3: 3

"You've still got time to play on your phone? Get over that threshold and take your humbling ritual, now."

Zara Lambert reached out to grab me. I stepped back out of her hands.

I looked at her, cold, my voice all mockery. "Did progress just skip this whole town somewhere back in the day? Your heads are stuffed full of feudal relics, and now there's a humbling ritual too. If you're all so happy keeping these rotten little rules, keep them yourselves. I'm not an idiot."

"Let me be clear. You can talk yourselves blue, and I still won't go through with this wedding."

Zara's face twisted at once. She pointed at me with a look that said she'd kill me if she could. "You lawless woman. You've come into our town and you're wearing our family's wedding dress. It isn't over just because you say it's over."

"Take the humbling ritual, now, or don't blame us for what comes next."

I took a step back and closed my hand over the car door. "What are you saying? You'd actually force someone into a marriage?"

They said nothing, but their eyes told me plainly: yes, that was exactly what they'd do.

A chill ran through me. I yanked the door open, dropped into the wedding car, and slammed the lock down. "Driver, turn around. Get me out of here."

Before the driver could react, a crowd of burly men had surrounded the front of the car.

Zara hauled at the door and screamed through the window. "You little slut, get out here. You're doing this to shame me today, aren't you?"

"You think getting in the car means you can run? Let me tell you, once you're in our town, nobody leaves."

With that, the crowd swung their bamboo canes and hammered at the car like madmen. Terrified, the driver unlocked it fast. "Miss, don't drag me into this. I just bought this car to make a bit of money. I can't let them wreck it."

Zara dragged me straight out of the car and slammed me down on the ground.

She sneered. "Weren't you going to run? What happened to running?"

I looked over at Matthew. He was hiding behind the crowd, not daring even to look at me, and certainly not coming to help me up.

"Matthew, are you really just going to stand there and watch them do this to me? Did you forget what you said to me yesterday?"

"You said you'd protect me for the rest of my life. You said you'd never let me be hurt. Is this how you protect me?"

Only then did Matthew creep over to me. He'd barely reached to help me up when Zara blocked him. "Are you even a man? Are you going to let her jerk you around your whole life?"

"She kicks up a fuss over one little thing and calls off the wedding. If we hadn't stopped her just now, she'd have run."

"You're a man. Stand up straight and act like it, understand?"

Matthew's hand, already reaching for mine, pulled back in that instant. "Rebecca, apologize to my mother, then go through the rest of the rituals properly, and we'll forget today ever happened."

I stared at him, unbelieving. "What did you say? After all this, you still want me to go along with these rituals?"

"I already told you. If accepting these rituals is the condition, I won't marry you."

I didn't expect him to suddenly flare up. "Rebecca, that's enough. I've put up with you long enough. Who around here didn't come through this same way? I'm only asking you to go through the motions like everyone else, and you're bent on humiliating me, aren't you?"

"You say I don't protect you. What about you? You said you'd always love me, but the moment you're asked to follow a few rules, you want to cancel the wedding. Have you ever put me first at all?"

I looked at him, dazed. This was the first time I'd ever seen Matthew lose his temper, and it wasn't to protect me. It was to make me obey his town's rules.

I'd expected too much of him.

I held out my arm and showed him the welts running across it. "So these rules of yours mean letting me get hurt?"

Matthew looked at the marks on me, and something like pain flickered in his eyes. He'd just opened his mouth when Zara cut him off. "So what? Who didn't come through it the same way?"

"Today you take this humbling ritual, no matter what. Sisters, pick up the canes. We start right here."

4: 4

The canes came down again, harder than before, and I bit back a moan of pain.

I tried to get up, but I couldn't. All I could do was lie there and take it.

Both hands pressed to my belly, I stared straight at Matthew. "Make them stop. You'll regret it if you don't."

Zara sneered. "Still threatening my son after all this? Sounds like you haven't learned to bow yet. Keep hitting her."

Matthew looked down at me, just as cold. "Rebecca, stop threatening me. I'm not falling for it. Mom's right. You have to be broken once and for all."

"You want fewer strokes, then apologize to my mom right now. Get her to go easier on you. Otherwise it's still you who gets hurt."

Inside, I laughed bitterly at myself. I should have listened to my mother.

She'd met Matthew back then and hadn't thought much of him. "One look at this man and you can tell he has no backbone, nothing to stand on. He's not someone you can lean on. I won't agree to you marrying him."

But at the time all I wanted was to marry him. "He's not spineless, he just has a gentle temper. I like that he gives in to me on everything. Dad was the one who was so headstrong he ended up with a mistress and threw us away."

My mother's face went cold. "You'll regret this someday."

Back then I swore up and down that I never would. Now I truly did.

Cramp after cramp tore through my belly, and my whole body felt like it was being ripped apart. I couldn't stop myself from going pale. "Matthew, my stomach hurts so much. Make them stop. I'm pregnant."

Matthew froze all over, and Zara and the others stopped their canes in an instant.

"Becca, you're really carrying?"

Matthew rushed over, shaken, and reached to help me up. By now the pain had me seeing stars, my hands clamped tight over my belly. "My stomach hurts so badly. Take me to the hospital, quick."

"Okay. I'll take you to the hospital right now."

But Zara threw out her arm to stop him. "Matthew, don't let her fool you. If she's pregnant, why didn't she tell you sooner? I think she just doesn't want to be beaten, so she's lying on purpose."

"You're too soft, that's why she can lead you around by the nose."

Matthew's face went cold at once. "Rebecca, you're lying to me."

I shook my head. "I'm not. I really am carrying a child."

He gave a cold snort. "Something this important, and you never told me ahead of time? You're lying on purpose so you can run. I'm not falling for your tricks again."

I'd only wanted to surprise him. I'd meant to tell him on our wedding night.

The cane cracked down on me again, hard. "How dare you lie to my son. Today I'm breaking you no matter what."

Someone beside her tried to talk her down. "What if it's true? What if you damage the baby?"

Zara snorted coldly. "So what? She has to be broken today, or how will my son ever hold his head up again?"

"She can have more anyway. If this one drops, she just gets pregnant again. Isn't that right, son?"

Matthew's eyes were ice. "Do what Mom says."

Then more than a dozen canes came down on me again, hard.

I felt something warm run out from under me.

"Stop! Let go of my daughter!"

"Oh God, look, there's blood all under her!"