Ciana wept, holding her battered face, and struggling to crawl away from Wesley… but with nowhere she could flee to.
Wesley turned away, looking at the assortment of decorations around the room, as if a new filter had been given to his eyes, Wesley began seeing the ornate and ordinary objects in a new, different light.
Wesley smirked at the realisation of the pain he could inflict on not only Ciana, but the whores upon their arrival. No one could stop him, either. Not now.
The thought sent Wesley into an excited craze. For the first time ever, he felt truly powerful. He was in control. His father was gone, Batir was under his control, and Ciana would learn to submit sooner or later.
A silver candlestick. Small sculptures of marble with pointed ends. A brass jug. He could beat them. He could strike them. He could choke them. He could stick them.
Wesley stood grinning like a child receiving a present.
Ciana cried out for help, and then for mercy upon seeing the mad glaze in Wesley’s eyes.
Isec Batir would return to the Wesley’s quarters to find Ciana black-eyed, teary faced, with a broken, bleeding nose and split lip.
Wesley could then make use of the whores, with his wife, or just in front of her to shame her. Then he’d beat them.
That was what his dark desires wanted.
Maybe I could make Isec watch, too! Wesley’s mind raced ahead with so many invigorating and intoxicating ideas.
He felt himself becoming aroused.
Wesley took the silver candlestick and approached Ciana slowly like a predator about to launch an attack on its prey. Ciana had somehow crawled all the way to the door and was trying to reach for the doorknob.
Wesley took her by the ankle with his free hand, dragging her away. She dug her nails into the wooden floor with a horrific screech to try and stop him. They simply snapped and broke.
Wesley cackled with glee. “I can’t believe I felt sorry for you, at one point,” he said to Ciana.
Ciana shook her head as she lay on her back on the floor, holding her bloodied hands out over her malforming, swollen face in a fruitless effort to defend herself.
“Please… don’t,” Ciana begged.
“No one will be laughing at me anymore. No one will be putting me down any longer,” Wesley said, standing over the top of his wife, brandishing the silver candlestick before striking her with it.
“Stop! Please… stop!”
He struck her several times with the candlestick until it broke in two.
Wesley huffed, suddenly out of breath from exerting himself. “It will be some time before Ser Isec Batir returns with my whores,” the prince said in a blank tone.
Ciana had blacked out, sprawled across the floor.
“What say you and I have some fun until then? I wouldn’t want my dear wife missing out, after all.”
Chapter 33 - The Butcher
Tomas was stirred from his sleep by cold, calloused hands on his ankles. He was dragged out of bed and onto the icy floor so suddenly that it shocked him into a state of panic.
A huge, stocky, black silhouette stood over him like a menacing phantom. The figure still had a forceful grip on Tomas’s ankles, so hard that it hurt.
“Let go of me!” Tomas shouted. Being only seven years of age, his voice had not yet developed into a man’s. As such, his frantic shouts did little to threaten the intruder.
The silhouetted man reeked of beer and dragged Tomas out of his bedroom by the leg. Tomas flailed about, trying to grab onto something. His house was nearly in complete darkness; only a sliver of moonlight shone through the gaps of the broken shutters over the windows.
The intruder stomped as loud as a giant as he pulled Tomas to the front door against his will. His face was still shrouded in shadow. Tomas could make out no discernible features from the fear and the darkness.
He screamed, kicked and cried.
I’m going to die! I’m going to die!
“Please! Father! Someone help me!” Tomas begged.
Where was father? He should be asleep, too, and their house was small. Tomas was sure his father must have heard the commotion.
The man grumbled as he swung the door to the house open. The moonlight from outside suddenly lit him up. Tomas was shocked to see that the man who had dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night was no stranger at all.
It was his father.
“Father, stop!” Tomas said upon realising who it was.
The middle-aged man was unshaven, unkempt, and with bags under his eyes. He was wearing a bloodied butcher’s apron and leather gloves.
The man did not stop dragging Tomas through the moist dirt and icy snow beneath his feet. He didn’t even bother to look Tomas in the face.
“Why are you doing this?! Stop it!” Tomas could only cry.
After dragging him out the door a few feet, Tomas’s father released the painful grip from his ankles. Tomas sprung up, brushing off the muck that had accumulated on his clothes and wiping his tears.
They stood alone in the dead street of Brittlepeak.
All the lights in the surrounding houses were out. The only noise outside with Tomas and his father were the cooing of owls, the babbling of the mountain river flowing through town, and the howl of the bone-chilling wind.
Tomas’s father, like some sort of hellish fiend, lent down and pointed a dirty finger in Tomas’s face. “It’s time I taught you a lesson on being a man,” he said menacingly.
His words were slurred. His breath stank of drink. His eyes had a distinct chill to them.
The threat sent a
