What Once Was Hers Novels & Stories

She said. “Why?” I asked. “Because now I get to know who you are.” She said. “I’m no one.” She said. “You’re not no one. And I’m going to prove that.” She said, turning on her heels and leaving the room again quickly. **********

Sentimentality was a luxury for the living, and she had died the moment she secrued that recording. She pulled the black silk over her head. The fabric was cold, sliding over her skin like water. It fit perfectly—a second skin designed by a man who knew her dimensions better than she knew them herself. She fastened the silver serpent brooch at her throat, the emerald eyes of the snake catching the light. She looked at the tablet one last time. The villa was gone, replaced by a dark, swirling eddy of water and debris. "Phase Four," she whispered to herself.

The taxi stopped in front of the gates of the estate. The once beautiful place she had, once upon a time, called home just felt strange to look at now. It was like looking at somewhere not her own, a monument to a life that had vanished. She paid for the taxi with her right hand and took her remaining belongings with her. Balancing the heavy cardboard box carefully with her one good arm, she stepped up and knocked firmly on the iron gate. Standing outside waiting on the pavement felt humiliating, but it also clarified her stance to herself. She was stripped of the Kingston title now; she was still that exact same girl from way back then, before the money.

Hera. The name was a bruise on my soul. I’d cheated on her once. One night of weakness that became a poison in our relationship. She found out, and the world burned. I could still feel the sting of her palm across my face, the way her eyes looked right before she ran out the door. The last time I saw her alive, she was screaming that she hated the man I’d become. Then the phone call. The crash. The silence that had lasted two years.

"But I couldn't imagine you wanting anything grander than this, and honestly, I couldn't imagine wanting to give you anything else either." "It's perfect," Wren said, meaning it fully, looking around at the small, gathered circle of women who had come, each in her own way, to matter enormously over the past year — her sister, finally and completely reconciled; the historian who had helped restore her family's name to the record; the great-aunt she'd never expected to find, sitting comfortably on one of the studio's paint-stained stools as though she'd always belonged there.

She had walked these halls once, years ago, when the world had been simpler, when she had been someone Damian trusted, someone he had loved, someone no one knew existed. The curve of the grand staircase, the faint scent of sandalwood that clung to the air, the way the sunlight spilled across the long windows in the atrium. She had been here countless times, yet each memory came laced with danger, with desire, with the ache of everything she had lost.

She realized she was beginning to trust them to trust herself. Hours passed, and the ancient fortress loomed on the horizon, half-hidden by overgrown trees and creeping ivy. Its stone walls were weathered by centuries, yet the structure remained imposing, a testament to the craftsmanship of a bygone era. Amelia could feel the history embedded in the stones, a legacy of her ancestors that whispered to her, calling her to reclaim what was hers.

Her eyes were still glowing white, no visible pupils. He glanced at the woman and frowned. No one was supposed to see her like this. He took her hand gently and led her out, but the woman’s final words froze him in place. "You know, don’t you? She’s the one. The one everyone gave up on waiting for." He didn’t respond. He just walked out with Snow. Her eyes slowly returned to normal. Her lips parted slightly as she spoke. "What did she mean by ‘I'm the one’? She called me the Moon Goddess, but I’m not that... I’m just an Ome...."

Had it not for Yara and Perry, Hera and Sheels would have driven their way to the mansion of Hera’s bitch of a mother. It pained her to unravel what had become of the person who sell her after all these years; at the same time, she pitied her mother’s fate. She once was a beautiful rose, well taken care of, and was given more than what she needed to survive. When she fell in love, she welted in place, reduced into clinging desperately to the only relative who had his eyes at her even though the consequences following it was to become the dirty mistress of her own cousin.

“Yeah, I doubt that’s going to work in this case. Can we get it off, please?” “Most certainly,” Esmeralda quickly replied, though Lola could hear a twinge of disappointment in her thin voice. She couldn’t blame the lady, though. She would’ve been frustrated as well. So far, they’d gone through nine different expensive dresses, with Lola casually dropping complaints about each of them. As Esmeralda opened the box containing the last dress, Lola silently prayed that tenth time should be the charm. “This is the last from our collection,” Esmeralda said as she held it up. “Hopefully it meets your expectations.”