36 | ACT II, SCENE VIII

P R E V I O U S L Y

"You should thank your stars it wasn't your mother Lord Apollo went after instead, your Grace," the butler finished to ringing silence.

HARTINGTON CASTLE, ALNWICK, STORMHOLT.

EDWINA

I FELT SICK.

CLOSING THE door shut, I sat on the bed, dressed for the night. Somehow, something felt wrong. I looked at my palms again. There was a tiny puncture, like a hole, indented innocently in the skin.

How come I had not noticed it before?

Marks of injuries never stayed on gods, except when caused by Bloodstone.

It had never been there... not until my Trials got over at least. I examined the scar closely. Sure enough, there was another one on my left hand as well, hidden in the ridges of my knuckles.

Suddenly, a sharp pain wracked my chest as images flashed in my brain. Needles, so many needles. A man in a white coat, gloved fingers probing at my chest, flopping me back onto brown leather as my hand jerked.

How strange.

The pain passed in a moment, with little waves lulling me into false security. The bird of pain in my chest only seemed to flutter awake when I pressed the scars.

I pulled the string of my robe.

One creamy shoulder exposed itself and I tugged it down, now concerned. I pulled my silk shift down to my waist, leaving my white skin bare in the dim light.

Breathing heavily, I pressed a palm to my chest. Just over my left breast, close to the middle.

The heart.

It was pounding away like a mad animal, over and over and over. Pumping blood to my various organs. So vital, so full of life. I let my fingers slide down slightly.

There it was.

Another scar, just over my heart.

I was worried beyond measure now, observing it. It was like a faded white line, slashed across my chest. If I closed my eyes, I could only imagine the tight nubs of stitches holding torn skin together. Horrified, I opened them again to just find the scar. It was peculiar, especially the position.

As if someone had cut my heart open and sewn it back together.

I placed a hand on the warm skin, feeling my heartbeat. It seemed surreal, as if I was half expecting it to be gone.

Was I going mad?

"Why aren't you with child yet?"

What the hell?

I frantically pulled up the sleeves, covering myself and flinging a shawl around my shoulders. The worry in my head ran amok as I wondered who it was that had caught me in my state of undress. Making sure I was properly clothed, I turned around.

My mouth dried at once.

I didn't know how he had entered so quietly. He wore a cruel, arrogant frown, staring at me with monstrous anger.

Apollo Valmont.

The black eyes searched my own for an answer. Yet his gaze felt so wrong, soulless and evil that I turned away my eyes from his, because it felt as if he were looking right through me.

"I asked you something, niece," he said. I got up, turning around to face him completely. Although I was quite tall, he was almost a head taller than me, enabling him to look down into my face.

"Have you lost it? How dare you ask me such a thing!"

"Respect, Edwina. You will address me as Lord Valmont. Seems like something your mother forgot to teach you," he tucked his hand under his chin.

"My mother's murderer commands no respect, devil."

He was dangerously close to me, only few centimetres apart, and I took another step back. There was a sickle in my desk, a few arrowheads and a whip. Third drawer. I had no knives on me, for I had already changed for bed. What was I going to do?

He tutted.

"You weren't much disciplined as a child, were you?" Apollo taunted. I saw a long knife slid up his sleeve, and his fingers curled around the tip, as he smiled, looking at me. "Fortunately, I am here to remedy that."

"Get out. Right. Now," I said through gritted teeth, with venom in my voice. "Before I burn off your skin."

"You are going to tell me, huh? You are going to tell me what to do in my castle?" he asked furiously, staring at me with hostility as pure and concentrated as acid.

"You-"

"This is my castle, and you will answer me when spoken to!"

He suddenly closed the distance, grasping my hand in an iron grip, the black eyes glinting dangerously and he was looking at my chest - where my breasts were.

My anger rose up in a roar as heat streamed from my body to the hand that had roughly grasped mine.

Nothing happened.

The power which would have roasted a man alive had no effect on him!

"Your tricks won't work here, slut," the sun god hissed. "You cannot set the sun on fire," he roughly yanked me to him, whispering in my ear.

