Taking one of her oversized teddy bears from the corner, he stuck it under his head and looked up at the painted ceiling, glowing under pink night lights. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," he said curiously, hoping it was Royal. He sat up.
"Master Medlov, I heard screaming. Is everything alright?" the muscular butler asked with loaded guns in the holsters under his large arms.
"Da Da. Were fine, Stepan," Dmitry lay back down. "Royal was just having another nightmare."
"Yes, sir," Stepan closed the door.
In the darkness of his daughter's room, Dmitry allowed his thoughts to consume him. Royal had been a real handful over the last six months, but she had been stricken with spells of depression since Anya's birth three years ago.
His beautiful daughter had been both a blessing and a curse at ten pounds of natural birth. Understandably, Royal had passed out only minutes after seeing her baby, a black-haired, blue-eyed doll that looked like the spitting image of his brother, Ivan.
At first sight, Dmitry had been taken back by Anya's striking beauty, but Royal had been stunned by her resemblance to the devil she had known.
Postpartum had immediately set in with Royal refusing to breast feed and spending days at a time locked in her room. Finally, the doctors were called. Dr. Finlen suggested therapy after he was told of the rape, along with time to heal the wounds and valium for the edge.
Overall, the remedy had helped, but the days that it didn't were nearly unbearable. She would have sweaty fits in her sleep and scream his brothers name in a horrible, heart-stopping cry that would send Dmitry running for her whenever he heard it.
It was like Ivan would come to rape her again and again, every time that she dared close her eyes. This led to Royal spending many nights awake, staring blankly into the television or tossing and turning in the bed, which led to dark circles under her eyes and constant irritability.
However torturous the nightmares of Ivan were, they had not been the only thing to torment their rocky marriage. The two also hadn't been intimate in many months. The last time had been horrible for both of them.
Unknowing of the wretched words that his brother had said to her during the assault, Dmitry had whispered something that sent Royal into a frenzy. Beating his chest and crying, she had begged him to stop, to get it out of her. He did so immediately, withdrawing ashamed and alarmed.
Like a crazed woman, Royal jumped up and literally ran out of the room, locking herself in the bathroom, where she spent the remainder of the night. He had slept on the floor beside the door that night, hoping that she might come out and talk to him. She did not.
Since that horrible event, Dmitry had barely slept in their bedroom. While her passion for him had fizzled into something repugnant, he still desired every inch of her.
To keep himself from being tempted and to continue to be cognizant of Royal's fragile state, he normally stayed in his sons bedroom when Anatoly wasn't visiting or in one of the guest bedrooms on the second level of the chateau.
He tried to never be too far from his wife that he could not be there if she needed him, but never too close—because he knew that she found him unbearable.
For the most part, he roamed the hallways at night, bored out of his mind, working out in his gym, reading volumes of classic works, and most of all waiting for a call from his son about news of the Vory.
To add insult to his injured ego, Royal also never showed him affection out of the bedroom. She was still a very gracious woman, reminding herself to always play the kind, courteous wife, but when he looked very closely, he could see the icy, angry and potentially violent woman that she had come to be.
In response to her depression, Dmitry had doubled her gifts, flying diamonds and furs in by the bus loads, just to see them pile up in her dressing rooms unopened and unworn. He had flown their family around the world on trips to exotic locales, but Royal had spent the entire time in her room, curled up in bed, crying and shaking or drugged and drinking.
When he tried to make love to her, she fled. If he saw her naked, she covered herself. The sexual frustration had nearly driven him mad. He had gone to confession only weeks ago to beg God for his forgiveness for his desire at times to take from her what was rightfully his. He had not, of course, taken it. He would never hurt her. And he had not been unfaithful. How could he?
His only desire was to be with his beautiful young wife. Even in her callous nature, she had only gotten more beautiful and refined in age. Her rich, dark caramel skin, her wide catlike eyes, her inky mane of curly black hair with untimely streaks of grey and her voluptuous body were all exotically combined to make him livid with lust. And in a way, her razor sharp tongue provided him with a sense of humility that only she could bring.
But how he wished that the peak of her young womanhood could be spent happy and in love with him. Only, Royal was not in love. She preferred to be alone, wasting away in her bedroom with valium and scotch while her child and her husband suffered.
"Daddy, can I get in the floor with you?" Anya asked, leaning over the side of her bed. The little soft voice sounded like bells jingling.
"Of course, Angel," he said,
