5

The Mortal

“What are you saying?” I frowned.

I felt like a rug was pulled out from under my feet. The corner of his lips twitched—curving into a smirk so slight it didn’t touch the rest of his expression, but his eyes gleamed, making my stomach twist in icy knots. He sat up straighter lazily. I stepped back under the weight of his gaze.

I could see in his eyes he didn’t care, but I steeled myself. “I know you might be confused,” but even as I said it, it was very naive. A hopeless attempt to avoid what I was seeing.

“I am not confused, little bird.” He looked me straight in the eyes as he said it, and then his gaze dropped to my chest, then back up to my eyes.

That nickname made blood rush to my neck.

I tried my best to keep my face neutral, but my heartbeat turned loud in my ears.

“Look,” I cleared my throat to suppress my obvious nervousness. “All I am saying—and I know it can be hard…” I tried again. “Mom cares about you a lot.” I turned my voice kinder, while a forbidding feeling slid into my stomach.

“Mom cares about you.” I didn’t know what else to say; my mind seemed unusually scattered.

There had to be some kind of recognition or even a bit of understanding in this man, but his smirk deepened. The sick feeling only dug itself deeper into my core.

“What do you want? Why are you like this?” I muttered the last question to myself.

He didn’t answer my question. Instead, he looked at the door as if he could see through it. The smirk dropped from his face.

“You love your mother, don’t you?” he said, like making an observation, his tone emotionless. The stoic expression grated on my nerves.

“She is your wife,” I said defensively. I am not the only one who is supposed to care about her.

“I will make you a deal,” he said, looking at me. “I will be a perfect guest in your house, and you have to help me with something.”

“Help you? With what?”

He leaned in, his gaze unmistakably darkening, roaming from my face and down, then meeting my eyes again in a way that locked all the muscles in my body in place. It was then I realized how close I was, leaning into his personal space.

“You will know,” he said. I couldn’t move back, even though I wanted to. “Don’t tell anyone about last night.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded. Had he not realized what he did was wrong? I opened my mouth to say something—

“Shhh,” he cut me off, and the air seemed to press on the back of my neck with a cold heaviness, mimicking last night, like when he grabbed me. “You won’t like the consequences. Your mother is just a few feet away, walking here.”

“Are you threatening me?” I hissed, finally at the end of my rope. Something was terribly wrong. “Are you saying you will hurt Mom?”

“I can,” he said, as if that had no consequences. As if he was not changing the world I lived in. “But I won’t, if you do as I say.”

“Why are you…?” My voice thinned in disbelief.

I took a shallow breath, but the sudden dizziness nearly pulled me flat to the ground. I held on. He was dangerous. I needed to tell Mom—and if she didn’t believe me, I would go to the doctors.

“I will…” I moved. I turned, but a hand clamped around my wrist, wrenching it behind my back. Pain shot through my arm. “Ah!”

“Sweet things like you should not be so rash.” He tugged harshly. My breath caught in my throat. I fell back onto his lap with a startled sound. His chest pressed against my back. Something in his scent wrapped around me like vine. 

“Be careful, little bird,” he whispered in my ear darkly. My whole body went rigid, every nerve fighting to get away.

My heart pounded in my chest. I turned swiftly, my left hand twisting painfully in his grip. My right hand moved before I could register it. A sharp echo of a slap rang through the room. I backhanded him, and his head snapped sideways. It was the wrong angle—the way his neck bent. I covered my mouth the second the shock of what I did settled in.

A beat later, I could do nothing but look at him in horror as he rolled his head back into place. That was supposed to hurt badly. Amusement flickered in his eyes.

“Interesting. You are trained in martial arts,” he said, rubbing the length of his neck. “But you have to try harder than that.”

I was trained in self-defense. After Father died, Mom and I took it up as something to bond over and distract ourselves; as a woman, it was a good skill. Later, Mom quit, but I trained more in hand-to-hand combat. I didn’t know how he deduced it from a single slap.

This was not my mother’s husband. I knew this with certainty. I couldn’t properly explain it, and I had no idea if it was because of memory loss or if he was always like this and had hidden it from Mom for so long. I tried twist my hand out his grip but only got snapped to him on impact as his hold tightened. I winced. 

“You might be a good fighter to commoners, but I am a different thing,” he continued. “What good would it do to challenge me like this?”

I looked at him—really looked at him. ‘A different thing’. I saw a red tint in his eyes, and his gaze fell to my lips. “I can give you time for consideration.”

“You are sick!” I said, despite his words sneaking under my skin. I pulled my hand. “Let go!”

A click came from the door. I froze, my eyes widening. Mom. I looked at the door, worried, then back at him. His grip only tightened in warning.

“Let go!” I hissed.

“We will talk about this.” I gave in helplessly, and he let go slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. I got up immediately before Mom looked up from her feet. Swallowing hard, I looked away and stepped back several feet.

If Mom noticed something weird, she didn’t say anything. The icy knots in my stomach tightened as she walked closer to Edward, and it almost made me dizzy as I watched them without blinking. I watched my mother tell him they would go home soon, waiting patiently for any kind of warm reaction from his side—but he only gave a cold, stoic nod of acknowledgement and took his breakfast.

There had to be a medical reason for it. I suppressed the thought. He was occupied with Mom right now; he probably wouldn’t dare do anything here in the hospital. With one last glance, I went for the door.

A hissed gasp of pain stopped me in my tracks. Fear gripped my heart, and I turned quickly to see Edward looking down at my mom with disinterest as she crouched, rubbing her toes, slipping her foot out of her sandal. She flinched.

“Mom, are you alright?” I quickly went and crouched beside her.

“It’s fine, I just stubbed my toe on the cabinet.”

I sighed in relief when I saw it was nothing. I felt eyes on my back, and I looked up, following the sensation to Edward looking at me—and winking. My heart stuttered, fury and fear knotting in my gut.

He pressed his index finger to his lips in warning.