Filed To Story: Spit or Swallow: Kiss Of The Basilisk
“No.”
Tem raised her eyebrows. He’d answered that awfully quickly.
At the look on her face, Leo softened. “He won’t be pleased, Tem. I’d rather you not hear what he has to say.”
Protecting her again.
Tem nodded, because it was just easier that way. She didn’t particularly want to hear what Maximus had to say either. She could only imagine the criticism he would impart on his son. No doubt it would only be worse if the object of his vitriol was present.
“I’m going to tell my mother,” she said.
Leo nodded. “I look forward to meeting her properly.”
Tem smiled, remembering the time he’d kissed her on the porch while her mother was in the kitchen.
They parted ways in the foyer, and Tem said a silent prayer for the prince as he disappeared behind the parlor doors. Part of her actually did want to see Maximus’s reaction when Leo told him he would be marrying Tem. But the other part of her was tired of the king’s cruelty, and she figured the crest was revenge enough.
Tem spent the long carriage ride to the village watching the sun rise. When she reached her cottage, it felt like an eternity had passed since she’d last been there. And yet everything was just as she remembered it. The garden was slowly dying under the autumn chill. The front porch was still sloped. Everything was the way it had been for the past twenty years.
Everything except for Tem.
When she entered the kitchen, her mother looked up from the stove.
“The prince has proposed,” Tem said simply.
Her mother’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Tem,” she cried, crossing the kitchen and gathering Tem into a tight embrace.
Tem embraced her back. “I have accepted,” she continued. “And the wedding is tonight.”
Her mother pulled away. “Tonight? That’s…quite soon.”
“I know.”
“I’m afraid I will have nothing to wear.”
Tem waved her off. “We’ll find you something.”
Her mother tilted her head. “Is everything in order, my dear? You do not look…joyous.”
Tem didn’t feel joyous. She felt only deep-seated anxiety. There were too many balls in the air-too many things that could go wrong.
“I’m just…in shock,” she said.
“But why? The prince has always favored you.”
As soon as she said it, Tem knew it was true. But that didn’t mean she was joyous. It only meant she felt guilty Leo had to share her.
“Tem.” Her mother took her hands gently in hers. “Talk to me.”
She sighed. Why lie anymore? “I love another,” Tem said simply.
Her mother’s eyebrows rose. “Who?”
“Caspen.”
Her mother frowned. Tem knew she would recognize the distinctly basilisk name. She watched as the truth dawned in her eyes-as her mother realized that history had repeated itself. “Foolish girl,” she whispered, looking down at Tem’s hands and running her thumbs over her freckles. “Just like your mother.”
You hold the stars in your hands. Just like your father.
Tem clasped their fingers together tightly. “It is not foolish to fall in love, Mother. I have been many things, but I’m not a fool. And neither were you.”
Pain flashed in her mother’s eyes. She dropped Tem’s hands and crossed to the kitchen window. “Perhaps you are right,” her mother sighed. It was a long moment before she turned back to Tem, asking, “Why are you marrying the prince if you love another?”
“I love the prince too.”
Silence settled in the kitchen, broken only by the occasional crow of a rooster.
Tem broke it. “May I ask you something?”
“Of course, my dear.”
“Do you still love my father?”
Her mother turned once more to the window. Morning sunshine dappled her face. “Love is complicated. It never goes away, only changes.”
Tem had never heard her mother speak so vulnerably. She pictured her next to Kronos, wondering how they would look together. It seemed a simple thing for other children-to see their mother and father in the same room. For Tem, it would be a miracle.
“It is true that I left your father,” her mother continued quietly. “But it was not what either of us wanted.”
Tem nodded, thinking of how her father had belonged to the Senecas-how that quiver wasn’t open-minded about courtships between humans and basilisks. Tem had never considered the ritual she’d endured a blessing. But now she realized she was lucky it had even been offered as an option. If Caspen’s quiver hadn’t allowed her to prove herself, their relationship would have suffered-maybe even ended-just like her mother’s had.
She thought of how her mother had prepared her for her first night in the caves, how she’d rubbed the special oils on her thighs. At the time, Tem thought she’d need courage to have her first kiss. But perhaps her mother had wanted her to be brave in another way: brave enough to ask for what she wanted and to settle for nothing less. Brave enough to fight for those she loved. Brave enough to do what she hadn’t.
Her mother continued quietly. “Your father said he would still visit me, but he did not. I assumed he had chosen another.”
How wrong her mother was.
“Mother,” Tem said, and she knew what came next would change her world forever. “I met him.”
A curious expression passed over her mother’s face-one of absolute hope. “How can that be?”
Tem had to remember that her mother wasn’t connected to the basilisk world anymore. She had no concept of anything that had happened since she’d parted ways with Tem’s father. She didn’t know about the bloodletting, about Bastian’s plan to seize power. Tem couldn’t fathom explaining everything that had happened. Instead, she said, “He was captured and imprisoned by the royals. They’re keeping him at the castle.”
Her mother’s face went slack with shock. “He’s been imprisoned?”
“Yes. He’s…weak. But alive. The prince plans on freeing him.”
“So he…” Her mother didn’t finish her sentence.
Tem finished it for her: “He did not choose another.”
It was a curious thing to watch her mother experience joy. It wasn’t something Tem saw often. They lived a hard life on the farm after all. Joy reared its head rarely-on holidays or when they exchanged gifts on birthdays. But it was fleeting, circumstantial. What she saw now was true, unencumbered happiness, mixed with deep relief. Tem couldn’t help but smile.
Love is complicated. It never goes away, only changes.
“My dear, I…must know more.”
They sat at the kitchen table. Tem told her more.
She told her what had happened since the first night in the caves, how serious things had gotten with Caspen and also with Leo. Her mother listened and told stories of her own. They sat in solidarity, mother and daughter, sharing pieces of their lives with each other.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.