Bound, An Arelia LaRue Novel #1 YA Paranormal Romance (15 page)

“
Now that doesn’t seem too
terrible, does it?” He asked. “It’s no justification for the
cruelties they endured, but if they were happy for just one moment,
it means that they suffered a little less.”

“
I guess. I mean under the
circumstances, but that still doesn’t make it right and will never
make it right.” I opened my eyes as Lucus dropped his hand from my
shoulders. In some weird way, he had made me feel less guilty about
lazing around on the grounds. He made me feel comfortable, but at
the same time inexplicably terrified and vulnerable. “So why did
your family decide to open Darkwood to guests this
summer?”

“
It was my idea. I thought
it was about time to share some of its magic with the public. Let
them see how beautiful it really is. The past can never be altered,
but that doesn’t mean the future has to be bleak as
well.”

“
It is gorgeous,” I
admitted. “Where does your family get the money to keep it in such
good condition? I mean the property is still in great shape
considering it’s so old.”

“
The LaPlante family fortune
runs deep. It’s vast and is centuries old.”

“
Must be tough,” I sighed at
the thought of having a vast fortune.

“
Arelia, trust me when I say
that money is not everything. The gift that you have is far more
valuable and can never be bought or sold.” His voice was full of
passion and conviction, as he tried to persuade me how hard it was
being rich. I wasn’t exactly buying it.

“
Of course it can. People
try to sell their soul to the devil all the time,” I
joked.

“
And look how that always
turns out,” Lucus darkly replied.

We sat in silence for a few moments
enjoying the breeze and the shade the oak tree provided. It wasn’t
an awkward pause. It actually felt so comfortable that I sensed my
eyes starting to get heavy. Being out in the sun all day wasn’t
something that I was used to and I never realized how much energy
it could take out of someone. Plus, yesterday I had spent the night
babysitting Ben and then Sabrina. I estimated that I got barely an
hour’s sleep between all the craziness. From where I was sitting, I
could smell Lucus. Given the fact that he was sweaty, he should
have smelled pretty gross, but he didn’t. He smelled rather
inviting.

“
Arelia!” Sabrina’s shriek
snapped me out of my nap. “What are you doing?”

“
Huh?” I opened my eyes and
realized that I had crashed from my sweet tea fuelled high and had
fallen asleep with my head resting on Lucus’s shoulder. Great,
first Sabrina had passed out, and now it was me. He must have
thought we were the most inadequate employees to ever have worked
at Darkwood. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled in embarrassment as I got up.
“I didn’t realize. I must have fallen asleep.” I was mortified, but
tried to keep calm.

“
It’s really not a problem.”
Lucus didn’t make a big deal out of me slobbering on his
shoulder.

“
Can I talk you for a
minute?” Sabrina grabbed my arm and pulled me away from where I was
standing. “Just give us a minute, please,” she said to Lucus, her
voice turning from bitter to sweet.”

“
Take your time,” Lucus
replied.

Chapter 11

The Good Fight

Sabrina was on a mission as she dragged
me away from Lucus and the guests. I knew she was furious, the grip
she had on my wrists was going to leave a mark of some sort. When
satisfied that we were far away from the crowd, she stopped in
front of a slave cabin and pulled me inside.

“
How could you!” she
instantly exploded. “You know that I like Lucus and you’re throwing
yourself at him.” I tried to take her seriously, but since she was
still in her bikini, it made it just a bit more
difficult.

“
What are you talking about?
I’m throwing myself at him, how exactly am I doing that?” There was
no way I was going to let her get away with her
accusations.

“
I wanted to spend time with
him today. I brought this stupid bikini, so he would notice me, but
instead he’s sitting under a tree with you, stroking your hair,”
she huffed.

“
Stroking my hair, what the
hell are you talking about? I fell asleep. That’s it,” I spat back.
Had Lucus been stroking my hair while I had been asleep? I wasn’t
sure if that was sweet or just plain creepy. Maybe he was a serial
murderer after all. Whatever the case, I hadn’t felt him stroking
my hair. I suspected that Sabrina was exaggerating a tiny
bit.

