Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

Dad was way too busy with the Constantine world to give me all that much of his time. He’d see us at dinnertimes, but it was barely more than a snippet of family life, and I had to share it with my brothers and sisters. I spent much more time around my bitch of a house mistress and the teachers in my class as they tried to get me to be a good girl.

Mom was cold, and always had been. I was nervous around her. She would always curse me and tell me I needed to learn my lessons, so I guess it was natural for her to agree with Uncle Lionel when he first suggested I have extra schooling. Religious schooling, he said. Reverend Lynch, he said.

I was sent over to Reverend Lynch and his schooling with one of our drivers. He dropped me outside the manor church in the rain one day, leaving me staring up at the towers on the driveway.

It was Margaret, his maid, who came outside to collect me. She was as stern as the rest of the people I’d come to know – taking hold of my hand and rushing me inside like I was already due a punishment.

The hallways were filled with huge sprawling paintings of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. I felt tiny and inferior as she marched me upstairs to my dorm room at the end of the corridor. The door was huge and oak and made a deep, dark creak as she opened it.

“This is where you’ll be staying,” she said.

My bed was a tiny single with a wrought iron header and footer. There was a bedside table with a plain white lamp, and a tapestry on the wall over it. The Lord’s purpose will prevail. I found myself wondering what the Lord’s purpose would be for me in this place.

They left me alone until dinnertime. Margaret came for me. She led the way downstairs to the dining hall, and I expected there to be many other girls like me there, but there were only two. Neither of them looked at me. I sat in the seat Margaret pointed me to, feeling edgy and scared. The other girls leaped to their feet and bowed their heads as a man joined us at the head of the table. I jumped up to join them, not quite sure what I was doing.

“You may be seated,” he said.

His voice was so firm it gave me shivers. He was an older man – much older than my father. He had gray hair and a beard and small eyes, and had a religious collar on, in deep, dark burgundy. He looked stern. Really damn stern.

I was given soup and ate it slowly, watching the way the other girls were so neat with theirs. I patted my mouth with a napkin and sat up straight in my chair when I was done, and tried to be like them, even though they looked nothing like me. Neither of them looked anything like me, they were both so quiet and meek as my mother would say.

I guess that’s what they wanted me to be like – meek. But I wasn’t meek. I was Elaine.

The other two girls were dismissed and scuttled away after dinner was done, but I was still sitting in my seat. The man at the head of the table cleared his throat and stared at me, and then he spoke.

“I’m Reverend Lynch, Elaine,” he told me. “I’m here to be your teacher and your connection to our Lord.”

I found myself nodding, but I was too scared to smile, and definitely too scared to speak to him.

“The lessons in this school are very strict and very soulful,” he said. “You’ll most certainly learn to be a good girl here.”

I should’ve been happy to be a good girl, I thought, but I wasn’t. I didn’t want to spend another minute in that place. The very last thing I wanted was to be like the other two girls.

Reverend Lynch held out his hand to me, and he had a big golden ring on one of his fingers.

“Kiss me,” he said, and I felt weird doing it. I didn’t usually kiss people’s hands.

His fingers were thick and warm. I didn’t like the way they felt against my lips, so I pulled away as quickly as I could. I felt strangely icky as he kept his eyes on me, like he was soaking into me somehow. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“You’re excused now,” he told me, and I gave him the natural thanks with a smile I didn’t want to give him.

He called Margaret in, and she led me back upstairs. I tried to ask her questions, like who the other girls were and who else would be staying with us, and where I could go in the building outside of my room.