Page 6 of The Forsaken Heir

“No, it’s too good,” I said. “I feel like I’ll be missing out if I try something else and it isn’t as good.”

“Screw it,” Delphine said. “Let’s have dessert first.”

While I took the cheesecake out of the box, Delphine pulled out a knife, forks and a couple small plates.

“Here,” she said, sliding the cake toward her. “Let me do this. You’ll make a mess of it.”

“I can cut it,” I argued.

She gave me a terse look before going to work on the dessert.

She’d been my nanny when I left home, but her duties had ended when I turned eighteen.

She’d chosen to stay with me as a companion.

A friend. I didn’t know how to thank her for that.

I had no one else. I’d even forced her to continue taking a salary out of my monthly stipend.

She’d argued about that at first, but in the end I’d won.

“How was your day?” Delphine asked, sliding a plate toward me.

I sighed and sliced off a bite-sized piece of cheesecake with my fork. “It was fine, other than getting hit on by a douchebag right before I came home.”

“What kind of douchebag ?” she asked, her face crinkling with distaste at the word.

Delphine was in her early fifties, but with shifters aging slower, she looked more in her early thirties. Her youthful looks didn’t change the fact that she had some more old-fashioned ideals, though. She wasn’t a huge fan of vulgarity.

“Some pretty boy business guy. You know the type. They spend more money on haircuts and skincare than most women do. Total prick.”

She frowned at my use of the word ‘prick’ but instead of saying anything took a bite.

Delphine was uncharacteristically quiet for a few minutes as we ate, then asked a few more cursory questions about my day. I frowned. Something was off. She was being weird.

“Okay,” I said, putting my fork down and crossing my arms over my chest. “What’s up?”

“Hmm?” she grunted, glancing up at me guiltily. “What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Tell me whatever it is that’s running around in your head.”

Delphine put the fork down and slid her plate away. “All right.” She sighed. “It’s about your youngest brother Frederique.”

“Freddy?” I asked, sitting forward. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

“He’s…uh…well, he just got engaged,” Delphine said.

I relaxed. “Oh. That’s exciting.”

It was the only response I could give. I missed Freddy terribly.

I’d only seen him a couple of times since my banishment to human life years ago.

He and my little sister Sophia, were the polar opposite of Bastien.

He’d been jealous of me being the rightful heir to the family.

When I was banished, he’d been giddy. As much as I hated him, I missed the other two terribly.

Hearing that Freddy was getting married made my head spin.

In my head, he was still the little snot-nosed kid who had hugged me for dear life on the day I’d left.

A deep and unrelenting ache filled my chest thinking of him.

He and Sophia had been my best friends. The ache deepened.

I hadn’t seen Sophia even once in all these years.

Truthfully, that was the most gut-wrenching part of being sent away.

Sure, there were others missed—others who had been kind to me like my aunt Collette—but it had broken my heart to leave Freddy and Sophia behind.

Delphine walked to the letter desk we kept by the door and pulled an envelope out of the drawer. Even from a distance I could see the red wax seal. My family crest.

“You received a letter from your family. Delivered by a Laurent family courier. He was the one who told me what was going on.”

Delphine handed the letter over. From the look on her face, I couldn’t help but assume she thought it was an invitation to the wedding. She had a hopeful glimmer in her eye as she watched me turn the envelope over in my hands.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said.

She clutched her hands together at her chest, twisting her fingers together anxiously. “It could be an invitation. You don’t know it’s not, Elle.”

“One way to find out.” I snapped the wax seal in half and slipped the thick vellum paper out.

D earest Brielle,

I hope this letter finds you well. We really must converse more often.

I do miss the little chats we used to have.

In light of the fact that I’ve apparently neglected to send you a Christmas gift the last several years, I want to make that up to you.

I want you to enjoy a relaxing vacation at our ocean-front villa in one of our vacation homes in Costa Rica.

Since I’m sure that little job you have at that quaint sewing shop won’t mind you leaving for a restful week last minute, I went ahead and booked you.

See the dates below. A confirmation for your plane ticket will arrive via email next week.

B est,

Mom.

I snorted a bitter laugh. Our little chats ?

My mother and I hadn’t chatted since I hit puberty.

Her and Dad both sort of turned their backs on me.

Bullshit. Best ? She couldn’t even write the word love .

This was more like a business email than a note from mother to daughter.

I glanced down at the dates, then looked up at Delphine.

“Did that courier tell you when Freddy was getting married?”

She looked away, unwilling to meet my eyes.

“Apparently he became engaged a few months ago. The wedding is in a few weeks, a little while after the gala.”

