54. Leandra
The crack of gunshots rips me from sleep, a sharp, splintering sound that tears through the silence like a knife through silk. For a heartbeat I lie frozen, tangled in sweat-damp sheets, my mind scrambling to piece together the noise.
Not a dream.
Not thunder.
Gunshots.
They echo through the mansion’s bones, distant and then closer, like a staccato rhythm punctuated by shouts and the crash of furniture.
I roll out of bed with my bare feet hitting the cold floor. The darkness is thick, broken only by the pale sliver of moonlight slicing through a gap in the thick curtains. Somewhere in the house, men are fighting.
He’s here. I know he is. I know that’s what this is.
He’s found me.
I grab the thin robe from the foot of the bed and throw it over my nightgown, fumbling to do the tie because my fingers are clumsy with terror.
The sounds are growing louder, a crescendo of violence that seems to be swallowing the entire mansion.
I slip out of the bedroom and into the hallway, pressing my spine against the wall, feeling the chilled plaster seep through my clothes.
Smoke hits me, curling under the door at the far end of the corridor.
Fire. He’s what, trying to burn me out?
My breaths comes in shallow, frantic gasps as I creep forward. I need to find Devin. He’s the only thing standing between this nightmare and me.
I round the corner and the world slams into focus.
The great hall is a war zone. Overturned furniture lies splintered across the marble floor, a tapestry is already engulfed in flames, and there, in the centre of the chaos, Devin is locked in a brutal struggle.
He’s a giant of a man, solid and capable, but the figure he’s grappling with moves with a kind of unholy grace, a dark silhouette I recognise instantly.
It’s the devil himself.
Devin gets a fist loose and slams it into Konstantine’s jaw, a sickening crack that would drop most men.
Konstantine barely staggers. Instead, he laughs, with a low, guttural sound that chills my blood.
He’s always been too strong, too fast, something monstrous wearing a human skin.
I see the glint of a gun in his hand, and before I can scream a warning, he shoves Devin back and pulls the trigger.
The shot is deafening. Devin jerks as a dark flower blooms across his chest. He stumbles, clutching the wound, his face a mask of disbelief.
“No!” The word tears out of me like a ragged sob. I know with awful clarity that he’s the only thing standing between me and the devil, that if he dies, I don’t stand a chance.
Konstantine doesn’t even glance my way. He’s on Devin in a flash.
The gun drops to the floor with a clatter, and in its place a knife appears, its blade catching the firelight like a hungry grin.
He plunges it into Devin’s stomach, once, twice, three times, each thrust accompanied by a wet grunting sound.
Devin’s body convulses, his hands scrabbling uselessly at Konstantine’s arms, and then he goes still, sliding to the floor in a spreading pool of bright red blood.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t move.
I watch as Konstantine straightens, wiping the blade on his thigh with a casual, contemptuous gesture. Then his head swivels, and his eyes find me. Those brown, burning eyes that have haunted my every nightmare. His lips curve into a smile that makes my soul shrivel.
“Wife,” he purrs, and the word is a curse.
I run. God help me, I run.
My feet slap against the cold stone as I flee back into the labyrinth of hallways while behind me. His laughter echoes, unhurried and terrible.
“You can’t hide from me. I’ll always find you.”
The mansion, once a sanctuary, is now a trap.
Every door I try is locked or leads to a dead end.
The smoke grows thicker, coiling around me, clawing at my throat.
My eyes water, my lungs burn. I can hear his footsteps, slow and deliberate, tracking me with the patience of a wolf coming in for the kill.
I duck into a small, disused room, my gaze sweeping wildly for somewhere, anywhere, to hide. There, a heavy armoire in the corner, its doors slightly ajar. It’s pitiful, obvious, but I have nothing else.
I scramble inside, pulling the doors shut behind me, and cram myself into the musty darkness among old coats that smell of mothballs and decay. I clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle my ragged breathing and I pray.
The footsteps stop outside the door. I can hear my own heart beating so loudly it must be audible throughout the entire damned house.
A floorboard creaks. The door swings open with a groan.
Through the crack in the armoire, I see his silhouette fill the doorway, the flames from the corridor haloing him like a demon rising from hell.
“I can smell you, wife.” His voice is a silky, venomous whisper. “Your fear is such a sweet perfume.”
