King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

3. Stella

Chapter 3

Stella

A s usual, the potato sack’s fibers felt like they were embedding into my skin as I was escorted back to my room underneath the chateau. This area had been built for the servants back in the day, but since Régine had trust issues, as she should, she kept me locked down here. It had become my area to “get closer to my celestial home,” as she had put it.

Lonely, oh so lonely , was what it was.

At first, the solitude only made me feel safe. There was no one around to bother me or hurt me. But after years, the cement walls had become ghosts caging me in their realm. The walls even leaked water like tears. The only light in the darkness was the old record player Henri had convinced Régine to give me to help me stay in character.

“How will she choreograph if she does not have music to listen to?”

His favorite records, though, were hidden in the vanity, where he’d instructed me to hide the things my mom sent with me when I arrived at his doorstep.

Henri had told me no one knew about the secret hiding place because the vanity had belonged to his maman . It was all he had left of her when she died. Régine hadn’t liked the piece of furniture, so she stuck it in the dungeon with everything else she wanted to hide. Including me. Except where the vanity was ugly to her, the money I made for her was not, so we both ended up being stuck in darkness to hide.

“You are a star, étoile. Do not fight the darkness. It is where you will thrive! Where the darkness of this world will cling to you, so you only shine brighter!”

I clenched my fists and unclenched them, both to fight the urge to scratch my skin off and to keep my temper in check. Even the thought of Régine’s voice made the acid rise in the back of my throat again.

The solider escorting me glanced at me from the side of his eye. A frown had been stuck on his face since he’d first seen me. I guess it was the haircut, or hack job. I hadn’t seen it myself yet, but I knew it was bad. I had to wrestle with the impulse to shiver and then burst out crying. The pressure to sob was building in my chest.

The solider unlocked the door leading to the steps that took me to my area. He nodded for me to go. Like he needed to. None of them ever came down with me, unless they were instructed to, and that was rare.

I paused halfway down, deep in the abyss of darkness, when the sounds of celestial music met me. Celestial music was what Régine had called it. It sounded like a bunch of wind chimes with other sounds mixed in to me. Those other sounds were kind of sexual. But I hadn’t been playing that track when I was summoned upstairs for my weekly weigh-in and naked dance session, where Régine contemplated my weight, how Sasha would fix it, and then critique me on my dance routines. Basically, what she’d done before she sent me back to my area, except without the question about Matteo.

I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t the last record I’d listened to. Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.”

Henri had told me it was one of his favorites, and I remembered…I remembered a time when he was with me and mom, and he’d taken us to a cabin somewhere by the water in Louisiana. He’d danced with my mom to that song. She’d listen to it after he left, but when I’d asked her if she was sad, she’d told me no, not really. The memory of us at the cabin was bittersweet.

Bittersweet because Henri was my dad? And he wanted us but couldn’t have us?

I wasn’t sure what the answers to those questions were. I was never told if Henri was my father, or why I was brought here. When my mom dropped me off, she’d told me it was because here, with Henri, would be a better life for me. She couldn’t take care of me, but if she ever could again, she’d come for me. I’d spent so much time hoping for that. Wondering if she ever knocked on the door, asked for me, and had been told her Estella, her daughter, had died.

In a way, that girl had. Régine Nemours had killed her, along with Henri, but where Henri would never come back, Stella had become a phoenix and transformed into étoile. A star that had fallen from the sky and stolen a body to inhabit. The Nemours knew this “being” was special, and they had trapped her in a bottle, or an underground club, where she danced for people who saw how bright she could shine in the darkness. It was all smoke and mirrors, but the weak of mind always believed it.

These people could see the truth moving before them.

What they could never see was me , the girl who felt buried in the tombs she danced in— dead but alive at the same time. Always, always, always wishing for...

For freedom.

For my prince to come wielding his sword and saving me from this dungeon. Saving me from a life that was really no life at all.

Sighing, I made my way deeper into the dungeon, thinking about Matteo Fausti, and how my knight had somehow morphed into him.

Dreaming was a disappointment in general, but dreaming about him seemed dangerous. He seemed dangerous, and so did those men who were with him. It didn’t take a detective to figure out that Matteo’s family had stolen Ivan’s heart and left it for Boris to find.

Why? What had Ivan done to set all of this in motion?