Of course they’d set the date for then. The one time of the year when all wolf and dragon shifters came together with the fae to mingle and talk.

It was the only place where violence was forbidden.

There’d been no outbreak of fighting at a yearly gala in over eight centuries.

All the way back to when it had been called the banquet rather than the gala.

I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t been to one since before my exile.

My parents would want an even bigger event right after the gala to show off and one-up everyone. Hence my brother’s wedding.

“I think the courier said it’s set for the first week of November,” Delphine continued, glancing up at me. “Why?”

Tossing the letter down in disgust, I said, “Oh, no reason. Mom ”—I sneered the word—“sent me this letter to let me know she was sending me out of the country during the exact week my baby brother is getting married.”

“ What?” The look of pure devastation on her face wiped away some of my anger.

No matter how many years went by, Delphine had always held out hope my family would see the error of their ways and bring me back into the fold.

Sometimes her optimism got under my skin.

I’d come to grips with the world and my place in it a long time ago.

Part of me thought Delphine was still pining away for the days she’d served the Laurent family.

She was unequivocally in my corner and the most dedicated companion I could have, but I knew she missed her old life—even if she never admitted it.

If it weren’t for her love of me and her wish that I not turn into a hermit, I was sure she’d have gone back as soon as I came of age.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound as blasé as I could. “It’s fine. I figured something like this would happen. Come on.” I smiled at her. “Let’s finish our cheesecake, then we can order some delivery. How about Chinese? I could go for some General Tso’s.”

Delphine smiled weakly and sat down. “Sure. Yeah. That sounds good.” After a second, she opened her mouth again, most likely to apologize, but thank god, she didn’t. I don’t think I could take that. Instead, she closed her mouth and went back to eating.

Delphine, I’m sure, thought I was living in some awful purgatory, but really, I had a pretty cushy life.

I didn’t have to worry about money, my job wasn’t in the least bit stressful, and I could pursue my own interests at my will.

The only real issue was my lack of friends.

Other than Delphine, I had no close acquaintances apart from the ladies at the sewing shop.

I had nobody to really hang out with. For one thing, even though I couldn’t shift, I still had shifter genes, which meant I aged much slower than humans.

At twenty-seven, I’d pretty much stopped showing signs of age a couple years before.

I would probably be in my fifties, like Delphine, before I started aging physically again.

That wasn’t easy to explain away to humans.

“I’m going to call in the order,” Delphine said. “Anything you want me to add before I do?”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Egg rolls. Oh, and crab rangoon.”

She smiled and headed for her room. “You got it.”

When she closed the door, the smile slipped from my lips.

Not only did I have no human friends, I had no shifter friends either.

Part of the stipulation of my exile was that I not bring attention to myself or meddle in the world the Laurent family tried to control.

They were always worried about what the dragons were doing.

The Decimus royal family was our mortal enemies.

I never really understood why. You’d think two magical species would be better off as allies than enemies, but what did I know?

I was the worthless, rejected eldest child of a great house.

Who cared. I had Delphine and my cheesecake. What else did a girl need?

Delphine went to bed early after dinner.

I said goodnight to her, then scooped up a thick, wool blanket and walked out onto the balcony.

The sun had fully set, and the city lights and car headlights below looked like diamonds flickering across the inky blackness of the night.

Whenever I stood out here, I appreciated how nice my apartment was.

The high-end penthouse would have been impossible to afford on the meager salary I received at the sewing shop.

I wrapped myself up in the blanket and sat in one of the patio chairs.

I’d tried all night to forget my mother’s letter, but now it crept back to the forefront of my mind.

What would it be like to be back in the world of shifters?

I’d been gone so long that I wasn’t even sure I could fit in again, even if my family changed their minds.

While my thoughts worked through a hundred different possibilities of how I’d make my way in that world, my eyelids slowly slipped lower and lower until sleep claimed me.

I flinched awake sometime later and glanced around, completely discombobulated until I realized where I was.

Sitting forward, I winced at the ache in my neck and back.

I must have been asleep for a few hours.

Below, the city was quieter. Fewer cars moved down the streets, and most businesses were dark.

“Jesus,” I muttered as I stood. “I need to go to bed.”

Before I could grab the door handle, a strange, musky scent caught my attention.

“What is that?” I whispered as I sniffed the air.

A silky, nearly silent sound rang out above. Fwap-fwap. Before I could look up to see what caused it, something dropped onto my head. Letting out a yelp of surprise, I tried to shove at the thin ropes woven into a web.

A net ?

Panic shot through my heart as the net cinched around me, and I was lifted into the air. I never even had time to scream for help as I was carried away into the night.