Chapter 2: Are you Sick?
Odessa's POV
The shards of the mirror still glittered on the floor like a fragment of another life. I couldn't take my eyes off it. My reflection warped across its jagged surface, the face of a twenty-one-year-old woman staring back at me, unlined, untouched, alive.
Alive.
I hardly dared move, afraid that if I blinked, I would wake again to the cold steel of Silas's blade.
"Miss!"
The door burst open, and Penny swept in, skirts brushing the polished wood. Her sharp eyes immediately caught the glimmer beneath my feet.
"For heaven's sake!" she exclaimed, dropping the tray she carried onto the side table with a clatter. "Why are you standing in broken glass?"
Before I could answer, she was already at my side, her hands firm but gentle as she gripped my arm. "You'll cut yourself, what on earth has possessed you?"
"I..." My voice cracked. I hadn't spoken since Silas left, and the word felt foreign in my throat.
Penny didn't wait. She tugged me toward the bed with surprising strength, her maid's cap bobbing as she fussed. "Sit. Do not move."
She pressed me down onto the embroidered coverlet, then seized the bellpull beside the headboard and gave it a decisive yank. Somewhere deep in the house, the summons would clang in the servants' hall.
She turned back to me, her face drawn in stern worry. "You're pale as a ghost. Let me see."
Before I could stop her, she pressed her cool palm against my forehead, then my cheek. Dissatisfied, she took my wrist and held it tightly, counting my pulse with her lips moving silently. Her brows pinched together.
"You're warm. And your pulse is racing."
I caught her hand before she could snatch it away. "Penny, I'm fine."
"You are not fine," she shot back, her voice tight. "You're acting strange and I suspect it's due to a fever."
I swallowed hard. My poor Penny. How I missed her making a fuss over me.
"Has Silas done something to you?" Penny demanded suddenly. Her brown eyes flashed with the sort of protective fire that had always put her at odds with him. "Tell me, miss, and I'll have him thrown out even if he is the Alpha of his pack."
A laugh, broken and aching, bubbled up in me. Goddess, if only she knew.
"No," I said softly, gripping her hand tighter. "He hasn't touched me."
He never will, I vowed silently.
Penny narrowed her eyes, unconvinced.
"I only..." My throat thickened. How could I explain that I had lived years without her, years in which she was gone, brutally silenced because I had been too weak to protect her? How could I tell her that seeing her again was like sunlight breaking through a storm that had lasted a lifetime?
"I only missed you."
She blinked. "Missed me?"
I nodded, forcing a shaky smile. "Terribly."
Her lips parted, surprise softening her face. Then she frowned. "That makes no sense. I've been right here all day. I only stepped out to fetch snacks for Silas."
Her words trailed as she studied me, suspicion flickering in her gaze. "You're not yourself. It's as though something has possessed you."
I flinched. Her instincts had always been sharp, almost too sharp. In my last life, Silas had found her intuition intolerable. Now I saw why.
I leaned back against the carved headboard, folding my hands in my lap to steady them. "Tell me...where is Silas now?"
Penny's scoff was immediate, "You're still worried about him, when you can barely stand?" She shook her head, curls springing loose from her cap. "Unbelievable."
"It's not what you think," I murmured quickly.
She waved me off. "No matter. I sent him away myself."
That startled me enough to sit straighter. "You what?"
Her chin lifted proudly. "I suspected he must have done something to make you react like that so to save you the unrest, I sent him away."
I couldn't help it, I laughed. The fact that she was even able to do something like this....Oh, Penny. My brave, reckless Penny. In my last life, that single act of defiance would have cost her dearly. But here, now, it was the sweetest sound in the world.
I reached forward and pulled her into my arms. She stiffened immediately.
"Miss?"
I buried my face against her shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of lavender and soap. My voice was muffled when I whispered, "You know I like you right? Like a lot."
For a long second, she was rigid. Then she tilted her head back to look at me, confusion etched on her face.
"Are you certain you're not suffering from a fever?" she asked dryly. "You've never been one for public displays of affection."
I pressed a quick kiss against her temple, ignoring her protest. "Indulge me, just this once."
She sighed, exasperated but not pulling away. "Very well. But tomorrow, if you collapse, I'll be telling the physician every detail of tonight's madness."
Her words were half in jest, but they anchored me. This was real. She was real. I hadn't dreamed her back into existence.
A knock came at the door then, followed by the hushed bustle of footsteps—the maids summoned by the bell. She disentangled herself briskly and stepped away, straightening her apron.
"Stay in bed, miss," she ordered me firmly. "I'll see to the glass myself. You're not to set foot on that floor again until it's cleaned."
I leaned back against the pillows, a ghost of a smile on my lips. "Yes, Penny."
As she ushered in the other maids and directed them with sharp efficiency, I let my eyes drift closed for a moment.