“Hold out your hand.” She shook her head from side to side. She was trembling, her small shoulders shaking.
“Your hands or your mouth, Guin?”
She looked at me wide-eyed. “You wouldn't.” Her voice shook, but like the good queen she has always been, she opened her hands, and I placed her little toy in her upturned palms before closing them.
“How does that feel?” I asked, gripping her chin in my hands.
Sobs tore through her, and she looked into my eyes. Behind the fear, it was still there. Her resentment of me.
“I. Loathe. You.” She hissed. “You’re a monster.”
That was what I loved about her. That fire, simmering so close to the surface, it had nearly burned me. I grinned and ran my bloody hands through her smooth, golden hair which hung around her shoulders. The gold on her head like a crown.
“You are so beautiful, Guin. I want you to stay this way, this beautiful,” My hands trailed down her face. The pounding in my head wouldn’t stop until this was over.
“Go lie down.” I gripped her forearm and flung her on the bed next to her lover. The sheet falling, revealing her perfect body, one I’d faithfully worshipped.
She turned toward the corpse beside her and screamed, and I placed a finger to my lips. “Shh, the baby is sleeping.” Fear filled her eyes. “If you’re good, this will be over before you know it. If you aren’t…” I looked over to Castello.
Her chest heaved up and down, and I couldn’t help but admire her taut pink nipples against her porcelain skin. The flatness of her belly, the soft golden curls that covered her pussy.
“I loved you, Guin. I loved you so much.”
She looked at me, and for a second, I thought I saw her defenses cave, but still, the truth of her feelings were there in those blue orbs. “Give me a chance to make this right, Arthur. Think of our daughter.” Tears filled her eyes, and when she blinked, they fell into her hair. But those were not tears of remorse, those were tears of regret. Regret that she’d been caught. Regret that her lover was dead because of her selfishness. The selfish bitch hadn’t thought about our child until now. But who could blame her, she’d been busy.
“Calthorpes don’t do second chances.” I smiled.
“I hate you,” she spat as I wrapped my hand around her slender neck and squeezed so tight my heart hurt. I could hear her laugh when we sat out on the grounds in the sunshine. She struggled at first, her body writhing and thrashing. The way her face took on a sense of peace when she held our daughter. And then, then there was nothing. “Till death do us part,” I’d promised. The light left her eyes, and her breathing ceased.
“Goodnight forever, Bellissima,” I said as a lone tear slipped down my cheek.
I walked across the courtyard in the pouring rain and swung open the door to my family home.
“Father.” I yelled.
I staggering up the stairs to his bedroom, finding the door open. Above him stood a guard frozen, his gaze on my father in his bed.
“Arthur…” The man mumbled as I walked toward my father’s bed. Luther was still, he looked like he was sleeping and I would have thought so if not for the crimson spot on his chest.
“Who?” I yelled, above the thunder and lightning.
“Stephen Castello.”
Two words. I sat on my father’s bed and for the first time in years leaning in to wrap my arms around him but he was already cold as ice.
I wasn’t meant to be there.
But here I was.
I’d held on to his corpse until I had to be pried away.
Luther Calthorpe was dead.
* * *
The rain pelted down hard, beating the ground beneath us. There were hundreds of people crowded before the towering Calthorpe mausoleum in Saint Louis Cemetery. They formed an arc around the two ornate caskets which stood in front of the stone structure with the Calthorpe crest engraved into it. One black, the other white. The bodies had been embalmed, and they both had looked like they were sleeping.
My sister, Anna, stood opposite me, and I was almost convinced she’d collapse any second. Her son, Gawain, stood beside her. He was eleven and reminded me of myself at that age. He had those same hungry eyes, and the funeral being in a graveyard didn’t faze him at all. He walked through the tombstones, fascinated. He’d join me one day, of that I was certain. The Calthorpe blood ran through his veins.
