Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [114]
She thought of her grandmother, standing delicately behind her husband and sighed. She didn’t want to be Grandmother Vienna. She didn’t want wealth. She could live her whole life without wearing a single gold ring, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. She just wanted to know that there was light at the end of the tunnel. That they could send Lark to a school, a real school with actual teachers, and to someone, a therapist, a doctor, who could help her, because the family didn’t know how. That they could earn enough to clothe and feed everyone without resorting to stealing. That they wouldn’t have to look over their shoulders, knowing any minute they might have to fight with another family like two rats snapping at each other in the muck. That they could live somewhere else, not in a place where her parents got kidnapped and nobody did anything about it.
Cerise shook her head. If they were slowly crawling out of the mud, she could live with it. But they were sinking deeper and deeper. Her children wouldn’t know her grandfather, and her grandchildren, if she were to have any, wouldn’t even know he existed. All his knowledge would be lost. Already she was forgetting things, and the books didn’t help, because half of the time she was too tired to read them.
It was wrong. Cerise clenched her teeth. The whole point of working so hard was so her children and their children would be better off than she was. But they wouldn’t. They would be worse. The more time passed, the more exiles Louisiana stuffed into the swamp, the more vicious it would become.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how hard the family worked, they made no progress. They just slid backward into the swamp, and all she had as a consolation were useless dreams of “what if” filled with pathetic self-pity.
And then there was William. She should’ve known that nothing in life came without a catch. He was everything she could ever want in a man: smart, strong, funny, handsome, a hell of a fighter . . . and he turned into a monster. Gods damn it.
She picked up the book she had been reading before William came in. The Nature of the Beast. It was an old text from Louisiana. She knew it was biased, but it was her best resource at the moment. She’d taken it out of the library a few months ago to read to Lark, to try to convince her that there were real monsters out there and she wasn’t one of them. It’s not that she didn’t trust Aunt Murid, but since Uncle High was involved, her aunt wasn’t exactly objective.
She wouldn’t have guessed that her uncle Hugh was a changeling. Would’ve sworn on her life he wasn’t. So not all the stories were true. Yes, her uncle was a murderer, but it wasn’t out of bounds for the Mire.
Maybe William was a wolf like Uncle Hugh. They were supposed to be noble creatures . . . She set the glass down. What was she thinking? He’s a murdering beast but that’s okay, because he is a noble murdering beast?
Poor William. She’d gotten a shock to the system, but it was nothing compared to what he got. Here he was, hunting his enemy. He met a girl in the swamp that made his head spin. And then he realized that the girl came with a clan of insane relatives, an eighty-year feud, and a horde of the Hand’s agents. That was a hell of a price tag. Being related to Kaldar alone would make most men run for their life.
Cerise toyed with her glass. William was hers. The way he looked at her, the way he held her while they danced, told her that better than any words. When she’d seen him come up those stairs, her heart had sped up, and it wasn’t because she was scared he’d rip her to pieces. She wanted him. But want alone wasn’t enough, because he was trouble. Aunt Murid was right—when William loved, he would love absolutely, but when he became jealous or angry, he would be uncontrollable. Life with him would never be dull. It wouldn’t be easy either.
She had to decide yes or no. To let him love her or to cut him loose.
All of this was useless speculation, she decided. In the morning they would attack the Sheeriles, and she had no