He takes a step into the room, then another. He’s toying with me, I know that, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I press myself further back, as if I can melt into the wood. I can see the hilt of the knife tucked into his belt, still wet with Devin’s blood.
He stops directly in front of the armoire. A finger taps the door, once, twice. “Boo.”
The doors are wrenched open. Light floods in, blinding me.
Before I can even scream, his hand knots in my hair, yanking me out with brutal force.
Pain explodes across my scalp, a white-hot flare that sends me crashing to the floorboards.
I land hard on my shoulder, crying out, and he uses my hair to drag me across the splintered wood and out into the corridor.
“Let me go!” I shriek, clawing at his wrist.
He releases my hair only to backhand me across the face. The blow snaps my head to the side, filling my mouth with the metallic tang of blood. Stars burst behind my eyes. And as I slump, dazed, he grabs a fistful of my robe, hauling me up to my knees.
“Look at me,” he commands.
I raise my eyes to his face. The firelight carves hollows in his cheeks, glints off the madness dancing in his pupils.
He looks almost ecstatic. “All this time I’ve searched for you,” he says, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
“Hiding from your own husband. Why, hmm? That’s not very wife like… ”
“I’m not your wife,” I spit through bloodied teeth. “I’m not your property.”
The blow comes again, a fist this time, smashing into my cheekbone.
I feel the bone give a sickening little crack, and I crumple sideways, sobbing.
He doesn’t stop. A kick to my ribs drives the air from my lungs.
Another to my back sends me sprawling onto my stomach.
He’s on me then, straddling my hips, his weight crushing me entirely.
His hands find my hair again and he slams my forehead into the floor.
Once, twice. I lose count as the world swims in and out of focus, while the taste of blood grows thick on my tongue.
“You’ll learn,” he grunts, his breath hot against the nape of my neck. “I’ll teach you all over again.”
His hands leave my hair and go to my robe, ripping it away with savage tugs.
The thin nightgown beneath offers no protection; he grabs the collar and tears it down the middle with a shriek of fabric, exposing my back, my shoulders, all the curve of my spine.
I try to buck him off, but he merely presses his forearm into the back of my neck, pinning me down like a butterfly on a board.
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
Panic claws at my throat.
“No,” I gasp, the word muffled against the floor. “Please, Konstantine, don’t, don’t do this…”
He leans down, his lips brushing my ear. “You forgot your place, wife. You forgot that you belong to me. Body and soul.”
I feel him shift his weight, hear the only too familiar jingle of his belt buckle and the sound is a death knell. I start to thrash with everything I have left, but he only laughs and presses harder, his forearm grinding into my neck until bright spots dance in my vision and my limbs go weak.
The position is agonisingly vulnerable, my legs trapped beneath his, my bare skin exposed to the smoke-choked air. He forces my thighs apart with his knees, and I scream, a raw, ragged sound that echoes through the burning house.
The first invasion is like being split in two. He takes me with a single, brutal thrust, and the pain is so immense that my vision whites out.
I am tearing, I am burning, I am nothing but a vessel of agony as he takes what he wants again.
He groans above me, a sound of obscene satisfaction, and begins to move, each stroke a fresh violation, a fresh wound. My pleas dissolve into wordless, animal keening.
I can feel the rough floorboards scraping my skin raw, feel the hot trickle of blood where my lip has split, feel the weight of him, the invasion of him. The sheer, unrelenting horror of him.
He wraps a hand around my throat, squeezing just enough to cut off the edges of my consciousness, to make the world go dark and hazy at the margins.
“That’s it,” he pants, his rhythm speeding up. “Take it, wife. Take all of it.”
I am dissolving, fracturing, my mind scrabbling for any escape but there is none. Only his body, his voice, his madness.
Time stretches into an eternity of torment. I think I might die, but not from the smoke or the flames, from this, from the sheer violation. When he finally shudders to his climax, he collapses onto me, becoming a dead weight that smothers the last of my breath.
For a long moment we lie there, his heart pounding against my back, his come and my blood mingling in a sticky mess on my thighs.
Then he rolls off me, and the sudden absence of his weight is almost a shock in itself.
I hear him stand, hear him adjust his clothing while I lie motionless, pretending to be broken, pretending to be nothing.
But something small, fierce, and furious is kindling in my chest.
