Page 19 of Kiss of Seduction (Court of Chains #1)

When the others were gone, it was just Evie and Natalya in the apartment, and suddenly the air felt heavy.

It wasn’t usually like this. Normally, Evie was at ease around Natalya—save for the confusing thoughts that occasionally gripped her—but there was something in her gaze that made Evie tense up.

Natalya was standing by the dining table, regarding Evie intently. It was the same look she’d worn when Evie talked to Lily on the couch just before. Stern and displeased.

“Are you angry with me?” Evie had moved from the couches to lean against the wall opposite the dining table. Natalya cocked her head.

“Why would I be angry?”

“I don’t know. We were laughing. Being loud. Maybe we were annoying you.”

“You were having fun. That could never annoy me.” Natalya’s voice took on a serious tone. “I know you lied to Lily. About the therapist.”

Evie looked away. “I didn’t lie.”

“‘Georgina says I’m doing fine.’ I believe those were the words you used. Did she really tell you that?”

“It doesn’t matter what she said. I’m fine.”

Natalya’s eyes got a strange glow in them. Like there were small fires in her pupils.

“I’m going to ask you a favor,” Natalya said. “Don’t use the words ‘I’m fine’ around me. I don’t care for them. I’d rather hear how you really feel.”

“I thought you could always tell what I’m feeling,” Evie said sharply. “That you could feel my emotions or whatever.”

She didn’t like that Natalya could sense her. Evie herself didn’t even know what she was feeling half the time. Why should Natalya be permitted the information?

“I may be able to sense them, but I don’t know the reason for their presence. And I don’t sense you all the time. If I don’t focus, only strong emotion gets through.” Natalya looked at Evie, eyes hard. “I am not owed your thoughts or your worries. But I would like to hear them.”

Evie bit her lip. She’d managed to keep her emotions locked down tight so far.

It left her numb, and numb was better than the pain she’d experience if she started to feel what had happened.

Sharing even one element of it felt like knocking over a domino.

If she opened up about one thing, everything else would come crashing in after it.

But Natalya was still looking at her. And Evie had a feeling she wouldn’t let up until she got what she wanted.

“She doesn’t get it,” Evie said after a moment. “Georgina, I mean. She doesn’t get what it was like.”

“With Varro?”

Evie took a sharp breath. She already hated this, already wanted to stop. It made her go on the offensive.

“Yes. And neither do you. No one does. No one can even begin to understand what it was like, and I’m tired of pretending they can.”

Evie closed her mouth tight. She’d raised her voice. She’d almost been yelling. Frustration and fear made Evie hug herself.

Natalya was silent for so long Evie thought the conversation was over. Then she leaned against the dining table, crossing her arms and regarding Evie with steely eyes.

“Do you know why I’m here? At the Court of Chains, and not in the realm where I was created?”

Evie shook her head.

“I was made in the fires of Sin,” Natalya said.

“A place of pleasure, pain, and everything in between. In a place of total freedom. A place I barely remember. 150 years ago, a human summoned me to this world. That summoning led me to a man named Roland Whitlock. For over two decades, I was bound to him, forced to endure his desires, his cruelties, and whatever he let others do to me. He forced me to be his slave.”

Natalya stopped, giving Evie a moment to understand what she was saying. What the implications of slavery meant for a creature like her. Even realizing that Evie couldn’t believe it. Natalya was so powerful and intimidating. To think anyone could hold her against her will was hard to believe.

“How did he do that?”

“The true name of a fiend is a powerful thing. In the hands of a witch or warlock, performing the proper rites and rituals, it can summon and bind one of our kind. Roland sacrificed much for the location of a text that held my name. I’ve since ensured there are no more of such texts.”

Natalya’s face was stern and emotionless.

“My indenture only ended because there was a fire at his home. It took his house and his family, and it broke the symbols he used to bind me. I was free of his influence. Free to do what I wanted. I could have gone back home. I killed him instead.” Her expression didn’t change as she said it.

“The punishment for killing your summoner is a millennium on the mortal plane. It was no price at all. I made him beg for it. I may not carry the same scars you do, Evie, but I understand the weight of them.”

Evie stared at her, stunned. Natalya’s voice was firm and unwavering. Her stance was confident and assertive. She was so strong. So in control. And she understood.

“I didn’t know you’d gone through that.”

“No one does.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

Natalya’s face changed for the first time since the conversation started. Her stern, serious expression softened a little. It was such a small change Evie wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t spent so much time looking at Natalya’s eyes.

“Because you needed to know.” She pulled out a dining chair. “Sit down. Please.”

Evie took a step to the side, distancing herself from the table. She didn’t care for this. This was moving in the direction of talking , and she already did plenty of that. With Georgina and with the patrol teams who interrogated her. She didn’t want to suffer it with Natalya too.

Would she make her? Force her to share, somehow? She already knew Natalya could read her emotions and even enhance them. Maybe she would do something to make Evie talk. Maybe she would get angry if Evie didn’t have satisfying answers.

