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Chapter 7 - A New Puzzle Piece

That's when a new puzzle piece arrived—sharp-edged, gilded, and grinning. Her name was Miss Genevieve Addison, and she floated in on a cloud of white lace, sugared perfume, and the type of practiced grace that could smother a fire while smiling. A Southern belle carved from porcelain and iron, with honey-blonde curls coiled like a crown, cheekbones high enough to cut, and a voice that could slice sugar cubes into quarters without raising an octave.

She wasn't cruel—at least not in the ways that left bruises. She didn't scream, didn't slap, didn't grab. But her kindness had boundaries made of glass, and her silences were louder than any scolding. She arrived with two handmaids in tow, each cloaked in moon-dyed fabric and never more than three steps behind her. Her wings—delicate and veined with faint opal shimmer—were so elegantly folded they gave the illusion of a bell-shaped gown cascading behind her. It wasn't until she turned that one could see the wings were real, not costume.

Genevieve hailed from distant royal fae blood, though few knew what kingdom or court she once called home. Whatever power ran through her lineage clung to her like perfume—heady, elegant, dangerous. Rumors flew through the manor before she even stepped inside, whispered behind trays and closed doors. Some said she'd been exiled, others claimed she left her court by choice. But when she arrived, she put it plain as a southern belle sipping sweet tea: "I came to see the fool who spends royal coin on swamps and shadows."

Her voice dripped molasses and menace in equal measure. The way her eyes flicked to Ayoka with every turn of her polished heel told the truth: she hadn't come for Viktor. She'd come to examine the new pet, the dark ribbon of rumor now tied around Viktor's arm.

She toured the manor like a queen measuring a throne she had already outgrown. Every glance from her was a cut, every blink a dismissal. Her smile carried the weight of velvet-coated daggers, and every word she offered came braided with suggestion and scorn. The staff called her a true lady of the house—but Ayoka knew better.

There was something venomous in Genevieve's sweetness. She wasn't here to reclaim a man. She was here to take the measure of her competition—to see if the rumors were worth bleeding over. But Ayoka felt... nothing. Not fear. Not offense. Not even curiosity. She played her part with care, let her posture reflect composure, but deep down, Genevieve didn't stir her in the way real danger did.

Let the woman speak. Let her walk pretty circles around Viktor's world. Ayoka had seen sharper smiles on wolves and better lies dressed in cotton.

"Let her look," Ayoka thought, eyes forward. "She won't find anything she knows how to break. I wasn't made for her rules."

Ayoka was introduced only once—"a domestic girl helping care for the grounds"—a title spoken with deliberate plainness. Genevieve had nodded with the faintest curve of her lips, the kind of smile meant for children you don't plan to remember. She requested a room on Ayoka's floor, and Viktor, silent but compliant in her presence, granted it. That was the first sign—the way his posture bent slightly near her, his voice careful, his gaze sharpened. Genevieve didn't demand obedience—she drew it from the bones.

For three days, Genevieve drifted through the manor like a perfume that refused to fade—clinging, suffocating, overstaying its welcome. She wandered into rooms she had no claim to, lingered in hallways she had never known, and spoke of the southern heat like it had personally offended her. And though her eyes passed over Ayoka more than once, she never said her name. Not once.

Until the second morning.

Ayoka, barefoot and half-distracted, cradled Malik as she walked the east hallway. A simple moment. A fragile breath in the day. Then Genevieve appeared at the opposite end, framed by light like the ghost of something that still had claws. Her eyes found the baby—and paused.

Her lips held a smile, but her spine straightened like she'd been slapped. The air changed. Slowed. Her gaze traveled from Malik's soft face to Ayoka's still one, and back again. Not a word passed between them, but it didn't have to. The hallway thickened with something unspoken—ancient, sharp, and cold.

That afternoon, Ayoka found Viktor in the garden, of all places. He sat on a stone bench, Malik resting against his chest. The baby could barely hold his head, yet Viktor cradled him as if he were made of music. And for a flicker of time—a heartbeat's hesitation—Ayoka saw a softness in Viktor that made her breath still. Not love. But interest. Focus. The recognition of life that mattered.

Above them, on the second-floor balcony, Genevieve stood like a painted threat—statuesque, her porcelain teacup unmoved. Her gaze locked on them, a perfect portrait of elegance, and yet her lashes dripped venom with every blink. The sun lit her like a blessing. Her eyes cursed like a promise.

The next time Ayoka passed her, Genevieve was alone. She didn't stop walking, and Ayoka stepped aside to let her through. But as they brushed shoulders in the narrow passage between the dining room and the study, Genevieve leaned in and whispered so cold it chilled Ayoka's bones: "You're lucky that useless child of yours is safe. If he'd been born in the house I was raised in, he'd have been killed—or maimed—before he cried twice."

Then she smiled—a saccharine curl of the lips meant for anyone who might be watching. To most, it looked like pleasantry. To Ayoka, it tasted like poison. She didn't flinch. She didn't speak. But something inside her peeled open like a fresh wound, raw and pulsing beneath her ribs.

That night, when the house fell into quiet and Malik slept curled like a comma against her chest, Ayoka sat beneath the moonlight and remembered. She remembered the plantation before the auction block. The one where the women whispered wisdom in shadows—how to give birth in secret, how to hide a child in the crawlspace, how to feign illness to delay being sold while still bleeding.

She remembered the scream of a mother whose baby had been drowned in a washtub for having "too much of the master's nose," for being "too light to be trusted." Wives, bitter and bored, had twisted their rage into policy. It was never the man who bore the blame—it was always the woman, the slave, the one who had no power to say no. And the wives, they forgot: they were captives too, even if their cages came with lace.

Ayoka had been fifteen when she saw a boy's body dragged across packed earth by the ankles. The master's favorite pet had given him a son—but the master had no use for a boy. A girl could be dressed up and kept quiet. A boy could grow teeth. From a shaded veranda, the master's wife had smiled at the grieving mother and said, "There. Now you can make a better one."

Ayoka still woke in a sweat from that memory. She hadn't understood motherhood then. But now she did. That threat—killed or maimed—wasn't just words. It was a memory weaponized.

She had been luckier than most. Viktor had believed her story—because it was true. She looked down at Malik's peaceful face, his tiny hand resting warm against her collarbone, his breath soft with dreamless sleep.

"I won't let them hurt you like they did that child," she whispered to the night. "I'll fight. No matter what they do to me. I'll protect you to my last breath."

As the words passed her lips, her breath fogged the air. The room had gone cold, despite the heat outside. Something scuttled just beyond the edge of the firelight.

But Ayoka didn't blink. That was the least of her worries.

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