Chapter 3
468words
They'd increased the dosage, and tonight he would return to force my heat cycle.
The drug pulsed through my system in nauseating waves, each worse than the last.
I had no idea when Julian would return or when this chemical torture would end.
Before, this medicine merely made me drowsy—it had never caused such excruciating pain.
The door finally creaked open, but Julian wasn't the one who entered.
"Sister dear, how lovely to see you."
Lily stood before me, watching with amusement as I writhed in agony on the bed.
"Not so high and mighty now, are you?"
I'd never met Lily Wilson before today—I hadn't even known she existed.
Yet her hatred radiated from her like heat from a furnace.
Every inch of my body screamed in pain. I had neither energy nor desire to engage with her.
She perched herself at the foot of my bed, watching me suffer.
"What's wrong, sister? Too proud to speak to little old me?"
"You're finally where you belong—beneath me—yet you still have the audacity to ignore me."
I maintained my silence, watching rage contort her features.
"God, you're even more insufferable than I imagined."
"I've hated you since I first learned you existed. Why should you be pure-blooded while I'm stuck as a half-breed?"
"Why should Julian and Zachary, who worship the ground I walk on, have to pretend to care about you?"
At this, I shot her an icy glare.
Those two puppets were clearly her pawns, positioned to infiltrate my life.
"Oh yes, I orchestrated their little performance, but watching them fawn over you still turns my stomach."
"But soon enough, you'll be nothing but a memory."
She licked her lips like a predator, leaned in close, and pressed her fingers against the vulnerable spot over my heart.
"Does that hurt? Good. It should."
"Your pain is my pleasure."
The door swung open again.
I looked at Lily, expecting at least a flicker of guilt, but her face remained a perfect mask of innocence.
She spun around and launched herself into Julian's waiting arms.
"Julian, my sister seems to hate me. She won't even speak to me."
"Tara, you shouldn't treat Lily this way."
"Don't blame her. I understand why she resents me."
"After all, Father loved me more—he even gave me the water-control gift that only pure merfolk should possess."
Lily's voice trembled with fake tears, but as she leaned against Julian's shoulder, she flashed me a triumphant smirk.
The water-control gift belongs exclusively to pure-blooded merfolk. Father never granted it to me—his legitimate daughter—yet gave it to her while hiding her very existence from me.
Now my heart ached even more fiercely than my poisoned body.
Then I noticed something that froze my blood—the shattered pearls adorning Lily's dress.