Matteo had said something about his friend being hurt. Maybe Ivan had hurt her? He never touched me, and I knew that was because of his fear of Régine, but I’d seen Ivan flirting with other women in the underground club. Maybe Ivan thought he could get away with doing what he wanted to women who were not connected?

There was nothing I could do to help those women, but it made me wonder how the wheels of change had started to roll. I could feel it. Things were changing, and not only because I knew Régine would be marrying Boris soon. She always married after something happened to her husbands. The house felt different. Tense in a way it hadn’t before.

I stopped short when I came to the last step and saw Odette sitting in the threadbare chair in front of my vanity. Odette was Régine’s oldest daughter, and she was as mean as an irritable snake. Henriette, Régine’s second daughter, usually shadowed Odette, but she wasn’t around.

Odette gave me a smirk when she noticed me. She sat up some, the flames behind her making her look like hell had puked her up. I didn’t mean to do it, but my fists clenched at my sides. She was wearing the coat Matteo had given me. I wanted to throw myself on her, fight her for it, ripping her skin open in places, but I knew I had to play this just right. If I threw a fit, even for what was rightly mine, Odette would scream for help and the men would intervene. Then Régine would.

I was no one in this house, a lowly servant who washed their clothes and cleaned their toilets in the daylight, and a money maker come night. Odette was the favorite. The daughter who would go far. If I hurt her, or caused trouble, I’d pay for it.

Instead of attacking her, I crossed my arms and hid my hands underneath my arm pits.

“Nice coat, Rags,” she said with a heavy French accent. She rubbed the arms. “Much too nice for trash to wear. Wherever did you get it?”

When I stayed silent, she lifted from the chair in a regal way and came to stand in front of me. The fire must have lit me some. Her eyes went wide, and a true smile came to her face. “Your hair!” She peeled with laughter. When she recovered, she pointed. “You look like the Grinch with that hack job! It’s perfect. So perfect! Oh, maman did such a wonderful job. It suits you, Rags!”

I was either going to punch her or start to sob uncontrollably—a traitorous tear leaked from one eye, and then another from the other. She noticed and, even though I didn’t think it could, her smile grew even wider. She stepped up next to me and looked me in the eye.

“I am sure the Fausti family is looking for this coat. After all, why would they throw it in the trash? I am sure Matteo—that is his name, maman tells me—will only be too happy to offer me a reward once I personally deliver it to him.”

As she rose higher and higher on the steps, her laughter did wicked things to my skin as it floated down behind her. Her laughter was worse than the old potato sack. I had to fight the urge to not claw at my arms to get the feeling to stop. As soon as the door shut above, my entire body deflated. The tears came harder, faster, and I flung the sack to the floor as I plopped down in my chair, set my arms on the vanity, and cried into them.

These tears fucking hurt.

It was the first time I’d ever broken like this. Because it felt like the first time Régine and her spawn had ever stolen things that were close to my heart.

My hair .

My coat .

Small things that had become symbols of hope. Of…protection.

I’d never felt so alone. Not since I’d first arrived in Paris and, so confused, was led down into this dungeon and told I’d die down here.

All of my energy felt like it had been siphoned from me, but I forced myself to dig in the secret drawer no one but Henri and I seemed to know about. I counted the items and took a shuddering breath. All there. Even Matteo’s ring. I’d taken it from the coat and hidden it.

At least I had that.

My glossy eyes rose to the meet the reflection in the mirror.

Quietly, slowly, I released another sob at the sight of myself.

My hair.

My beautiful hair.

My mom’s hair.

All gone.

All that was left was a few scraggly longer pieces. The rest was sticking in all directions, too short to tame down unless I wet them. Even then, I wasn’t sure if they would cooperate.

Régine was right, though. The measly strands couldn’t fight the wig once it was over my head.

Of course.

She was letting me know she controlled that too. Even my hair would have to submit to her demands.

I stuck my hand in the vanity’s drawer, found the watch my mom had attached to my wrist when she had left me here, and started pressing the button.

Click.

Please come for me.

Click.

Please. Please. Please.

Click.

I miss you so much.

Click. Click. Click.

I clicked until I didn’t think it was safe anymore to continue. Then I climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling, wishing I could make a wish on a star, but it was the same theme as my life.

This world had trapped me in a bottle. I had no sky to call home.

If this was a sign of things to come…this phoenix might never rise again, and all that would be left of me would be ashes.