To Defend A Bride (Entangled with the Enduar #3)

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

MELISA

O nce properly bathed, I open the wardrobe—the largest piece of furniture in my entire room—and look at the excess of red and white.

Dozens of gowns, jeweled headpieces, and nighties are hung up on plain metal hooks. While the red colors are all rich in hue, the texture of the heavy cotton fabric is scratchier than the silky dresses that I wear to parties.

I despise this wardrobe for the long gowns, heavy underskirts, and thick stockings.

For a few days, I was free from breast-busting wraps that restrict my breathing. In Enduvida, they wear soft leather clothing and I even tried pants—gods, I miss the pants and practical shoes. The boots that line the bottom of my wardrobe have small, thin heels at the end to make me that much taller.

It's a pitiful attempt to breach the difference in size, but the giants still try.

My hand brushes over the dresses. I chose this color when my first dresses had been ordered.

Red.

Serpents often use their colors to warn away other creatures. Each hue dictates the level of danger, like the orange bands of the kingsnakes that lurk in the woods.

Red was like that for me. I could use it to show people exactly what I was—a temptress. A whore. If others judged me for wearing it, at least it was my choice.

Today, though, needed to be different. At least for the morning. Eneko would be at the yards until the afternoon, and I needed to visit the girls.

After selecting one of the simpler dull, red-brown gowns without any petticoats, I put on the underdress leggings, coil a black scarf around my neck, and slide on a black cloak before heading out.

Closing the door quietly, I sneak past the fence and into the woods.

Heading to Griselda’s house through the trees takes longer than the beaten path, but using it means that I avoid the guards. Usually, I’m not punished for leaving the house, but the guards are unpredictable.

The walk used to calm me, but today, my nerves are shot and frayed. It’s been more than a week since I’ve seen the girls. I put my hands into my pockets and brush my fingers over the crystal that Estela gave me. It gives me a measure of comfort.

It takes me nearly an hour to reach the slave pens. I duck under the hidden hole in the fence. It smells like unwashed bodies and human waste.

Exhaustion hangs in the air. We’re all used up, worn out, and tossed aside. The dens’ squat, crooked walls and uneven floors remind me of my childhood.

Golden late morning light spills through the small spaces between homes. A few slaves who no longer work due to age or illness are scattered around the crumbling buildings. They are wrapped tightly in threadbare clothes barely covering their skin. They sit in front of dens, staring at each other—almost as if eager for connection, to remember that they are not alone in this awful place.

Some look up from their idleness and scan me with eyes that are far too intelligent for their run-down bodies. As soon as they glimpse the reddish color of my hem, they frown and look away.

Despite that, I cast them small smiles, an uneasy pit forming in my stomach as I hurry to the den next to the elm. When I reach Griselda’s house, I hesitate. My stomach churns as I lean forward.

“…Don’t understand how it gets so tangled. It’s not like you do anything all day. I am the one who works around this house…” Griselda says in the human tongue.

Gritting my teeth, I push open the door.

The woman’s surprise starkly contrasts the frown lines etched into her face. She isn’t more than fifteen years older than me. I’d heard that some thought her beautiful once—we share long, pin-straight black hair, piercing brown eyes, and an elegant nose—but all I’d ever known was the sour woman sitting on the chair I gifted her.

A child stands in front of her. On the other side of the room, another girl sits with Coco, her hair freshly braided.

My throat tightens. They both have their faces downturned, and I can see the streaks of tears from here.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

Thea’s sadness melts away when she looks up at me from her seat across the room.

“Mamá!” ? 1

That word. I don’t deserve it; I haven’t been able to be her mamá once since she was born.

Wren, still caged in by her grandmother’s claw-like hands, smiles up at me.

“Lita me dijo que no ibas a regresar,” ? 2 Thea cries as she wraps her scrawny arms around my legs.

I reach down and gently touch her hair, worried that I’ll hurt her. I know firsthand how one’s scalp can hurt after Griselda’s styling.

Instead, I touch her back and feel her spine. My nostrils flair, and my jaw tightens. Heat splashes through my limbs. Neither girl looked so starved the last time I was here.

