Sylvia’s room was on the opposite wing of the palace, which belonged to the Emerald Wing. That gave Andrea ample time to think about what she was going to say to her. Still, it didn’t mean that when she stopped in front of her friend’s room, Andrea had any idea how to even begin. Also, her fine sense of hearing announced her Sylvia wasn’t alone. Through the door, Andrea could hear Kaden’s soft voice asking his sister if she needed anything, or if she was hungry.
Andrea took a deep breath. “It’s good that they’re both here,” she thought. “Kaden will probably murder me the moment I step over the threshold. It would be nice if he gave me the chance to apologize to Sylvia, though.”
Her hand reached for the doorknob, but froze mid-air. Something in the air had changed. There were no more noises coming from behind the door, and that told Andrea that Kaden and Sylvia had sensed her presence. They could hear and smell her. As a hybrid, she would probably come to distinguish the smells assaulting her nose, too, but it would take time to properly associate them with the people they belonged to. She had recognized Anita’s specific scent earlier because she had spent so much time with the girl. Because Anita was a maid and worked a lot with water and detergents, she had almost made a compulsion out of using that cinnamon hand cream she loved that much. Right now, though, Andrea could tell there were two different types of scents coming from underneath the door, but she couldn’t be sure which was which.
She shook her head to clear it, trying to ignore all the changes happening in her body, and turned the knob. The door opened, and Andrea found herself face to face with Kaden, who was standing in front of his sister’s bed. Sylvia was propped against two pillows, a cup of hot tea in her hands.
The burns on Sylvia’s face and wrists were healed almost completely. There were a couple of pink scars where Andrea had insisted with the spray, but that was it.
A wave of relief washed over Andrea when she saw that Sylvia was fine. For a moment, back on that dreadful corridor, Andrea had genuinely thought that she had killed the silver-haired girl. As she was stuffing her bag with as many jewelry as she could fit, Andrea had repeated herself over and over that the mandrake spray she had prepared couldn’t have been that strong and deadly. Apparently, she had been right. In the past couple of hours, her poison had proved to be much deadlier to her than to Sylvia. That was a good thing.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” asked Kaden.
Andrea bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she tasted blood. She stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her, but didn’t dare approach Sylvia’s bed. Kaden was blocking her way, and she understood him completely.
“I… I came to apologize.”
Kaden cocked an eyebrow. He studied Andrea for a moment, then threw his head back and started laughing.
“Seriously? You try to kill my sister and then you just apologize? You’re fucked up, lady. Did you know that?”
“Kaden, let her talk,” said Sylvia.
That made Kaden turn towards his sister.
“You want to hear her talk? What do you think she’ll say? What do you think she’ll say that could make all this right?”
“I don’t know.” Sylvia sounded irritated. “If you don’t let her talk, we’ll never know.”
Kaden pursed his lips. He held his sister’s gaze, briefly wondering whether it would be a good idea to act like the Fyrstur he was and order his Annarr to quit this nonsense, go back to sleep, and let him deal with their beloved stepmother. Because Andrea was their stepmother, and, by the looks of it, she wasn’t going away. Their father had made sure of it. A single glance had been enough for him and Sylvia to tell she was a hybrid now. Oh, and the dragon mark coiling around her right wrist was very obvious, too.
“Are you sure?” Kaden asked Sylvia one more time.
Sylvia simply nodded. Her small, yet firm gesture determined Kaden to step aside and allow Andrea to approach the bed, though not too much.
The brunette stopped in the middle of the room, eyed Kaden wearily, then took another step towards the edge of the bed. She looked into Sylvia’s golden eyes. The girl was definitely tired, sad, and disappointed. Still, Andrea could see no ill intend on her features. The dragon-shifter seemed relaxed and even comfortable with being in the same room as her. Which was… odd, to say the least. If Andrea were attacked by someone, she would not want to see that person again, unless he or she was behind bars.
“I guess that says she is way better than me,” Andrea thought. “They all are.”
“I’m listening,” Sylvia encouraged her.
In truth, the dragon-shifter was doing her best to keep calm. She wasn’t afraid of Andrea, but she was pretty angry at her. Not because she had sprayed mandrake all over her face, but because she had betrayed her father and the trust of the entire clan. And all that after Sylvia had told her about her own mother, Madeline, and about how much her dad had suffered after she had passed away. However, the mark on Andrea’s wrist meant Calder had forgiven her. So, maybe she and Kaden should forgive her, too?
