The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2055: The Bridal Chamber (Part Two)

Jocelynn knew exactly why the Olive Seed had sent her here to begin her trial.

Her stomach rolled again, and she swallowed hard against the sour taste of wine and bile still coating her tongue.

"You need to understand," a small, steady voice whispered inside her. "You need to know what you did to her. Not the story. Not the words in her letters. You need to know it the way she knows it..."

She could run. The door was right there. She could slip out into the corridor, find a servant’s stair, disappear into the night...

But Ashlynn hadn’t run.

Ashlynn had sat right here on the edge of this bed, fidgeting with the lace at her sleeves, remembering their mother’s advice. Dim the lamps. Slip under the covers before you take off your shift. Once you’ve bared yourself to him, he’ll be too eager to look closely at the rest of you. Ashlynn had sat here, and she had dreamed of a husband who loved her and children of her own.

She had dreamed of a happy life beginning from this night...

Jocelynn had taken that from her.

She sat down on the edge of the bed. The rose petals crushed beneath her, releasing a sweet, cloying perfume that mingled with the sour stink of bile on her hem. Her hands were shaking so hard that the pearls trembled against her throat. She folded them in her lap and held them still.

Jocelynn’s mind replayed the words in Ashlynn’s letters. The things her sister had written in the last one, the one that had broken her heart.

~Nyri had to stop me from killing you.~

She’d read it a dozen times since, and every time, she’d thought she understood what her sister had been through.

She hadn’t. Not really. Words on a page weren’t the same as this.

"I’m here, Ash," she whispered. "I’m not going anywhere."

She would face this moment. She knew what was coming and it terrified her, but she deserved it. She deserved to suffer the way her sister had...

Time seemed to crawl. The candles burned lower. Wax ran down their sides and pooled in the silver holders, and below her the fiddles played on, bright and merry, one reel bleeding into the next. Hundreds of people were laughing down there. None of them would hear what happened in this room, just like none of them had heard it the first time.

Eventually, boots sounded in the corridor.

Heavy and uneven. The tread of a man who’d been drinking for hours. They stopped outside the door, and for a long moment, there was only silence.

The handle rattled. Once. Twice. Then a fist struck the oak hard enough that dust sifted down from the lintel.

Then the door flew open so hard that it slammed against the wall.

Owain stood in the doorway.

He was magnificent and terrible all at once, tall and broad-shouldered in his wedding finery, his chestnut hair falling loose across his brow. The smell of strong wine rolled off him in waves. His face was flushed and blotched, and his hazel eyes were red-rimmed and wet with tears. When he spoke, spittle flew from his lips.

Sweat stood out on his brow and darkened the collar of his doublet. A vein throbbed at his temple, thick as a cord, pulsing in time with the music below.

"So it’s true," Owain said hoarsely as he glared at her from the doorway. "You’re a witch."

Every instinct Jocelynn had screamed at her to deny it. To plead, to weep, to swear on the Holy Lord of Light that it was all a lie... She wasn’t a witch. She might bear the mark, but she’d never practiced witchcraft. She wasn’t a wicked person... Her knees had turned to water. Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard that she could feel it in her teeth.

That was what Ashlynn had done. She’d begged him. She’d tried to convince him.

Jocelynn didn’t beg. She couldn’t. Not when she deserved this. So she said the only thing she could and braced herself for what would follow.

"Yes," she whispered, lowering her head and clenching her hands into small fists.

For a moment, Owain didn’t move. He simply stood there, swaying in the doorway, breathing hard through his nose, and the silence stretched until she could hear the candle flames hissing.

Something broke in Owain’s face. He crossed the room in three long strides, seized her by the arm, and hauled her up off the bed. His fingers sank into the soft flesh above her elbow, grinding against the bone, and she felt her shoulder wrench in its socket as he dragged her upright. She stumbled. He slammed her back against the wall so hard that the breath left her lungs, and the back of her skull cracked against the stone. White light burst behind her eyes. When it cleared, his hands were at the bodice of the white gown.

The silk tore with a sound like a scream.

The laces held a moment longer than the silk. They bit into her ribs as he wrenched at them, sawing through her skin before they finally snapped.

Lace and pearls scattered across the floor. Cold air struck her bare skin. Owain wrenched the ruined fabric down over her hip, his nails raking four burning furrows into her flesh, and there it was, dark against her pale skin in the candlelight. The ash tree. Its branches spread wide.

Owain stared at it.

He pressed his thumb against it. Hard. Harder, grinding down into the flesh of her hip as though he could rub the mark away like a smear of ink, and the mark flared beneath his touch, burning hotter than ever. Jocelynn bit down on her lip until she tasted blood, and still, she didn’t make a sound.

When he looked up at her again, there was nothing left in his eyes that she recognized. No charm. No laughter. No handsome hero. Only rage, raw and red and bottomless.

"Witch," he breathed.

His fist drew back.

Below them, the fiddles struck up a new reel, bright and quick and merry. Jocelynn watched his knuckles whiten. She watched the muscles of his forearm bunch beneath the fine cloth of his sleeve, and she knew exactly how much it was going to hurt.

Jocelynn closed her eyes, and she didn’t try to stop it.