In the meantime, Penny continued to listen to the woman's story where her aunt's eyes looked distant as she recalled what had happened, 

"Our family was happy but we more isolated compared to the rest of the other villagers. Children of my age refused to play with me and I had only her. While my parent's work had turned dire where they were having trouble bringing enough money back home. As time grew, the people who once were close to us, people who spoke to us or offered to stop by to talk started to avoid our very presence. Finally, after a few more years, I got married but Laure didn't like it...Before that she tried to have us separated, trying to seduce my very own fiance but she failed as I had caught her. We had a fight and I forgave her. Thinking she was only feeling insecure which she was, but I didn't know how vile she could be. When I was told that I was pregnant with a child, guess what she did?" 

Her aunt's eyes held contempt, her voice filled with pain, "She tried to kill it," the whispered words felt quieter than the room itself. Her aunt raised both her hands, "I lost my child before I could even see or hold it. Do you know the pain of losing a child?"

Penny didn't know how to feel about this. The mother that she knew and had grown up around was never like this, which was what made it hard to think that she could do something like this. The person she had grown up with, who had brought her had loved and taken care of her. 

"I am not making this up," her aunt added, her eyes glaring down at Penelope, "She tried to push me from the church stairs. No not tried, she was successful in it. If there is a reason why I can't bear a child anymore, the reason is her."

Damien asked, "Is that why you tried selling Penelope to the slave establishment? To find peace from avenging the death of your unborn baby?" the woman didn't respond but only stared. So it was true, thought Penny to herself. 

"My mother must have done it to you, but I did nothing but respect you, Aunt Lyse-"

"Don't!" the aunt warned, "Your mother was different from the very beginning and you are not far from it. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you aren't normal. You aren't one of us," she gritted her teeth that suddenly had Penny worried.

"You know..." she whispered. 

From the other side of the room, her uncle said, "I told you she was one of them and that only with time would her true colors show."

"Step out of the house," her aunt turned further hostile, "We didn't speak in fear for what could happen. As you know, people don't take a person's a.s.sociation well when it comes to other creatures. I at least thought you might be like us but you cannot be. You are her child after all. If this is all you came here for, leave before I report-" she stopped speaking when Damien took two slow steps towards her. 

"For someone to be called as her uncle and aunt, you aren't polite or grateful," he said in a bored tone with his eyes moving around the house and going to settle on the elderly woman, "What I did during my last visit was very basic."

"What are you going to do? Kill us? We aren't scared," the woman had stood up from her seat. Damien towered over her small self, unable to keep down the grin that crawled upon his face. He could feel her pulse race and also her husband's who looked at his wife with pure worry and panic. 

His words came out to be soft and quiet that needed people to listen to it keenly, "Death is too easy. I broke your husband's fingers last time. Would you enjoy a broken leg or have him lying on the bed forever in such a way that he would never be able to walk again?" the smile continued to stay on his lips, "You try speaking a word about Penelope, even so much as to breathe her name to others, I will make sure to turn your life to a living h.e.l.l. Do you understand that, peasant?" 

The woman could do nothing but glare at the pureblooded vampire. He as well as she knew that there was nothing she could do but swallow her insults down. 

"I have something to ask before we leave," spoke Penny to her aunt, her lips closing and parting again to speak, "Do you know anything about my father?"

Her aunt gritted her teeth, exhaling the air out to say as she tried to calm her mouth from running off and having her and her husband under the pureblooded vampire's threat, "She met him in another city. I had no interest in asking about her, therefore I never cared for whom she married. Our parents were blind and they got her married after me. After my parents died, which was the only reason I kept up my facade of tolerating her, I moved away from her and refused to meet her."

"Did she come to see you?" asked Penny.

"Yes, sometimes. I sent her away not wanting her to hover around me or my husband."