My gaze locks back onto Griselda.

“Why is she so thin?”

“You were gone for over a week. Your masters stopped bringing food—and there’s poison in the regular food. There was no way for us to eat,” Griselda says, sucking on her teeth. Her eyes are more sunken, and her jaw more pronounced.

“I gave you extra supplies before I left,” I say.

She shrugs. “They eat too much."

I grit my teeth. "Did you sell it? What did you get this time? Ayole powder?"

Ayole was a drug scraped from the tops of mushrooms that grew on the tallest trees. Griselda had dabbled in it when I was a child, but I thought she hadn't touched it in years.

My mother turns and looks at me. “You know, bread mysteriously showed up on our table last night. I don’t even want to think about what you did to get it.”

“Don’t change the subject. Did you feed them while I was gone?”

Griselda leans back. “I did for the first few days.”

I stand there, breathing deeply, wanting to scream and pull out this woman's hair. The agreement had been that I would provide for the family, and she would take care of my daughters. For most of the last three years, she’s done just that. But I’ve been growing worried.

“What the fuck?” I seethe.

“Don’t curse in front of the children,” she spits back. “Remember, I do this out of the goodness of my heart. You didn’t want to live with their father, and I helped you hide them. No one cared for you. No one let you in except me.”

She’s partially right. Once a slave has a child, they make you stay with the man who sired the babe. There was no way in hell I’d share Thea and Wren, even part time, with the sweating, disgusting man who’d raped me on a cold table.

The stakes only rose when Eneko picked me. He’d known that I’d gone to the breeding pens, but believed me childless. Working all day with a wrapped stomach made me lose most of the softness in my belly quickly, and Hibsej made me wear a dressing gown that covered the marks to sleep with him.

But Griselda doesn’t need to know that. She’s already started to become more reactive and less attentive, which is why I went to find the girls a new home.If she knew her watching them had anything to do with the giants, she’d cast us aside out of spite.

I didn’t realize she would change so abruptly.

"Tell me you won't do it again," I say, my voice low.

“I fed them this morning.”

"Promise. Me," I demand.

When she turns to look at me again, brown eyes burning, I see the woman who raised me and hated me for it.

“It isn’t easy to raise two young children alone.”

The room spins, and my stomach sours. Words sour on the tip of my tongue, ready to be spit out.

Don’t bring her with you to Enduvida.

My shallow breaths echo in my ears, and my jaw aches from clenching and grinding my teeth.

“I have provided food and peace for you and the girls for the last three years,” I snarl. When I take a step forward, pushing Thea behind me.

Griselda tightens her hands on Wren. I watch her dig her fingers into the taut flesh around Wren's neck.

“Yes. And how have you done that, mija ?” she throws back, eyes narrowing.

“I did what you told me: I found work.”

“I told you to become a whore?”

I cross the rest of the way, letting Thea stand with Coco as I yank Griselda’s hands off Wren.

“You told me that you would take care of the girls if I could take care of the family,” I shout.

“Yes. I did. You knew I was the better option because you aren’t fit to be a mother. Hell, I wasn’t either when they made me have you—but I learned. All that learning has benefited these two. Is it so wrong that I seek a godsdamned moment of peace?” Griselda stands up, her knobby joints cracking and her face turning red as she yells back, finger pointed.

“Yes. They need you all the time because they are children! ” My voice cracks on the last word. Legs that had held strong start to tremble, but not from fear.

"Well, you—“ Griselda starts just as the girls cling to my hips. Griselda makes an irritated sound and rolls her eyes. “Thea, Wren, stop that.”

A soft “ mamá ” sounds behind me, and I hug the girls close. Gods, they’re walking so well.

I feared this woman until I went to the breeding pens—her dazed indifference often followed fiery anger. I’d thought she’d gotten better when she started taking care of the girls. In the beginning, she was softer, kinder . Sure, she was furious with me, but that didn’t extend to Thea and Wren.

