Page 77 of Sold for Sin

And with that, I down the rest of the zhisk and walk in the direction of the gates.

Talking to my mother always makes me angry. She just has a way of getting underneath my skin that makes me want to rip my face off instead of talking to her.

“You need to move on.”

I replay the words she said to me over and over again, and I become angrier and angrier as I leave my family’s property and head to the Red District, stumbling over the cobblestone streets as I walk.

Moving on from Elvie, from our relationship, from her death, which almost killed me, which threatens to kill me every day, is easier said than done.

And knowing how my own family betrayed me after her death, by not attending the funeral rites and by telling the entirety of high society that her death brought shame to the Elenil family legacy, makes moving on even more difficult.

How am I supposed to move on when I have no support? How am I supposed to move on when I live with the weight of what could have been every single day?

How am I supposed to move on when all I can see, smell, and hear, after all this time, is Elvie?

My mother’s words just prove how cold-hearted she is. All she really is, is an attention seeking, social climbing bitch, with no regard for the children she brought into this world.

The children she’s supposed to love.

I don’t know how she managed to swallow her disappointment at Valkus’s union with a human woman.

“Althia will need to watch her back,” I say, my voice dark and low as I stumble past a tavern in the direction of the Red Kiss. “I wouldn’t put it past my mother to hurt her or worse.”

I finally arrive at the Red Kiss, and I am greeted by the bouncers, two miou dark elves who I know very well.

They nod at me with friendly smiles on their faces, and when I reach the bar, a drink is waiting for me.

At least I have this, I think to myself as I look down at the alcohol.

Because I have nothing else.

THE END.