“I just want to talk, darling,” Natalya said, the final word moving through Evie like a breeze. She said it so serenely. Just like she’d done in the kitchen and at Varro’s estate. It was calming then. It was that now too.

Natalya patted the back of the chair. “I’ll stop whenever you want me to. But I need you to try. For me. Can you do that?”

Evie didn’t want to. There were only few things she’d like less than this. But Natalya hadn’t asked if Evie wanted to. She asked if she could.

With Natalya, Evie felt like she could do things she otherwise thought impossible.

Hugging herself, she sat on the dining chair Natalya had pulled out for her. Natalya sat across from her.

“What do you want to know?” Evie asked, masking her unease by keeping her tone indifferent.

“Aleksander wants me to push you harder. Regarding what went on at the estate.”

Evie took a deep breath. This was just as she thought it would be. Awful, terrible talking and the forced recollection of painful memories.

“I’m not going to ask you about that,” Natalya said. “For now, I only want to know how you ended up with Varro.”

“Stefano noticed me,” Evie said bitterly. “And I was easy to take.”

“What about your family? I suspect Varro asked about them too.”

Evie had to fight not to lower her eyes. When he’d found out how rare she was, Varro had gotten adamant about finding more of her bloodline. He’d been disappointed. He wasn’t gentle when disappointed.

“I don’t have anyone.”

“Everyone has someone.”

“Not me.” Evie swallowed to keep her voice from quivering.

“I don’t know who my dad is. My mom got behind the wheel drunk and died in a crash when I was ten.

I had no other family, so I got put into foster care and was passed around until I turned eighteen.

” Evie’s voice turned cold. “Like I said. I don’t have anyone. ”

She’d told all this to Varro, but it was different here. It hurt to say these things in front of Natalya. It hurt to open up, showing all the facets of her past that made others cringe away.

Natalya didn’t cringe away. Evie wanted her to. It was what she was used to and what she had responses for. She mirrored Natalya’s hard expression.

“I have a record. Did you know that? Started moving drugs through the lockers when I was in high school. Got kicked out for it, and I never went back. I hung out around strippers and sex workers instead. I did—”

“Were they kind to you?”

The question stunned Evie into silence. Most people hearing about her past either got uncomfortably quiet or made an excuse to change the topic. They didn’t ask questions like that. They didn’t care.

They didn’t care about Patricia, who had been like a mother to her and who let Evie sleep on her couch after she ran away from home for the first time.

They didn’t care about Nell, who had let Evie move into her one-bedroom studio when she got kicked out of her apartment, saving her from living on the streets.

They didn’t care about Harper, a girl she loved like a sister, who sat with her in the ER all night when Evie broke her wrist after an altercation at the club they both worked at.

They had been her friends. Her family. They’d raised her more than the people who were supposed to.

She hadn’t talked to them in over a year. It was too risky. Varro might target them if he found out she’d contacted them.

“Were they kind to you, Evie?” Natalya repeated.

“Yes,” Evie said tightly. She didn’t trust her voice not to tremble if she didn’t strain it. “They helped me.”

“Helped you how?”

What the hell were these questions? Invasive and, at the same time, not. Questions with simple answers that were like needles going into her heart.

“They taught me things. Gave me a place to sleep. Fed me, sometimes.”

“It sounds like you did have someone then.” Natalya straightened slightly. “Who’s Amanda Forrester?”

Evie flinched at the name. She hadn’t heard it said aloud except through a phone speaker. She’d recorded the voicemail and played the audio almost every day. Just to hear Amanda’s voice.

“She’s no one,” Evie said.

Natalya’s stern eyes stopped her from continuing the ruse. There was no point.

“She was my girlfriend back in New Orleans. She’s…” Evie hesitated on the word, then forced it out. “She’s dead.”

The sudden gentleness in Natalya’s eyes almost made Evie cry.

“I’m sorry.”

Evie shook her head. Not in denial, but to combat the sob fighting its way up her throat.

“Did you love her?” Natalya asked.

“Yes.” Evie’s voice was a little uneven.

The words were coming easier now. “She made you feel like you belonged. She said I had hard eyes for everyone but her. Like I thought the world was dangerous, and it was out to get me.” Evie scoffed, and it came out sounding like a sniffle. “Turns out it was.”

“She sounds splendid.”

That was just the word for her. Amanda hadn’t been perfect. She was a passionate hothead with no organizational skills and no concern for the future. But she had been splendid. A light in Evie’s grim, emotionally deadened world.

“Stefano killed her,” Evie said quietly. “He was the one who procured me for Varro. The first one to…”

She balled her hands into fists. The memory was like a dagger in the chest rather than a needle. Hard, cold, and painful.

When she stayed silent, Natalya took her hand in hers. She ran her thumb gently over Evie’s skin. A soothing gesture that made the pain feel less heavy. Like she didn’t have to hold it all on her own.

“You are a very brave woman, Evie,” Natalya said. “Thank you for telling me.”