“I came back. You’re being fed now. I wanted to see them. If my presence offends you, give me a quarter-hour, and I will be gone before you return,” I seethe.

“This is my house. I refuse to leave it for you,” she says. Those amber brown eyes turn up at me, burning. “In fact, don’t come back at all. We were better off without your visits—all we need is the food you send.”

My mouth parts. Sometimes she’s like this—she says things she doesn’t mean—but this time, I don’t know.

If I could, I’d take them now.

“The food you’re given comes with my visits,” I insist.

Griselda narrows her eyes. “Get out.”

That awful, choking emotion rises inside of me. My shortness of breath returns at the thought I won’t be able to see them.

“But—”

“Mamá,” Thea whimpers, fingers digging into my skirts.

“Get OUT!” Griselda yells, waving her hands. “I don’t want you back here, mucking up my home with your filth.”

My hands go to my daughters’ heads. I look down at them. Wren’s brown eyes meet mine.

She looks afraid. Unsure.

I choke when I think about raising them. I wouldn’t be a good mother to them—I don’t know how to take care of their needs. Hibsej would probably try to have me killed if she knew.

The Enduares know how to care for children, and I’d thought I found someone prepared to do just that. But Ra’Sa told me he wants a mate to have his own children. Not some human man’s cast-offs.

I take a deep breath, barely swallowing down the panic creeping up my throat. When I look at Griselda, she’s still fuming.

“?Me escuchaste?” ? 3 she seethes.

“I will go, but I will find a way to check on them. And I swear, if they don’t start to gain weight, I will take them far away from here—from you. You will be alone, without any of the benefits my whoring brings you.”

It’s a bluff. I don’t have anywhere to take them yet.

Griselda opens her mouth, but I turn away and drop to my knees. I take both of my girls' faces and kiss their cheeks. Thea’s eyes go wide and her lip wobbles.

“Mamá, no te vayas. Por favor mami,” ? 4 she says in rapid-fire succession through bubbly tears.

“Shh,” I murmur, wiping away her tears, and then kissing her forehead. “This isn’t my last visit.”

Then I turn and kiss Wren, who has grown sullen and silent.

When I stand and face Griselda, my chest heaves. “Make sure you’re teaching them the common tongue. They can’t speak the human language forever.”

Griselda scoffs, all of her red-hot anger simmering down to numb nothingness.

"Leave," she says weakly.

“Remember that I love you,” I tell the girls as I walk out the door.

The phantom of the girls’ clinging to my dress remains as I straighten my cloak and step away from the den.

The girls’ tears hit me like a wave, almost making me turn back to barge into that room and comfort them as best as I can.

Instead, I break away and head back into the thick patch of trees past the gate. Once far enough away not to be heard, I kick the tree. It feels good. Hot breath pours from my lungs as I hit the tree again—funneling my frustration into the blows.

It hurts.

The skin on my right hand breaks, and I stop, gasping at the blood.

The sound of a hundred men marching makes me stop.

Fuck. Eneko will be home soon.

I need to leave, but something holds me back. Someone I shouldn’t give a damn about. Ra'Sa should be marching with these men.

And gods… he is.

Perhaps it’s the need for gentleness after being yelled at, but I watch him move and long to be held.

He walks at the front of the group. His tall, muscular arms are bare despite the winter chill. He carries his shirt in his arms, and his short hair hangs in mangey strands around his face as he shakes out the snow. The afternoon light seems to bend toward him and his tall frame. Everyone bends toward him.

He turns his head to the side, showcasing the graceful lines of his neck.

When he leans over to say something to one of the men, it’s almost as if I can feel the ghost of his breath on my neck. And when he graces the world with another one of his beautiful smiles, my heart constricts.

My head tilts to the side as I watch him go, and I slip around the back of the tree. He’s a mountain among men.

No, that sounds like a giant.

Ra’Sa is a volcano. Tall and stoic, but deadly.

He easily towers over the others. He would keep me safe.

But he wants his own babies.

I clutch my cloak tighter and hurry back to the cabin. I curse myself the entire way for wasting time.

