Abduction (Recompense Book 4) by Michelle Isenhoff

Author:Michelle Isenhoff
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2018-05-14T22:00:00+00:00

***

The days that remain before Lemuel’s return lie before me like the open mouth of a tomb. I await it as I would an execution. Nurse Kruen checks on me daily, bringing gleeful reminders of my fate as an honorable mother of the Bruel race. Though Juel delivers regular meals, I can stomach very little. The food curdles within me and often comes up again. Bruik takes me for regular strolls in the chair. I can sit up now for a few hours at a time, but no matter what Nurse Kruen threatens me with, I absolutely refuse to walk. I will not take one single step nearer to my looming fate.

But I can’t stop time.

Juel dances into my room on the evening of Lemuel’s arrival, proud of her handsome young master. I don’t catch a quarter of what she’s saying as she numbers off his virtues and relates memories of his growing-up years. She’s so delighted by his return that she doesn’t notice my pale face. I knew she was in on the plot all along. She simply puts on a painted front.

“Let’s choose something pretty to wear,” she says, opening the bureau drawer and drawing out half a dozen shirts before deciding on a pale pink one. But when she tries to help me on with it, I flatly refuse.

Her face reflects her confusion. “Don’t you want to look nice for dinner?”

So, I’ll be expected to dine with the monster? As if this were some kind of date? Well, he can just view me at my worst.

She tries to cajole and reason with me for the next five minutes, to no avail. Nurse Kruen arrives in the middle of it. With a Bruel expression of exasperation that may or may not include profanity, she rips off my pajamas. Then she throws at me the clothing Juel has picked out. “Put these on or go without. I’m wheeling you down in two minutes.”

I glower at her and yank the pink shirt over my head. Juel helps me on with the pants and then does her best to brush my hair. In exactly two minutes, Nurse Kruen deposits me in the wheeled chair and hurries me away. Her maneuvering of the stairs proves far less careful than Bruik’s.

I am wheeled into the dining room. The stained glass of the oval window catches the light of the westering sun and throws it in jeweled colors against the opposite wall. I keep my eyes fixed on the glass until I am set in place directly across the table from Lemuel. Then I turn my face defiantly to his.

His mouth parts beneath his beard, and I see shock register in his eyes. They lift to Nurse Kruen, who has set my brake and is now rounding the end of the table. “I thought I hired you to return her to strength,” he accuses.

She halts. I hear her throat clear nervously. “You hired me to return her to health. And I have done that.”

“She’s thin as a twig.

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