Chapter 2
The vase wasn't even pretty.
It was gaudy and heavy, its gold paint chipped along the rim, but it had been her grandmother's—my stepmother's mother—and that made it sacred.
I'd been dusting the bookshelf when my elbow caught the edge.
It fell in slow motion, the sound of shattering porcelain echoing through the living room like a gunshot.
The silence that followed was worse.
She came in like smoke seeping under a door—silent until she was suddenly everywhere, choking the air. Her eyes flicked from the shards to me, and her lips curled in a smile I'd seen too many times.
The kind of smile she only had towards me that promised pain ,suffering, and danger for me.She enjoys inflicting this pain,showing that she is more dominant than me.
"On your knees," she said softly, like she was offering me a choice when we both knew I had none.We both knew defiance meant something more sinister.I think she would enjoy it.
Breaking me,hearing my screams begging her to stop.Crying to whatever supreme being that can hear me to make it stop.
I knelt, and she stepped into the kitchen. When she returned, she carried a bag of uncooked rice.
She poured it onto the hardwood in a neat, glittering pile.
"Hands on your thighs. Back straight." Her voice was syrupy sweet, as if she were giving instructions for a school play. "And don't move until I say."
I bit the inside of my cheek, lifted my skirt just enough to kneel in place, and lowered my knees onto the rice.
The first stab of pain was sharp. The second was worse.
Within a minute, each grain felt like it was burrowing into my skin, cutting deeper. I focused on breathing—slow, even.
But even I couldn't lie to myself.It didn't help,the pain was there ,like the burn of the scorching sun,or like having hundred needles piercing your skin repeatedly at the same time.
Minutes bled into hours. My legs trembled, but I forced myself not to shift.
Liam wandered by, glancing down at me with a lazy grin. "Need a pillow?" he asked, mock concern dripping from every syllable.
"Oh please ,Liam,the bitch is probably enjoying this so much.I mean look at her,she looks like a slut begging to be fucked ," my step-sister Aliana stated whilst laughing.
"I mean ,we could help her out and find her a man,heard she loves old men who have wrinkled faces,"Lisa said ,joining in her sister to humiliate me .
I said nothing.I just kept on looking forward as if my life depended on it whilst biting my tongue to stop the response that was about to come out of my mouth.
"That's enough, both of you. Nobody is allowed to degrade her like that,"Liam said..
The sisters left with an eye roll while muttering some cuss words under their breath.
"I'm sorry about them,"was the last thing he said before he also left.
By the time she finally returned, my knees were numb and on fire all at once. I thought she'd release me. Instead, she dumped a bucket of soapy water at my feet, the icy liquid soaking through my skirt and pooling under my legs.
"Clean the floor," she said, already turning away. "Then you can eat."
When I finally dragged myself to my room that night, my knees were raw, pitted with tiny red indents. The blanket scratched against them as I curled into bed.
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Sleep came fast, the way it does when the body can't take any more.
The darkness shifted, softened.
Warmth spread beneath me, replacing the cold wooden floor with something smooth, like black marble heated from below.
And he was there.
My mystery man.My only source of warmth.
He didn't speak at first. He simply crouched in front of me, his golden eyes scanning my face, then sliding down to my knees. His jaw tightened, and the air around us thickened, hot and electric.
I should have been afraid. Instead, I felt… seen.
He reached out, his fingertips brushing the tender skin just above the bruises. The pain dulled instantly, replaced by a deep, soothing heat that spread upward through my thighs.
"They made you kneel," he said, his voice low, dangerous. Not a question.
I nodded.
His gaze rose back to mine. "One word, Selene. That's all it would take."
"One word for what?" My voice sounded smaller than I meant.
His mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "For me to burn them to ash."
My breath caught. He wasn't joking—I could feel the truth of it in my bones, the same way you can feel thunder before it breaks the sky.
"I can't," I whispered.
"Can't," he echoed softly, his thumb tracing over my knee, sending another wave of warmth through me. "Or won't?"
Before I could answer, the heat began to fade. The marble beneath me dissolved into the thin mattress of my bed.
I woke to the familiar ache in my knees.
But the bruises… were fainter than they should have been.