“
How convenient, that you
just happened to fall asleep on his shoulder!”

“
Maybe the reason I fell
asleep is because I’ve been doing double the work I’m supposed to
be doing, while you’re off chasing some guy.”

“
Some guy, Lucus is not some
guy.” Sabrina’s fair skin was getting blotchy like it usually did
when she was angry.

“
What is he then? You’ve
known him for what two days and you seriously think you’re going to
marry him. Get real. You don’t even know if he has a girlfriend or
who knows he might be gay.”

Sabrina looked as if I just had slapped
her across the face with a French baguette. From my experience at
Lola’s, I knew those loaves of bread could be utilized as deadly
weapons.

“
Who cares if he does,” she
shrugged. “I know he’s falling in love with me and you’re just
ruining it by sneaking off with him whenever you can.”

“
I haven’t been sneaking off
with him. He’s the one who wanted to talk to me.” I justified my
behavior even though I didn’t have to.

“
Sure, blame him. I know you
want his attention; you even blow-dried your hair and wore tinted
moisturizer and mascara today. Why else would you do
that?”

“
I can’t look decent? Only
you can load on globs of crap on your face. I don’t get you. You
always tell me that I need to put in a little bit of an effort, and
when I finally do, you think I’m competing against you.” I felt my
blood starting to boil and my fingers starting to clutch, as a
means of controlling my rage. “You’re such a hypocrite!”

“
Oh, please Arelia. I’m sick
of you always playing the victim card. Poor me, I don’t have any
parents, I’m not pretty when you know you have it all.”

“
Really?” I crossed my arms.
“Tell me Sabrina, how exactly do I have it all? Go ahead, please
enlighten me. I’m dying to know.”

“
Just like you to be
sarcastic,” she bitterly mumbled.

I ignored her comment. “I’m waiting,
please do enlighten me.”

“
You always claim that you
don’t care about boys or the way you look, but you know you’re
gorgeous. Your skin doesn’t get blotchy, and your eyelashes are way
longer than mine even when I have fake ones on with clumps of
mascara. You know that any guy at school would go out with you in a
heartbeat.”

“
I don’t care. You know all
I want to do is get out of my shitty apartment and go to college,
not become some kind of stepford wife like you.” I knew that
statement was below the bikini line, but at this point I just
couldn’t help myself. My words were spewing out like venom, and it
felt exhilarating.

“
Have you ever thought that
maybe some of us aren’t as smart as you and that the only hope of
happiness we have is becoming a so-called stepford wife. Not all of
us have to work, my mother never had to, so why should I? I’m not
guilty about being privileged. Besides, from what I can see, you’re
treading in stepford land given the attention you’re giving
Lucus.”

“
You’re insane, do you hear
yourself? How am I giving any attention to Lucus? You’re the one
who stayed up all night talking to him, and dancing with
him.”

“
Shut up Arelia, you know I
was lying about that.”

“
What are you talking
about?” I pretended I was clueless.

“
I passed out, but woke up
when you came in the room.”

“
Why didn’t you say
anything? I was so worried about you and you were awake all along
eavesdropping into our conversation?”

“
I didn’t want to spoil your
little flirtation. I heard it all. I see the way you look at him. I
may be stupid, but I’m not blind.”

“
You’re not stupid.” I felt
bad for her, staying awake there listening to us talk. Shit. Had
she heard the part about the snake bite and the swamp too, if she
had she hadn’t mentioned it yet. “You are delusional though.” I hid
my fear by continuing the argument. “We’ve known him for two
days.”

“
It doesn’t matter,” she
replied with confidence. “After you left last night, Lucus and I
had sex.”

“
Good for you.” At this
point, I really didn’t care.

“
It was magnificent,” she
wickedly taunted. “He told me how beautiful I am and swore that he
was falling in love with me. He was rather insatiable. We did it
three times or was it four?” She tapped her finger against her
forehead making it seem like she was trying to remember. “He may
have given you chocolates, but he gave me something much better.
Yeah, I know the chocolates weren’t for me, I read the card. You
left it on the table.”

