my mother gently shook her hand a little, prompting me to reach for it. I gulped, swallowing the bile in my throat, but remained unmoving. Eventually, my mother simply shrugged.
Slowly, she returned to Dahlia’s side, toying with the silver brand in her hand.
"Does she know?" my mother asked, not turning back to look at me despite her question. She stared directly at Dahlia, evil glinting in her eye.
"Know what?" I asked.
"About your mate, of course!" my mother said. "Or to be exact, mates."
Even through the pain, Dahlia’s head whipped up to stare at me in disbelief. Her eyes widened, red and bloodshot, but shock could clearly be seen in her expression. The furrow of her eyebrows and the rise and fall of her shoulders more than clearly displayed her struggling to keep up with my mother’s words, and I felt my heart thud.
"She doesn’t," I said.
"Oh, how cruel," my mother said with a tut, clicking her tongue as she shook her head. "If she’s about to die soon anyway, there should be no harm in telling her, is there?"
I didn’t reply, keeping my lips pursed as I looked at Dahlia’s pathetically pitiful appearance.
"I heard about your wedding," my mother said, this time, speaking directly to Dahlia. "The news spread pretty quickly, even amongst those who weren’t invited to attend."
She gained the latter’s scathing look, Dahlia’s glares threatening to burn holes into my mother’s skull if she was capable of fae magic.
"Quite a shame for you that it didn’t go as planned, but as a mother, I am unsure to be grateful that it failed so spectacularly, or resent you for not going through with it successfully," my mother said with a sigh.
Then, to my horror, she continued, "After all, if you married Damon Valentine, my daughter would have one less mate."