A tiny, flickering ember of defiance that refuses to die.
With a surge of desperate, last-ditch strength, I push myself up. My body shrieks in protest, but I ignore it as I lunge at him, catching him off guard.
I drive my knee into his groin with all the force I can muster. He doubles over, and I bring my elbow down on the back of his neck, a blow that sends him to his knees.
“You bitch!” he snarls.
I don’t relent. I am a wild thing now, all teeth and claws. I punch, I kick, I scratch. I get in a good, solid hit to his jaw that snaps his head back and makes him spit blood. I am screaming, a continuous, feral scream of rage and grief and pain.
But it isn’t enough.
It’s never enough.
He catches my wrist mid-swing, and his grip is iron, implacable. With a growl, he twists my arm behind my back, forcing me to my knees. The movement sends fresh agony tearing through my abused body.
I fight him still, stomping at his feet, trying to headbutt him, but he merely tightens his hold until I feel my shoulder joint creak dangerously.
“I know what you are, wife,” he breathes, panting. “You’re sin incarnate, a demon wearing my bride’s pretty face.”
“I’m not your bride!” I snarl, spitting at him.
He laughs, a wet, unhinged sound. “Oh, but you are.” He states.
He releases my arm only to send a punishing hook into my ribs.
I feel something crack, a jagged, blinding lance of pain that folds me in half.
I collapse onto my side, gasping, unable to do more than curl into a protective ball.
Through blurry, tear-soaked eyes, I see him reach into his coat.
He produces a small, dark glass bottle, its contents an oily, virulent green. He uncorks it with his teeth.
“No,” I croak, trying to scramble away. “No, please…”
He’s on me in an instant, straddling my chest, his knees pinning my arms to the floor. “Open wide wife, and let me cleanse you. Let me purify your soul.” His free hand clamps over my jaw, his fingers digging into the hinges until my mouth is forced open.
I gag, choke, try to turn my head, but he’s too strong.
The mouth of the bottle presses against my lips, and the liquid floods in.
It’s thick, hot, and tastes of rot and something bitter.
I try to spit it out, but he pinches my nose shut, forcing me to swallow or suffocate.
The liquid slides down my throat like liquid fire, coating my insides in sickening warmth.
He pulls back, watching me, his face a mask of ecstatic anticipation. “There now. That’s it. Let it do its work.”
I retch, convulse, but I can’t bring it back up. I can feel whatever it is already spreading, a seeping coldness that belies the initial burn. I feel it in my veins, a creeping numbness that starts in my extremities and crawls toward my core.
My heart begins to stutter in an erratic, panicked rhythm.
“What did you do?” I whisper, my voice already slurring.
Konstantine leans over me, cradling my face in his hands almost tenderly.
“I killed you once before, remember?” he says, his voice a caress.
“It was an accident, a mistake. I let my anger get the better of me. You weren’t meant to die, but you were so beautiful in your death…
” His words fill me with horror as he caresses my hair.
“…But I brought you back, didn’t I? I can do it again.
I can kill you and resurrect you, and this time you will be obedient. Third time’s the charm, isn’t it?”
I realise then what has been so fucking obvious, what has been staring me in the face this entire time. The Esau did not kill Ines. Konstantine did. He murdered his wife and then put them blame on them. On us, his family. Konstantine is a murderer.
Oh god, I’m going to die here, in this burning house. I’m going to die here, today.
I heave against him, a final, desperate surge of strength.
For a moment, I almost throw him off. I catch a glimpse of his shocked face but my limbs are growing heavy, my muscles are turning to water.
The poison is a freezing tide, drowning the fire of my resistance.
My struggles become sluggish, uncoordinated.
He slaps me, hard enough to make my ears ring, and pushes me back down.
“Stay,” he commands, as if I’m a dog.
I try to crawl away, my fingers scrabbling uselessly against the floorboards. I manage only a few inches before his hand tangles in my hair again. He drags me back across the floor, my ruined body a trail of blood and filth.
The room swims in and out of focus. The flames have reached the doorway, their heat a palpable wall, their roar a hungry symphony.
“You’re dying, wife,” he murmurs, his voice coming from very far away. “I can feel your pulse slowing down. It’s beautiful, you know. The transition. The void. But don’t worry, I’ll bring you back. I always do.”