“
I couldn’t care less,” I
maintained.

“
Sure you do,” she
continued. “You shouldn’t be surprised though, men do prefer
these,” she pointed to her boobs, “over those,” she pointed to mine
trying to demonstrate the considerable difference in their
size.

“
That’s so mature. I thought
we were past junior high school.”

“
We may be, but boys will
never be.”

“
If you’ve already had sex
with him and know that he prefers you over me, why the hell are you
telling me to stay away from him? We’ve been best friends all of
our lives when have we ever let a silly boy come between us?” It
was the truth, this was the first time we had an argument over a
guy, and it was getting very ugly.

“
Because this is the first
time I know you like the same guy as I do, so I’m just warning you
if you compete against me, you will lose. That’s a promise.
Besides, guys don’t like freaks, they like nice, normal girls who
won’t complicate their lives.”

“
What do you mean by that?
Are you implying that I’m some kind of freak?”

“
Cut the crap Arelia. Like
you said, we’ve known each other our whole lives. You really think
that I’m so self-absorbed that I never noticed the spirits that
you’re always mumbling to? Now, Lucus knows it too given your
little show in the swamp last night and all.”

“
You knew. You knew,” I
repeated trying to come to grips with what I had just heard. “All
of these years you knew about that and you never said one word. Not
a single peep came out of your thin, little lips.” I knew she hated
the fact that her lips were so thin. Hey, if she took a jab at my
boobs, I had a right to take one at her lips.

“
Why should I have? I don’t
want to get involved in that freaky crap and neither do you
apparently.”

Now she had hit a soft spot, and I
could feel tears starting to form. I rarely cried, but knowing that
Sabrina had never lent me any sort of support knowing how hard it
had been for me all of these years pretending to be normal was too
much. “Then don’t.” I fought my tears. “Don’t be involved, I don’t
need you.”

“
I have no intention of
being pulled into your world,” she cruelly screamed. She left me
standing alone in the cabin.

Upon her exit, I fell to the ground and
started sobbing. I let the tears stream down my face freely and
didn’t care if anyone overheard me. This whole situation was so
confusing to me. I couldn’t believe that my best friend had just
classified me as a freak. Sure, I knew I was different, but up
until this point no one had called me a freak. I knew that I wasn’t
supposed to care what others thought, grand-mere Bea had taught me
to be proud of myself, but it was Sabrina, she was family. I
thought we were sisters. Despite, our differences and fights over
the years, it had never gotten this dirty before. Why was she so
threatened by me and what she perceived as my relationship with
Lucus? I had never done anything to betray her trust, but all of a
sudden she was acting like I was the enemy.

I sat on the dirt floor for what seemed
like hours, when in reality it was probably only a couple of
minutes. Around me, I could hear what sounded like the beating of
drums and chanting. It was savage, rhythmic, and at the same time
absolutely tantalizing. The drumming put me in a trance, and for a
few minutes, I was able to connect with the ghosts of the slaves
visiting the cabin. They whispered in my ears stories of tragedy,
death and betrayal. Their wails were woeful and full of turmoil.
They cried about their plight as slaves and the cruelties they
endured to attain freedom. I could feel them giving me strength and
trying to comfort me with the knowledge that if they had the power
to go on, then so did I. They told me, they sometimes chose to come
back to Darkwood because the oak trees were so peaceful. They were
happy and at last finally free from oppression. They spoke of
destiny and how sometimes we were chosen to do things that others
were too weak to do. Despite the hardships, they had faced, and the
wounds that had left them scarred, not all of them were bitter.
They told me that everything would be alright, but I did need to be
careful, because after this summer, life would never be the same
for me. Eventually, the drumming stopped and I was left alone. I
felt silly, sitting there and crying my eyes out over an argument
when life could be so much crueler than it was, but I was hurt so I
allowed myself to cry.