Death In The Making

Rhea's eyes burned and sparkled with crystalline tears at the words that had just left George's lips.

Her lips rounded, trying to form that heart-wrenching word 'contraceptive,' yet sound refused to leave her.

It was caught in her throat, choking her and robbing her of breath. Her lungs seemed to shrink in her ribcage as her bruised heart swelled and pressed painfully against it.

Everyone and thing faded to shadows as Rhea's vision blurred and her hands grabbed her neck in a tight squeeze, willing her body to work and take in air.

As her pale face steadily turned blue, the chime of a thousand church bells deafened her, and panicked tears, hot in contrast to the chill that had settled in her bones, rolled down her cheeks.

At the brink of unconsciousness, the ravenette felt large callused hands grabbed her wrists and pry them away from her neck, allowing air to flood back into Rhea's lungs with a shuddering inhale.

Rhea could see George, his heavy frown, and the movements of his lips as he tried to reach her, but the bells would not let her hear him no matter how hard she willed them to stop.

Instead, they grew louder, the ringing bouncing off the walls of the small room that were quickly closing in on her.

His coat was rough against her hands as she clung to him with shaky hands.

"Out," the spiralling woman whispered with a shuddering sob as the walls pressed in so close they pressed against her head until it hurt. "I need to...."

The words barely left her lips before she was lifted off her feet by George and carried out of the room in his capable arms.

Stepping over the doorway was like jumping into a pool while on fire, and the relief of it had her gasping loudly.

"You're alright. It's all in your head," George comforted, rocking her gently in his arms with all the love of a mother with her child.

Rhea nodded in agreement, trying to compose herself as the bells came to a sudden stop and her lungs began working overtime to support her hyperventilating.

She was covered in sweat, quickly cooling from the night air blowing through the window, and the refreshing coolness of the pool water melting away her ash-covered clothes suddenly grew into a biting chill, losing all relief.

A few seconds ticked by, silently save for the call of an owl in the distance and Felicity's cries creeping from the doorway.

Rhea broke the silence with a whisper, her eyes staring blankly ahead.

"He used to beat me for it."

George shifted her in his arms but otherwise remained quiet.

"His mother, Dowager Montgomery, once visited five months into our marriage. She looked into my eyes and said, 'you're as useful as a barren broodmare.'" Tears rolled down her cheeks at the remembrance of the humiliating memory, and she could not muster the strength to wipe them away.

"Lonan laughed," she shuddered and shook her head. "He laughed with his mother, and for months after that, he would call me a barren broodmare whenever he wanted to hurt me. I truly thought there was something wrong with me if I was so poor at fulfilling my biological purpose, and I took his cruelty as just punishments for my shortcoming. As a motivation to do better..... be better. I-,"

"I hated myself," she rested her head against his muscled chest as a cold gust of wind blew in through the large windows, causing a shiver. "I punished myself harder than anyone else did, and Lonan always gave me the whip and guided my hand to inflict as terrible a damage as self-harm could cause. Yet all that time he knew."

Rhea looked up to George, who was a well of strength and capability in comparison to her weaknesses, and she tried to draw a bucket full for herself.

"I am the world's biggest fool, am I not?"

The large man frowned deeply. "You are what you had to be," he answered simply, hesitating for a second before continuing. "But you could be more, Lady Montgomery."

She looked away, unable to hold his too intense gaze as her eyes watered with fresh tears.

"Please put me down."

He did as instructed, hands hovering in the air for a few seconds as she swayed on trembling feet before they were tucked away at his sides.

Far behind them, Rhea could still hear the whisper of Felicity's crying, and it fanned the flames of something ugly in her.

How dare she cry after knowingly punishing Rhea for all those years?

Seven years Felicity had called herself a friend while watching Rhea suffer, and she said nothing.

The only person except the mother who never was that should be shedding tears was Lonan. And by all the Gods and Godesses there ever were and will be Rhea would see to it that his tears would not be tears of grief for their children that were never born or died.

No.

Rhea would see Lonan cry blood if it was the last thing she ever did.

Shoulders squared, Rhea wiped away the wetness off her face with her gloved hands, and then tugged off the left glove with her teeth.

With jerky movements, Rhea gathered her curly hair up and began tying it out of the way.

"Return to your master and inform him I do not wish to be disturbed for the rest of the night," she instructed George, finishing work on her hair.

He stepped in her path before she could move, concerned eyes studying her guarded face. "Whatever you intend to do will come with more regret than you can imagine."

Large blues that seemed to glow in the dark met his, and they stared piercingly into his'.

Rhea's eyes were like looking into the abyss, and whatever stared back at George frightened him enough to step out of her way with a resigned bow of his head.

With a vicious kick off of her shoes, Rhea began her march down the hallway with a steady gait, her breathing falling into pace.

She exited the servant quarters, passing by a servant who startled at the sight of her but was too stunned to inquire about her state.

Like a beacon on a hill, moonlight fell on one of the many artefacts lining the walls of the manor; an antique sword from three centuries ago when the Montgomery Countship was the Bealus Warrior clan.

Large and regal in the sharp length of the blade, it had once been the prized possession of the great and formidable warrior, Larkin.

Yet its hilt fit in Rhea's pianist hands like it had been forged for her and she strode down the halls like a woman whose hands were already stained red.

Lonan's wing of the house was as a Lord's should be, separated and shrouded with an air of superiority and mystery.

Its dark walls and imposing decor warned whoever graced the halls how little they were compared to the Lord who dwelled there, and Lonan's bedroom lay at the very end, where a large door towered over every other.

There was no creak of the door or floorboards beneath her feet to announce Rhea's entrance into the room, but the shiver one of the two figures in the bed gave when her eyes fell on their sleeping forms was enough of an entrance.

With no concern for being quiet, Rhea prowled to the left side of the bed where the larger of the two lay, and she finally came to a stop by the head of the bed.

Lonan's brows were pinched, one hand clutching the edge of his pillow, right by Alice's sleeping face.

It was as if he could hear it too in his dreams. The voices of their unborn children screaming at Rhea to take justice, to punish their killer and make sure there would never be blood spilled again.

Larkin's sword hummed when she raised it over her head.

With a single tear sliding down her cheek, Rhea brought the weapon down, and in that same moment a bolt of lightning pierced through the sky, reflecting the slow opening of dark blue eyes on the silver blade.

"Rhea?"