The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 2059: A Single Stroke (Part Two)

Ashlynn.

Her sister’s name lodged in her throat like a fishbone. She couldn’t swallow it. She couldn’t spit it out.

"Owain," Jocelynn said slowly. "How did my sister die?"

His arm stiffened around her waist, just for an instant.

"Why would you ask that, sweetheart?" Owain asked rather than answering her.

"I need to know." The cold knot in her stomach had grown into a stone. "Did she suffer?"

Owain turned her gently in his arms until she was facing him. His hazel eyes were warm and soft and full of sorrow, and he cupped her cheek in one big, calloused hand.

"Of course she didn’t suffer," he said. "She may have been a witch, but for a few hours, she was my wife. I gave her a clean death. A single stroke of my sword. Swift. Merciful. She was your sister, after all. She deserved that much."

The room shuddered.

The candle flames guttered, all at once, as if a door had blown open somewhere. The walls rippled like the surface of a pond. And beneath Owain’s handsome, sorrowful face, Jocelynn saw another face. Red and blotched and twisted with fury, spittle on its lips.

Blood flecked his knuckles. Blood streaked the white cuffs of his wedding finery, and his breath came hard and ragged through his teeth, the way it had come above her in the bridal chamber, between blows.

She saw his fists. She heard the crack of bone.

She felt it.

Her cheekbone throbbed where it had broken. Her ribs ached where they’d snapped. The taste of mud filled her mouth.

Jocelynn tore herself out of his arms, stumbling back into the table. The flagon toppled, and wine spilled across the white cloth in a spreading, dark red stain, like blood soaking through linen.

"You’re lying," she said.

"Jocelynn..." Owain said as he blinked at her in surprise. Since when did this slip of a girl defy his desires or expose his lies?

"You’re lying!" Jocelynn shouted. Her voice cracked as she denounced him, saying the things to him now that she’d never been able to say while he was still alive. "You didn’t give her a clean death! You beat her! You beat her until her bones broke, and then you had your knights dump her in a hole in the rain like a dead dog!"

"They soaked her in lamp oil and tried to burn her! They kicked her when she was already broken and threw her into a grave at the edge of the Vale with nothing but a bedsheet! She was alive, Owain! She was alive when they shoveled the dirt onto her face!"

"Hush." Owain held up his hands, his voice gentle and coaxing, the voice he used on frightened horses. "Hush, my pearl. You’re overwrought. You shouldn’t think about such things," Owain said as he reached out to soothe her.

"Don’t you touch me!" Jocelynn snapped.

Her hand found the hilt of a knife at her belt.

She didn’t remember putting it there. She’d never carried it at the Summer Villa. She’d never even owned it, not then. But it was there, and the weight of it was familiar against her palm. A blade in red and gold, folded steel. Crimson Promise.

She drew it and raised it to slash, just the way Owain had taught her in the cold, dark dungeon beneath Lothian Manor.

She could still feel his hands closed over hers. Warm and steady, guiding the blade across Percivus’s chest. She remembered the way the skin had parted, how the steel had caught and dragged against bone, the hot spray of blood across her wrists. She remembered Owain’s lips against her ear, whispering that he’d made them pay for every moment of her suffering.

For one heartbeat, Owain only stared at the blade.

Then he moved.

He was so fast. She’d forgotten how fast he was. His hand closed around her wrist like an iron manacle and twisted sharply. The bones of her wrist ground together, and she heard the small ones pop, and Crimson Promise fell from her fingers and clattered across the floor.

Useless.

Against a warrior like Owain, even the mystic blade had been completely useless in hands that didn’t know how to wield it.

The back of his other hand caught her across the face.

Jocelynn went down hard, her skull striking the flagstones with a crack that left her ears ringing. Before she could rise, he was on her, and the fists came again, exactly as they had before. Her cheekbone. Her ribs. Her lip. Only this time, she fought. She clawed at his face and kicked at his legs and screamed for help.

Her nails caught his cheek and raked downward. She felt his skin peel away beneath them, felt it bunch and pack under her fingernails, warm and wet. Four bright red lines opened across his face.

Owain paused. He touched the scratches with two fingers and looked at the blood on them. Then he smiled.

It was the most terrible thing she’d ever seen.

"There she is," he said softly. "There’s that Blackwell spirit."

Then he hit her again.

And none of it mattered. None of it made the slightest difference at all.

Her fingers searched for Crimson Promise on the floor, but it was just out of reach. She stretched for it, straining her arm as her nails scraped the stone. Then Owain’s boot came down on her hand, and she heard her own fingers break. One. Two. Three. Dry and sharp, like kindling snapped over a knee. He ground his heel down slowly, until the broken ends grated against each other, and the scream that tore out of her throat didn’t sound like her own.

"You never learn, do you?" he said, almost sadly. "None of you Blackwell women ever learn."

He crouched beside her and caught her chin in his bloody fingers, forcing her to look at him. "Your sister begged too, at the end," he murmured. "Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"Hugo," Owain panted, somewhere far above her. "Fetch Rain and prepare a cart..."

The last thing she saw before the darkness took her was Sir Hugo’s nervous, frightened look, as he hurried off to execute his master’s bidding...