“There’s no excuse for what I did,” Andrea began. Her voice was shaking, but she did her best to keep the tears at bay. “You’re my friend… Were. You were my friend. You welcomed me with open arms, and you were so, so good to me. And I love you for that. I do, I always will. When I went down to the vault, I had no idea you were on duty. I never meant to hurt you. It all happened so fast, I was so confused… I just wanted to get out of here and be done with it, because this whole thing…” She raised her hands and motioned towards the room and the furniture, and it was clear she actually meant the whole palace. “This whole thing was too good to be true. I was never lucky. I’ve never had anything. And, all of a sudden, I find the perfect man, who loves me for who I am, and a family that wants me. A family that accepts me and doesn’t want to change me. I… I freaked out. I got scared.”
Kaden huffed. “Lady, stop making such a drama out of it. You had made the plan to steal and run away before you even met our dad. If it hadn’t been Calder Grimmr, it would have been some other poor shape-shifter. Maybe a dragon, maybe a wolf. Whatever. Cut the bullshit, will you?”
Kaden’s harsh words made Andrea jump. He was right. Or, was he? She searched deep inside her soul and tried to be honest with herself first, so she could be honest with them.
“You’re right,” she whispered. “I did plan the whole scheme before I had even arrived at Alma Venus. But when I met your father, some things changed. I mean… I had never expected to actually… come to care about him.”
“You just care about him?” asked Sylvia.
Andrea took a deep breath. It was weird to talk to Calder’s children about these things.
“I love him. I love your father.”
Sylvia simply nodded. Kaden rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“But falling in love with him, becoming friends with you, Sylvia, living in your amazing home… that made it all worse.” Andrea saw surprise on both their faces. They hadn’t expected that. In truth, she had never expected to feel such things, either. “I felt like the most horrible person in the world because I had come here to steal from you, to use you so I could change everything about me that I didn’t like. I felt awful. Here I was, finally getting a real glimpse of what your world was like, and I was forcing myself to hate it, to hate you, because I couldn’t accept that I was falling in love with all of it. So, in the end, the reason why I stuck to my plan was not that I didn’t love your father and my life here with him. It was because I didn’t think I deserved any of it.”
“Self-sabotage,” whispered Sylvia.
“What? Well, yes. I guess you could call it that.” Andrea weighed the word for a second. “Yes. I sabotaged myself. I… I was so used to being miserable, to fighting hard for something only to find out it was all an illusion… When things got so real that I couldn’t deny them anymore, I guess I panicked.”
That was when Sylvia did something Andrea had not expected. She got out of the bed, closed the distance between them at shifter speed, and hugged Andrea. Kaden jumped a bit at his sister’s unexpected behavior, but didn’t move from his spot. He didn’t feel comfortable seeing Andrea so dangerously close to Sylvia, but if his sister trusted the woman, then he had to trust his sister.
“It’s all right,” Sylvia said. “I understand.”
“You do? I… I can barely understand myself.”
Sylvia smiled. “I know, but I’ve lived longer than you, so my experience is vaster.”
Andrea couldn’t help a small chuckle.
“We’re good,” continued Sylvia. She pulled away and held Andrea at arm’s length so she could look into her brown eyes. “Just… just promise me you’ll make our father happy.”
Kaden sighed. This was something Sylvia did all the time: spoke for the both of them. Well, he could let it slip for now.
“I promise,” said Andrea.
***
“So? How did it go?”
Calder was lying on his back. Andrea was on top of him. The position wasn’t exactly comfortable, but she refused to move. They had spent the rest of the day in bed, and even though they had had sex too many times to keep count, Andrea still wanted more. Her new, hybrid abilities were showing. Calder had avoided the conversation for as long as he could, afraid of what she might tell him. But, eventually, the question had to be asked.
“It went well, I think,” Andrea answered after careful consideration. “I think Sylvia has forgiven me.”
“And Kaden?”
“He made a quick top of the most evil stepmothers, and I came out on second place, right after the Evil Queen in Snow White.”
Calder was confused for a second, then he laughed.
“Any idea why?”
Andrea shrugged. “Because I haven’t ordered anyone to bring me their hearts so I could cook them for dinner. Yet.”
THE END
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