Read Online Uncharted Territory (The Compass Series Book 3) by Tamsen Parker - Free Book Online Page A

had called Hunter after brunch, and Hunter had invited me for dinner at his home. A home I’ve since been informed by Rey was purchased with family money—the same way I’m likely to purchase my first property—though Hunter’s job on Wall Street would probably be lucrative enough to afford it regardless.
    “No!” I’d mouthed at Rey.
    “Perhaps drinks. And someplace more…public would be more appropriate?”
    Hunter had acquiesced, said he’d text with the details, and here we are five hours later.
    He’s staring at me, waiting for an explanation, although he doesn’t seem impatient. I take another sip of my water and clutch the glass while my anxiety pings around my head. I don’t like talking about this, and I start to curl in on myself, make myself smaller. It would be embarrassing to have to excuse myself and I’ll probably regret letting my fear of something so ridiculous keep me from Hunter, but I don’t think I can do this.
    “Look at me.”
    I tear my eyes away from where they’d been fixed on the fine white linens on the table.
    “Sit up, take a breath, and then you’ll talk to me.”
    Though my parents have been scolding me for ages about my terrible posture and I generally slump more to spite them, Hunter’s demands don’t have the same effect. I want him to want me so badly, to feel that I am worth having. And when I do as he’s asked—straighten my spine, settle my behind into the chair, and fill my lungs with air that he’s breathed—I feel better. Willing to be persuaded by his coaxing, no matter how difficult it may be.
    “I have a sister. An older sister.”
    He must be confused by my spluttered non sequitur, but all he offers is a sip of his martini, a dip of his head, and a softly commanding “Go on.”
    I swallow and take another deep breath, finding comfort in following his instructions. “She doesn’t like me. Never has. She wanted my parents to take me back to the hospital when I was born. She used to blame things on me all the time and try to get me in trouble.”
    That probably sounds like standard sibling stuff, and maybe it would have been except that, as with most things, Ivy took her dislike of me to extremes. Destroying my school projects, ruining my clothes, dismembering my favorite dolls. She took a knife to the down pillows on my parents’ bed, threw the feathers all over, and told them I did it. Hunter seems neutral on the point. He must not have siblings.
    “She also used to tell me that I was a witch. Because of my eyes.”
    In a compulsion I can’t fight, I close them. I can’t say how much time I spent as a child with my eyes tightly shut, hoping to hide my freakishness from the world. My eyes made me different in a way that made people uncomfortable. I got teased about it some at school, but no one was as bad as Ivy. Again, Hunter’s voice echoes in my head, telling me to breathe. I look at him, try to be brave, and tell him the story he’s asked to hear.
    I want to be pretty and polished for him, so I swallow the sick and pretend I’m telling a fairytale. One of the original, incredibly horrid ones, not the Disney remakes. I never liked those much, was always more drawn to the dark tales that made me feel things I didn’t totally understand.
    “When I was six, and she was…old enough to know better, she decided to conduct her own personal witch trial and told me if I didn’t pass, our parents would send me away to live with the other witches. She looked up some of the real things they used to do during witch trials and put together her own.”
    My sister, the event-planner-in-training. I’m surprised she didn’t sell tickets. Her friends were always amused when she decided to torture me for their entertainment. Kids are the freakiest, most sadistic freaks. But this special event she’d kept to herself. I should’ve known that wasn’t a good sign. Even she was worried that she was going too far.
    “She—she hurt me.” My storytelling