Dionne
He moved.
One moment the King stood in the doorway, his eyes locked on the portrait in my trembling hands. The next, he was on me.
I didn't even see him cross the distance. There was no time to flinch, no time to step back, no time to do anything but gasp as his hand shot out and seized the portrait. He ripped it from my grasp with such force that I stumbled backward, my shoulder slamming into the bookshelf behind me.
The impact sent books tumbling to the floor, but I barely registered the sound. All I could see was him, standing there with the portrait cradled in his hands.
His thumb traced the crack running across the painted face. The movement was so gentle, so achingly tender, that it sent a chill racing down my spine. It was wrong, seeing such care from someone who radiated violence the way other people breathed.
"Three hundred years," he whispered, and his voice was barely human anymore. Rough and guttural, like the words were being dragged up from somewhere deep and broken inside him. "Three hundred years this has remained untouched. Perfect. And you—"
He lifted his eyes to mine, and they were pure molten gold now. No gray remained, and every instinct I possessed screamed at me to run.
But my legs wouldn't move. Fear had turned my muscles to stone.
"How dare you?" The words came out as a growl that vibrated through my bones. "How dare you put your filthy hands on this. How dare you damage the only thing I have left of her."
"I-I d-didn't mean to," I stammered, the words tumbling over each other in my desperation to make him understand. "I was just dusting, and I found it, and I only wanted to look, but then Margaret came in and I dropped it, but—"
The slap came out of nowhere.
My head snapped to the side so hard I heard my neck crack. Pain exploded across my cheek, white-hot and blinding, and I tasted copper as my teeth cut into the inside of my mouth. The world tilted, and I would've fallen if the bookshelf hadn't been there to catch me.
My ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. I pressed my hand to my burning cheek, feeling it already beginning to swell, and the terror that flooded through me was unlike anything I'd ever known.
I'd been slapped before. Hit. Shoved. Ponded on even. But those blows from the guards at BloodMoon, from the other pack members who'd taken their anger out on me, they were nothing compared to this.
This single strike felt like it'd rattled my brain inside my skull. If one slap could do this much damage, what would happen if he really lost control? What would happen if he decided to beat me?
I'd die. I'd die, and no one would stop him, and Nora would be alone.
Through the ringing in my ears, I heard him set the portrait down on his desk.
Then he turned to face me again, and I saw my death written in those golden eyes.
"I should kill you for this." His voice had gone quiet now, which was somehow more terrifying than the growl. "I should just snap your neck and be done with it. It would be so easy. One twist, and you'd stop existing."
My breath came in short, panicked gasps. The hand pressed to my cheek shook so badly I couldn't keep it still.
"But death would be too kind for what you've done," he continued, taking a step toward me. I shrank back against the bookshelf, but there was nowhere to go. "Too quick. That portrait has been untouched for three hundred years. Three centuries, and it remained perfect. Until you put your clumsy hands on it and destroyed it."
"Please," I whispered, and the word came out broken. "Please, I'll do anything. I'll work harder, I'll—"
"You'll do exactly what I tell you to do." He was close enough now that I could feel the heat radiating off him, could smell blood underneath the pine and leather. Had he fed before coming back? "From this moment forward, you don't belong to the castle staff anymore. You belong to me. Personally. As my property."
The words didn't make sense at first. They bounced around inside my ringing skull.
"You'll serve only me," he said, each word falling like a hammer blow. "You'll attend only to my needs. You'll be available whenever I require your presence. And you'll continue doing so until I decide your debt has been paid. Given what you've destroyed, that debt may very well take the rest of your miserable life to settle."
Understanding crashed over me like a wave of ice water, and my legs simply gave out.
I hit the floor hard, my knees cracking against the wood. The pain barely registered through the panic consuming me.
"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to—" I struggled to say through the sobs that racked through my frame, but he wasn't done.
"Your daughter will be cared for in the communal children's area, but you're forbidden from seeing her. You'll be permitted one hour with her each week." He might as well have been discussing the weather for all the emotion in his voice.
"But I need to see her," I sobbed, pressing my hands together in supplication. The position made my bruised knees scream, but I didn't care. "Please, she's only three years old, she needs her mother—"
"Every Sunday evening, provided your service has been satisfactory, you can see her for an hour. If you fail to meet my standards in any way, that hour will be revoked."
The pronouncement shattered something inside me. I broke.
All the fear, all the panic, all the desperate hope I'd been clinging to, it all came crashing down at once, and I couldn't hold it together anymore. Sobs tore from my throat, ugly and raw, and I bent forward until my forehead touched the cold floor.
"Please don't take her from me," I begged through the tears. "Please, I'll do anything you want, anything at all, just don't take my baby away from me. She's all I have, she's everything, please—"
"Get up."
I couldn't. My body wouldn't obey. The sobs kept coming, shaking my entire frame, and I couldn't catch my breath around them.
"I said get up." His hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back with enough force to make my scalp burn. "Stop your sniveling. You did this to yourself. You'll accept the consequences with whatever dignity you can muster, or I'll make it worse. Do you understand me?"
I nodded frantically, the movement sending fresh spikes of pain through my scalp where he held my hair. When he released me, I scrambled to my feet, swaying slightly as the room tilted around me.
My cheek throbbed. My knees ached. My throat felt raw from crying. But none of it compared to the gaping wound where my heart used to be.
One hour a week. One hour to hold my daughter, to hear her laugh, to tell her I loved her. How was I supposed to survive on so little?