When I make it through the copse of trees, my heart stutters, two shadows are visible through the curtain of the living room. They are shouting again.

“So that’s it? You’re going to fuck her with a stomach wound? I saw it—she can barely move. That’s why she’s not helping me with chores today!”

I hear something crash.

From one mess to another…

I inch closer to the house, sneaking around to the back, where I see the boys playing. They chase each other around the front of my room. An icy chill spreads from my spine down my arms. Was I gone too long? Did Hibsej try to check on me?

“She belongs to me! Just like your pots and pans belong to you. If I need her, I will use her,” Eneko yells.

“Not until she is healed!”

“And how long will that be? If I know you, this is a scheme to get me to touch you. Is it not enough that I sleep next to you, night after night? Am I condemned to my hand for the rest of time?”

“You will do anything not to fuck me!” she shouts back.

I creep forward, thinking that the boys are otherwise distracted, only for their eyes to snap onto me as soon as I exit the trees.

“Who’s that?” the youngest asks.

I drop the hood of my cloak. “Easy, boys. It’s me.”

They stare at me. Neither moves to approach.

“Ma left you something,” the oldest says.

I let out a long sigh and walk into my room. When I do, I’m greeted by three bags of laundry.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Pressing my hands to my face, I hold my breath and inspect one of the sacks. The smell of sweat and old clothes hits me square in the face.

I cinch back up the bag. If I let it stink up the whole room, it’ll be a miserable night for sleeping and it’s too cold to simply throw them in the snow. Using all my body weight, I shove them to the side as far as I can, and look around the room.

I pause.

Hibsej has been here, but no dinner?

As if on cue, the door behind me opens again. The doorway looks small in comparison to Hibsej’s form. Irritation and anger radiate off her in waves.

“Where the hell have you been?” she says.

I pause. “I had to visit my mother.”

“Fine.”

Hibsej enters the room and lights one of the torches on the wall. When the light splutters to life, the now-dried tear trails are still visible on her ruddy cheeks.

She holds a plate of food in her hand, which she throws on the table with a loud clatter.

“She told me you stopped leaving food,” I breathe.

Hibsej gives me a scathing look. “Of course I stopped giving her food.”

“But why?”

“Khuohr’s bloody mercy, girl. We all thought you were dead.” She laughs bitterly. “Taking on a comfort woman is meant to symbolize fortune. But really, it’s just a burden. We have no other slaves that tend to the house—other than you—so I must cook and give up parts of my pantry so you can steal my bed. I don’t do it out of the goodness of my heart—it’s an exchange.”

My gut twists as she speaks.

“Forgive me, Mistress Hibsej. I am very thankful for your generosity to my mother and sisters.”

“Fuck off.” Hibsej turns to look at me. “My husband has been invited to a feast of the lords and foremen tomorrow. Something to take everyone’s mind off of the godsdamned tension after the recent confrontation. You are going, so clean your finest dress while you work on all this.” She gestures to the bags of soiled clothing.

Tensing, I dip my head. “Understood.”

Her mouth hardens into a thin line, and she turns to leave. “In the morning, make sure to bandage your wound tightly. Eneko wants you in his room after the meal.”

“I will be prepared at nightfall,” I say.

She sucks her teeth and leaves.

I turn back to the table and find a burnt loaf and a few slices of meat. Weary, I pick up the food and the jug of water I keep inside my room. As I eat, I think of the girls. How had Griselda been so cruel?

My mind wanders through memories of the past. I think of the times when she was gentle before she'd ever called me a whore, when she told me that I was too pretty to let my hair get matted up like the other girls my age.

Griselda would tell such fine stories while she braided my locks, taking me on a thousand adventures.

I loved her. How could I not?

When she let me in, the light of her soul warmed me.

I shake away the thoughts. She isn't that woman anymore—she hardly ever was—and she doesn't have to come to Enduvida. Right now, all that matters is that my daughters are alive. Soon, I’ll be able to take them to a better place.

I'll need to send a message to Ra’Sa. We should meet tomorrow—I’m sure I’ll have something to share after the feast.

After I’m finished with Eneko.