Page 63 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“I still think it’s haunted.”

Together we explore. The deeper we go, the darker it gets. Dust dulls the windows. Corridors stretch into shadow, their wallpaper patterned with faded magnolias that seem to appear and disappear as the light changes. The air smells of mold, rotting wood, and the same spoiled perfume that greeted us at the door.

Somewhere ahead, a loose door shifts on its hinges with a long wooden groan.

Carrson and I stop. Cold air moves through a crack in the window at the end of the hallway.

“A draft,” he says.

“I’m a little scared,” I admit, reaching behind me.

Carrson takes my hand. “I’m here.”

Walking blind, I let him lead me through the darkness. There’s a wide dining room where portraits cover the walls. Men in dark coats. Women in silk gowns. Children with pale faces and solemn eyes.

I move toward one near the fireplace. A woman sits in a high-backed chair with a book open across her lap, although she isn’t looking at it. Her eyes are fixed somewhere beyond the painter, dark and unreadable. A magnolia blossom is tucked into her hair.

“She looks sad,” I say.

I try to picture her life. She must’ve been bonded to a Bellefleur man, just like those dark-haired women are bonded to Carr. The century doesn’t matter. They’re all the same. Women placed in rooms, dressed in silk, arranged like flowers in a vase.

A shiver runs through me, noticeable enough that Carrson rubs his hand up and down my arm, urging warmth back into my skin. For one irrational beat, I want to pull away from him.

He hasn’t done anything wrong, but I’ve spent the last few days looking at women who were probably touched gently too. Guided by the elbow. Kissed on the temple. Told they were safe while the walls closed in around them.

Carrson’s hand stills when he feels me tense. “Laurel?”

I try to relax, to remember this is Carrson, but I can’t. Not while the dead woman watches.

Will that be me someday? Another woman on display?

The house opens in bits and pieces after that. An office. A narrow parlor. A nursery at the end of the upstairs hall, its ceiling painted with clouds and stars, a cracked rocking horse in the corner.

“Your father might have slept here,” Carrson says.

I try to picture it.

My father as a boy. Small enough to fit in that bed. Lying awake in the dark, wondering what kind of man he would become.

I’ve spent the last few years frustrated with him. Angry about the things he couldn’t give me. Answers. Stability. A version of himself that didn’t disappear into a bottle and leave me guessing who would come back out.

Standing in this empty room, I wonder what had been taken from him first.

Once, I looked at Carrson and thought about the way monsters are made. My father is not a monster. Not in the way Carr can be.

But he still left damage behind.

Chapter sixteen

Three Days Until Bonding

Laurel

We find the conservatory last. At the end of the second-floor hall, a narrow staircase leads down to a pair of glass doors.

“What’s this?” I ask, noticing the light that sneaks through a crack at the bottom of the door. It’s green like it’s been filtered through the bottom of a lake.

Carrson shakes his head. “I have no idea.”