I let myself be pulled by him, furiously trying to think my way out of the situation.

"It seems that my son has been too lenient with you," he said ominously, his nails digging into my skin. "Very, very lenient. Women like you must be thoroughly disciplined," he said softly, taking a few more steps and I felt the wall at my back.

"You filthy little-"

"-let me remind you of one thing, your Grace," Apollo mocked me, hissing, as the knife slid into his palm. "Did you forget what I told you on the day you came here?"

"Oh yes? You're going to rape me, is it?" I snapped vehemently, "the way you raped my aunt as well?"

My mind tried to work as my hand snaked out of his, grabbing the ink pot off the desk and flinging it at him. He yelped as the glass hit his neck, ink flew into his eyes, momentarily blinding him. That was all the distraction I needed as I flung open the drawer, looking for the whip, the sickle, anything. I frantically pushed apart piles and piles of old letters, scrolls, broken seals.

"And perhaps you will give me a son. Such a delicious little thing you are," he growled, as his hands curled around my neck, his fingers like pincers of steel pulling me to him while I desperately looked for the weapon.

Finally! My hand closed around an arrowhead!

Apollo tore the shawl off my shoulders, and it fell to the floor, as he looked at my white neck, eyes travelling lower and lower and... lower, as his other hand unbuckled his belt, drawing it in his hands. He maliciously looked at it, then at me, caressing the fabric. His rough palm hit it with a loud slap.

It was the same kind of leather used for flogging.

"Ready?" he mindlessly smirked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"You damned better be!" I hissed, as my palm moved striking him with a loud slap. My mother's signet ring cut the flesh on his cheek as I plunged the arrowhead into his chest, hoping it punctured his filthy lungs.

"Why - you Tremayne devil!" Apollo shouted, feeling the purpling bruise on his cheekbone, moving to the blood on his chest. He raised a hand to hit me and I ducked, rolling onto the floor. Apollo cornered me in as I flung my shawl around his neck, trying to strangle him.

I sunk the arrowhead back into his wounded chest, and he let out a mangled scream as the tip tore through his arteries. Roaring like a bull, he bellowed and nearly thrashed my head right onto the floor. But before he did that, I clasped my hands around his neck and twisted it to the ground.

Suddenly, a white hand pulled him off me.

It shoved him back, sending Apollo flying through the room with a violent force. Bone cracked loudly.

Lightning flashed outside with an enormous growl of thunder, as the whole Castle was illuminated in the stark night by the flash of streaks in the sky. The floor shook violently with the unparalleled wrath of the Lord of Hartington Castle.

"How" - punch - "dare" - punch - "you!" Tristan roared, his voice accentuated with the sound of blows as his cloak billowed behind him in the wind.

His voice was strained as hell, and his knuckles had gone a paper white, white as the face that was a livid mask of fury. It took him one look at the bruise on his father's face, me backed into the corner, my shawl on the floor, my bare neck and the leather belt in Apollo's hands.

And then, Tristan Valmont lost it.

"HOW DARE YOU?"

Apollo got up maliciously, eyes gleaming more wickedly than ever.

"Out of my way," he brusquely spat blood on the floor. His son did not flinch or move, whiter than stone. He raised a hand to land a hard blow on him and Tristan caught his fist mid air, eyes shining wickedly, expression livid with ferocious anger.

"What did you do to her?" he spat out. The last word was injected with the harshest venom I'd ever felt, sharp and curt and frigid.

His eyes.

They used to be blue.

Now they were a pure black.

"Out of my way, boy," Apollo pushed him out of the way. Tristan whirled around and Apollo's fist flew straight for his son's nose.

I stepped in between them, violently twisting his hand the other way around before Tristan's nose shattered. He immediately pulled me out of the way before Apollo's next blow landed on me and drew out a dagger from his sleeve, holding it at his throat.

I noticed it was the black colour of Bloodstone.

"What did you do to her?" Tristan hissed through gritted teeth.

"None of your business," Apollo snarled in his son's tight grasp. The knife pressed deeper into his throat and a river of blood trickled down his neck.

