Devil's Dominion (20 page)

As he pulled her up the stairs, Allaston tripped out of sheer anxiety, and he carefully helped her back to her feet again. There was an odd gentleness in his touch, something quite unexpected. Well, was he angry with her or wasn’t he? By the time he pulled her into the open room on the entry level, the room he used for his meetings, she was nearly in tears.

Once inside the room, Bretton let go of Allaston’s arms and faced her. He crossed his arms, his head cocked pensively, as he looked into her eyes.

“What has happened since I last saw you that you would cower in my presence?” he asked quietly. “The woman I left a few short weeks ago did not behave as if she was afraid of me. But the woman I see before me behaves fearfully. Look at you. You are almost in tears. Why do you behave this way?”

Allaston didn’t want to tell him but she had little choice. He was asking a civil question and expecting the truth. Were she to lie to him, she suspected his questions would no longer be civil. But, God help her, she didn’t want to tell him. Yet, she had to. She backed away from him, rubbing her arm where he had gripped her.

“You wanted obedience, did you not?” she asked, having difficulty looking him in the eye. “I am simply being obedient.”

He grunted. “There is a difference between obedience and abject fear,” he said. “You are displaying the latter and I want to know why.”

She looked at him, then. “You told me when you left those weeks ago that I was to stay to the keep and to the hall, that I was to be obedient,” she said. “I have done that. I have done everything you told me to do. So now I have done something wrong because I am doing what you told me to do? I do not understand.”

He saw a flash of the old Allaston, the fiery one, and it pleased him. So she was still in there, somewhere. He wanted to bring her out. It was that Allaston he liked.

“You behave as if I have a knife to your throat,” he said. “I have never done anything like that to you, even when I took you from Alberbury. I have never held a weapon to you in any way. Why do you fear me so now?”

Allaston met his examining glare, seeing something so brilliant and beautiful in his face. Aye, it was true. She could see brilliance and beauty. She simply couldn’t imagine he was behind the horror outside the walls, the horror of killing the Mother Prioress right before her eyes, but the truth was that the man was a killer. He had made it clear that he was capable of atrocities beyond her comprehension. It was this killer who was using her to lure her father to his doom. So how on earth could she think he was brilliant and beautiful? The dam she had held so tightly was beginning to burst and there was no stopping it. She was so confused, so fearful, that she could hardly control herself.

“As you seek answers to your questions, I also seek answers to questions of my own,” she said quietly. “May I ask my questions first?”

He shrugged. “You may.”

“Will you be completely truthful?”

“I always am.”

Allaston considered that response before continuing. She was careful in the way she phrased her questions, not wanting to sound accusing or irrational. At least, not yet.

“When you were gone these past weeks, where did you go?” she asked.

Bretton met her gaze unwaveringly. “That is my business, lady.”

“It was to conquer another castle. I heard you and your men speaking.”

“Then if you already knew, why did you ask?”

Allaston’s scrutiny was intense. “Was there a lord and lady at that castle, too?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Did you bash their children’s brains out and put the parents on spikes like you did the lord and lady of Cloryn?”

All of the pleasant or warm reflections in Bretton’s expression had vanished. Now, he was looking at her with the eyes of a man who had no regrets in life, no matter what he’d done. He regarded her coolly.

“Where did you hear such things?” he asked evenly.

Allaston shook her head, firmly and with resolve. “It does not matter,” she said. “What matters is if those rumors are true.”

He didn’t hesitate. “They are.”

She swallowed hard, staggering back a bit as if he had struck her. Even though she’d known the truth, it was still a blow to have him confirm it so callously. Tears began to pool in her eyes but before she could respond, he was moving towards her, stalking her, as if he was the hunter and she was the prey. His enormous body moved with grace and stealth.

“And before you think to denounce me for such things, remember this,” he hissed. “Your father did such things along this border twenty-five years ago, such horrors as you cannot comprehend. Whatever I am doing, he did first, so before you tell me what a horrible murderer I am, you had better rethink your accusations. Your father was a brutal murderer who ran a spike through my father’s anus, up into his guts and through his chest so that the end of it came out of his shoulder. Then he put one end of the pole into the ground and left my father, a truly good and decent man, to die an agonizing death, so every man I put to a stake, every woman I disembowel, and every child whose brains are splashed out over the walls has your father to thank for it. It is all de Velt’s fault!”

He was in her face by the time he finished, leaning over her as she recoiled from him. Allaston couldn’t tear her gaze away from his angry blue eyes. He was enraged, that was true, but oddly enough, she wasn’t afraid of him. That pity she had felt for him before began to fill her veins yet again because she understood why he was doing it. She’d understood it back when he’d first told her but now, it was more evident than ever.

“I know what my father did to your father, for you have already told me,” she said, her tone a breathy whisper. “Now you are doing what my father did, but for what? To somehow punish my father? Do you really believe this will hurt him somehow by emulating his reign of terror? Nay, that is not why you do this. Deep down, you are still that hurt, shattered five year old boy and you are taking your anger out on the world. The only person you are hurting is yourself.”

Bretton was so close to Allaston’s face that his breath was lifting tendrils of her hair. Her words sank in and his eyes narrowed, briefly, as a flash of anger rolled through him. As fast as lightning, he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her hard against his broad chest. His fingers bit into her tender flesh and she gasped, startled by his reaction. She could see something dark and painful brewing in his eyes.

