Henry moved closer, his shadow falling over her. With methodical detachment, he removed each cup from her back. A soft, sucking sound accompanied each release, and the newly freed skin—raw, incised, and dark with pooled blood—glistened in the dim light. Her sobs were the only other sound, a quiet, broken rhythm against the stillness. The white linens beneath her were a ruined map of crimson blooms and smears.
"So," she whispered, the word trembling on a tide of tears. "This is the punishment you devised? To weaponize my own illness... to let them torture me under the guise of healing?"
"It is the most efficient method," he replied, his voice unwavering, as if stating an irrefutable truth.
"Today," she began, her voice gaining a frayed strength, "you have etched scars into me that I will carry to my grave. Today, you have violated more than my body—you have desecrated any last shred of faith. Today, you have abandoned me utterly." She drew a shuddering breath that caught in her throat. "But I make you a promise, Henry. I will be strong. I will not shatter. That is the one lesson my mother gave me that you cannot cut away. I will be strong."
Her declaration hung in the air, spoken through tears, from a body still bound and broken. It was not a shout, but a vow—thin as a blade of grass yet rooted deep in the wreckage he had made.
He untied the straps. The leather fell away, but she did not move. She remained as she was—curled, broken, a sculpture of pain. Her eyes were heavy, their gaze fixed on nothing.
"Come," his voice was devoid of warmth, a command that expected no refusal. He slid his hands beneath her, lifting her as if she were a doll. A shattered gasp escaped her as her raw back made contact with his arm. He sat on the edge of the disheveled bed and settled her across his thighs, her torso draped against his chest, her ruined back exposed to the cold air.
A copper tub had been filled nearby. The water steamed, releasing the scent of harsh herbs meant to sting and cleanse.
"I will bathe you myself."
His fingers touched her shoulder, guiding her forward. The movement pulled at the lattice of cuts and burns. A low, animal sound of agony choked in her throat. "Ah—!"
"I don't…" she stammered, her words slurred with exhaustion and hurt. "I don't want you… to touch me."
He ignored her. Dipping a cloth into the scalding water, he wrung it out. The first touch of the wet linen to her broken skin was not a cleansing, but a new baptism of fire. She jerked violently, a fresh sob tearing loose as the herbs bit into every wound.
His movements were not gentle. They were thorough, clinical, mapping the geography of the damage he had sanctioned. The water in the basin pinkened, then deepened to a murky red. Each pass of the cloth was a fresh violation, a claim staked not through restraint, but through this intimate, excruciating purge.
She wept silently, her face pressed against the damp fabric of his tunic, her body too broken to even pull away. This was not care. It was the final proof—her body, even in its suffering, belonged to him. He would oversee every part of it, from its breaking to its painful, unwilling cleanse.
He stopped. The cloth fell from his hand into the basin with a heavy, wet slap. He pushed the tub aside with his foot, the water sloshing over the rim onto the stone floor. Then he lifted her again, the motion effortless, and placed her beside him on the edge of the bed. She sat utterly exposed, the cold air and his gaze alike touching her ravaged skin. A full-body tremor, distinct from the shivers of pain, went through her.
She watched, a dull dread thickening in her throat, as his hands went to the buttons of his own shirt. He undid them with methodical patience, then stripped the garment away. His boots, his trousers—everything was removed with the same efficient detachment. There was no modesty, no hesitation. It was the unveiling of a fact.
"What…" Her voice was a dry whisper, scraping against the silence. "What are you doing?"
"I prefer to sleep without restriction," he stated, his tone devoid of any inflection that could be mistaken for invitation. "It has been a long day. We will retire."
Then her eyes, against her will, were drawn downward. There it was, just as she remembered from every other enforced intimacy—the aggressive swell between his thighs, thick and rigid. In the low light, it looked less like a part of a man and more like a weapon kept sheathed against his body, a promise of a different, more familiar brutality. It was a harsh, undeniable truth of his physical dominance, presented without shame or ceremony.
He did not touch her. He simply stood there, allowing her to look, ensuring she understood that her night, and the nature of her rest, would be dictated entirely by his presence and his naked, unyielding form.
"Does the sight unsettle you, little one?"
Henry's voice was a velvet murmur, his eyes tracing the path of her horrified gaze. A ghost of a smile, devoid of warmth, touched his mouth before she managed to look away. He shifted, the movement fluid and possessive, reclining back against the bloodstained linen. He lay in a state of stark, unashamed nudity, hands cradling his head—a king upon a troubled throne.
"Come. Lie here."
The command was a winter chill. Protest died in her throat, strangled by a will that was no longer her own. Her body obeyed the deeper, older law of survival. She sank down beside him, a statue of tremors, her eyes wide and fixed on the distant canopy.
"Not beside me," he corrected, his voice stripping away any pretense of choice. "Upon me. Your injuries require containment. You will rest against my chest."
"I—I cannot—" The words were a faint, fractured thing.
"You can. And you will." He spoke with the detached certainty of a physician stating a diagnosis. "Your sleep is restless. You will tear open what has been… treated. This is the most efficient restraint." The clinical explanation made the intimacy monstrous. "Now."
It was not a request. It was the next phase of her enclosure. Resistance promised a swift, brutal calculus of consequence. With a slowness that spoke of both agony and dread, she moved her broken body over his. As she lowered herself, the ravaged skin of her back met the unyielding chillness of the air . A sharp, strangled gasp escaped her—the contact was a fresh brand, searing and inescapable.
His arm encircled her waist, a band of solid muscle locking her in place. This was not an embrace; it was a manacle of flesh. Every breath she took pressed her wounds more firmly against him. She was pinned, not to the bed, but to the very architect of her suffering. Here, in this cruel parody of solace, her rest was to be a silent, shuddering vigil—caged against the enemy, her tormentor her only bed.