"Do not lie to me," he barked. "Anything and everything to do with her is my business."

The tip inched further in, leaving a mark that I knew would never fade. He twisted it around ever so slightly, marking the beginning of the pain.

"Stop!" Apollo breathed. "Stop - I was merely giving my niece an education in the finer points of politics-"

"Oh, is it?"

"You liar!" I spat harshly, causing both the men to look at me. "You assaulted me. You put your filthy hands on my skin, you fucking liar!"

"You deserved it!" Apollo brusquely barked, lashing his tongue out. "You go wherever you please - flinging around with whoever she likes, and you let her," he glared at Tristan, whose jaw was clenched tight with anger.

"You're coming with me," he hissed at his father, voice badly strained with fury.

Apollo merely smirked.

"Absolutely not," he drawled. "Say what you want. You give her too much of liberty. You ought to show her her place!"

"Move aside, Valmont," I hissed murderously, taking a few steps forward. My wrists were spitting fire, flames shining under my skin and creating cracks in my veins. I was hungrier for a revenge than a lion cub on its first hunt. "Give me the knife," my hand motioned to the black Bloodstone knife in his fist. "It's about time I killed this monster and painted my nails with his blood."

Apollo hollowly laughed. "You wouldn't dare!"

This time it was my turn to laugh. "Lord Valmont, you clearly forgot who you are speaking to. Move!" I snapped at Tristan, who was still holding the knife nearly sunk into the bleeding throat, his face still whiter with anger than newly carved marble.

"No," he refused in a volatile voice, his grip tighter than ever.

"No. No? What do you mean by no?" I shouted, incensed to no end.

"Step back, Queen Regnant," he hissed, motioning in a contingent of guards standing by the door with a pale finger.

The men came in, clearly equipped for the situation with long chains of Ekrite dangling from their arms.

"Bind Lord Apollo with the chains and take him outside," Tristan ordered firmly, voice thick with fervid fury. "I'm going to punish him myself."

"I had the situation under control!" I snapped, as the guards dragged him out of the room.

"Oh, really?" Tristan spat. "What were you going to do, woman? Melt off his face? Stab him with the dagger you've tied three inches above your ankle?"

"I would have killed him, Valmont! Disgusting - horrid - intolerable beast your father is!"

"YOU COULD HAVE CALLED FOR HELP!"

"LET ME MAKE ONE THING VERY CLEAR TO YOU, VALMONT!" I shot back, "I am not a princess who needs saving! So go and do whatever it is you do the whole damn time and stay out of my damn way!" the cords in my neck strained as I yelled at the top of my voice.

"You-"

"You don't need to save me, okay? I'm not a damsel in distress. I'm not a little girl you need to rescue. I'm not some newborn bird who doesn't know how to fly. You want to be the hero? You want to be the charming, chivalrous prince? Fine. But get the saving me part out of your head. I do not need to be saved, okay?  I am not in distress. I am not trapped. I am an infernal fire, and if you get too close, I will burn you to the ground!"

"But-"

"And one more thing," I snapped, jerking forward my collar so that our noses almost touched. "The next time your father does that, I will rip off his arm and beat him to death with it!"

"Edwina - wait -" Tristan grabbed my wrist as I flew around the room in a flurry of anger. "Look at me - listen - wait! What are you doing?!"

I was going about the room and picking up a stack of letters from my desk as I retrieved my sword from under the pillow.

"I am leaving."

"What the ever loving fuck, Edwina?"

"I am Edwina Tremayne of Dracnesse and I am going home!"

"Listen, woman-" Tristan wrapped a hand around my busy waist, his grip firm and protective, securing me to the spot. "I will punish him - just listen to me! Don't go!"

"You made your choice," I snapped. "I am never, ever, ever setting foot in Stormholt again."

Then I turned around and disappeared in a whirl of darkness, and the last thing I saw was his disappointed white face.

• • • • •

Just when our ship was getting it on... well, Apollo just had to come and ruin everything! Poor Tristan :( he's having a really hard time, huh?