“You know nothing,” he snarled. “What do you know of that five year old boy who watched his entire world go up in flames? What do you know of that child who saw his mother kill his sister and then herself because she knew what her fate would be at the hands of de Velt? I watched as my mother stabbed my sister in the chest and then slit her own throat, but I was too young and too powerless to stop her. I was too young and too powerless to stop de Velt from impaling my father and destroying my castle. I escaped with some of the servants, a lonely bundle of humanity, who then kept me for a while, tending me, until I became too much of a burden and they sold me into slavery. I was too young and too powerless to stop the man who bought me from raping me from the time he purchased me until I grew old enough to fight him off. I killed him when I was ten years of age to finally free myself of the abuse. So do not judge me, Lady Allaston, by the way I treat the world. The world has never been kind to me. Therefore, I am not kind to the world.”

Allaston stared at him, deeply surprised and deeply horrified by his admission. Her heart was aching for the man. Now, so much of what he did and who he was made sense. It was much more than Jax de Velt destroying his castle and killing his father. It was everything that came after that. He blamed Jax for destroying his life, as he’d once said. It would seem there was some truth to that.

“What you have had to endure is barbaric and terrible, and I cannot imagine the pain you must have felt,” she admitted. “I would apologize for the sins committed against you but I do not believe that would make a difference. If… if my father apologized to you, would it help to ease this anger you carry?”

Bretton still wasn’t over the fact that he had just told her his darkest secret. Gazing into those bright green eyes and beautiful face, it was as if he’d had no control. It all just came spilling out. He was both embarrassed and strangely relieved, as if a burden had been lifted from him, a burden he had carried most of his life. Now Jax de Velt’s daughter shared that burden, too. Perhaps it was right that she did, considering her father had laid this heavy burden across his shoulders. Perhaps it was right that a de Velt helped him bear the unbearable.

“Do you truly believe it that simple?” he asked after a moment, the grip on her arms loosening. “The destruction of a man’s life cannot be erased by condolences.”

“Mayhap not,” she said softly, “but mayhap it will ease you somewhat. You have a terrible burden to bear. If I could make it easier for you, I would.”

She had meant it innocently, in the course of attempting to be understanding about his situation, but Bretton didn’t take it that way. All he could think about was physical comfort, sexual comfort, as sexual contact with a woman he was attracted to was something of a rarity. In fact, he couldn’t even remember bedding a woman he felt something for. Those kinds of relationships didn’t exist in his world. Aye, she could make it easier for him. She could give him comfort where none existed.

His mouth descended on hers, abruptly, tasting a woman who was sweeter and softer than anything he had ever experienced. Allaston shrieked, into his mouth, but Bretton didn’t release her. In fact, he pulled her tighter, kissing her so forcefully that she was nearly bent over backwards. As she squirmed and gasped, he forced his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, suckling her tongue as she continued to resist him. But the more she struggled, the more excited he became. It wasn’t so much her resistance as it was her taste. She tasted delightful and he could feel himself growing hard. There was only one way to ease his desire.

Grabbing hold of the front of her surcoat, he gave one powerful yank and ripped it down to her navel. Allaston screamed as his big, warm, and dirty hand snaked between the torn pieces of fabric, grasping a warm and soft breast, fondling her. He pinched her nipple as she struggled to get away from him, and he ended up picking her up and plopping her down on the tabletop. As Allaston beat at him and fought to get away, he easily caught both of her flailing arms and pinned them over her head.

She bucked and wept as his hot mouth came down on a distended nipple, suckling furiously. As she struggled, he climbed upon the table and got on top of her, wedging himself between her kicking legs. With both arms pinned by his iron grip, he was free to do as he wished as he began to toss up her skirts.

“Nay,” Allaston wept. “Please do not do this. Please! This is not the way for a man to behave, do you hear me? You must not do this!”

He heard her. However, he was so overwhelmed with his lust and want for her at the moment that it was clouding his common sense. All he could think of was satisfying his desire, of feeling his body in hers, of tasting her tender flesh. There was nothing else in his world. This is how the act of sex had always been done, ever since the merchant who owned him had tied him down and raped him. He’d been screaming and crying, subjected to unbelievable pain, but the old man had penetrated him anyway. He hadn’t listened to the young boy’s cries. Therefore, Allaston’s struggle was nothing out of the ordinary. When his fingers began to probe the soft curls between her legs, she let out a scream of utter terror.

“Stop!” she howled. “Would you truly do this to me? I am meant for the cloister and if you do this, I will be stained forever! You have told me how terrible it was for someone to do this to you, yet you are doing it to me! I beg you, please stop! I swear upon all that is holy that I will hate you forever if you take what does not belong to you!
I will hate you
!”

He inserted a finger into her, listening to her scream with pain and terror. She was very tight around his finger and he could feel the proof of her virginity opposing him. He could only imagine how his manhood would feel inside of her, enveloped by the warmth and moisture of her body. He could imagine no greater pleasure. But her words began to sink in and he paused, his mouth on her breast and his finger in her body. He’d often wondered what it would be like to bed a woman whom he hadn’t paid, or who wasn’t screaming in terror.

To have a woman respond to him, to want him to touch her… it was a foreign concept, but one he’d always wondered about. Perhaps it was something to consider because he didn’t want Allaston hating him. If he raped her, she would. Nay, he didn’t want her hatred at all. Deep down, that part of him that understood decency was struggling to come forth. He’d known decency, once, as a child. He well remembered his kind mother and father, and how good they had been. If he could recollect the concept of decency, then perhaps it wasn’t dead in him after all.

So he stopped suckling her breast and removed his finger. Pushing himself off the table, he watched Allaston leap off the other side, pulling the ends of her tattered surcoat together as she bolted from the room. He could hear her running up the stairs to the second floor and he heard the door to her chamber slam. He was sure she bolted it, too, but he hadn’t heard that part. As he stood there, feeling guilty and confused, Dallan entered the keep. He could see the man approaching from the entry.

“Bretton,” he said, extending what looked to be a rolled bit of parchment in his hand. “A missive has arrived for you.”