Chapter 108

Chapter 182: The Night He was Angered

Moonlight kissed the paneled floor of the master bedroom and Kushi, sitting perched up at the end of the massive bed, stared at the cage across the room, the solitary candlelight on the bedside table creating horrendous shadows of the cage on the walls. Shadows that made the bars teeth and the huge dent between the two bars a hungry animal's wide mouth……..

"I will not sleep in that thing again," she mumbled, and then returned her impervious attention to the door.

It was well past bedtime. A servant had been sent from the Industry with the message that the two Lords would be late and that no one was to wait for them to come to dine. So Payal and Kushi were forced to dine with the family, and not wait for their husbands.

As soon as dinner was over, Payal had retired to her bed instantly but Kushi stayed for a while in Nani's room, feeding Fortune biscuits and singing to Nani as she lay in her bed until she had fallen asleep. Then Kushi headed for the silent room of her husband, lit a candle to give her company in the darkness and then changed into one of the satin nightgowns, the cold fabric feeling rich and thin against her skin.

And from thence she had sat at the end of the bed, positioned to look at the cage she had been commanded to sleep in last night and also to keep an eye on the door. She intended to remain awake when her callous husband made his entry, according to the Raizada protocol, but she felt immensely tired, knowing not why for she had not done much work that day. She had spent the entire day with Payal learning the wifely ways of the Castle, with Lady Anjali acting as their guide and Lady Manorama as their overseer.

Sighing, Kushi was about to give up on the waiting when she heard the sound of his heavy boots coming up the stairs.

She leapt of the bed and rushed to door and, as she opened it, the candlelight in the room flashed across his approaching face. When he looked up and saw her face at the open door, he stopped.

He stared as though he was seeing a dream and then his features turned impassive as though he had remembered why she was here. Frowning, he looked away and strode into his room, removing his coat as he stepped in. She reached up to help him with his coat, but he stepped away from her reach and shedding his coat, threw it into the basket, not sparing her a single glance.

She frowned at his back and decided she would not give him much regard either and, with this determined decision, she walked to the bed and sat on it again.

Lord Arnav moved to his wardrobe and picked up his night pants and his shirt and then, sliding the wardrobe door shut, he walked to the bath chamber. She remained silent while he bathed and changed and then when he reentered the room, she said vehemently, "I won't sleep in that thing tonight."

He said nothing but looked at the cage, as though he had only remembered of its existence just then, despite its massiveness occupying almost the entire room.

Kushi stared at his back, his shirt wet in some places for his back was probably wet from the bath and had not been dried before the shirt was put on.

It was odd to see him standing so, staring at the cage for a long minute as though he was studying it.

And then suddenly, he turned and strode to the door, opened it and disappeared into the dark corridor.

Kushi gaped at the open door. Where did he go?

Getting onto her feet, she stepped towards the door and had barely reached the corridor than he returned back. He was immersed in some thought it seemed, for he didn't spare her a look as he walked in. Holding the huge rope with both his hands, he moved towards the cage.

She watched in astonishment as he tied one end of the rope to one of the bars on top of the cage. When he was assured the knot on the cage was tight, he began pushing the huge cage with his bare hands until it reached the open balcony, the still air punctuated by the frustrated grunts of his efforts.

Kushi stared disbelievingly as he struggled at the rope and, with his remarkably strong hands, began to hang the massive cage in the balcony by the rope that was wound around a pole in the balcony ceiling.

"What are you doing?" Kushi demanded.

"Taking precautions," grunted Lord Arnav as he strained at pulling the rope, as the cage rose into the air, suspended by the rope. The cage remained in the mid-air, hung by a rope, swinging threateningly in the balcony, close to the railing which looked over the ground below.

Kushi's fists clenched, "I am NOT sleeping in that. And definitely not with the way its hanging over the ground!"

He didn't say anything but holding onto the other end of the rope sturdily, he stepped back into his room, moving backward with his eyes fixed on the cage hovering in the balcony.

Kushi watched as he tied his end of the rope to the post of his heavy bed.

When he was ensured of the unbreakable strength of the knot he had made, he looked over his shoulder at her, tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. He didn't say anything; only looked at her and then climbed into his bed. She glowered at him, as he laid his head on the pillow, his back turned to her. She looked towards the balcony, the cold breeze fluttering the curtains and the moonlight glinting over the gold bars of the cage.

Determinedly, she climbed into his bed and lay down, a good distance away from where Lord Arnav was lying in the center.

Lord Arnav shut his eyes, Why! Why do you make things so hard, Kushi! He gripped the side of his pillow, fraught to stillness to not turn on her.

"Go away," he mumbled angrily into the darkness.

Kushi stared at the back of his shirt, Did he say something?

Lord Arnav slid further away from her though he had already been lying distanced from her. She sighed and smiled to herself, content to be sleeping on the bed rather than in the cage.

She brushed her hands on her arms and realized she hadn't thanked him for providing her the clothes and accessories. She knew he was the one paying for them. But she couldn't bring herself to be grateful to him after all the horrid things he had let happen in her life. So she fought with her conscience for a while and then decided to express her thanks in a not-so-obvious way.

"It's good the clothes arrived in the afternoon or I would have left for the South Village."

"Despite my warnings, you would have dared to disobey?" he muttered into the pillow, Stop talking, Kushi!

She shot him a frown in the darkness, "It's not as though I was running away. I would have come back with my clothes."

"Or more rightly, with rags, like Mami says," he said haughtily.

Kushi sat up, "I can't believe I really married you, you proud arrogant beast!"

Suddenly, cold hands gripped her arms and pulled her to him, "Begin to believe then, for this is real. You are my wife and you are in my bed. There is no escape for you, Kushi, ever. So beware if you dare to anger me……." Even in the darkness, she could feel the rapacious look in his eyes. Kushi held her breath, praying that he won't do her any harm.

Lord Arnav released his hold on her and moving away, lay down to sleep again, clenching his fists. He could still feel the sensation of her arms in his palms that tingled as though affected by her touch. He squeezed his eyes shut to drive away the image of how he'd seen her at the door on his entry, dressed in that gown that accentuated her curves.

Darn! And I was the one who ordered them to be bought! He cursed himself and then rolled to his back, staring at the ceiling. Kushi too, was staring at the ceiling, lost in the remembrance of a dream she had once that resonated with the very same words he had last uttered.

An image crossed her mind: him leaning over a table and gripping her by her wrists as the chess pieces upon the table fell shattering to the ground. "I win. I always win……my pawn queen…"

Kushi shut her eyes and clenched her fists at her sides, I will not let you win. I cannot….

And with that resolution, she turned to her side, her back to where he lay and waited for sleep to come.

She didn't know for how long she had slept. It seemed she had slumbered only for a few minutes before she was woke up again. The candlelight had extinguished by then.

She stared at the darkness in the room, unable to see anything. Then she heard him struggle beside her, smashing his fists into the pillow. Instantly leaping off the bed, she raced for the door before anything happened but cold hands grasped her arms and pulled her away from the door.

She yelped and stepped away but stared in astonishment when she realized he had held her to push her away so he could himself open the door and race out of it, leaving her unharmed at the door.

Where had he gone? She pondered as she heard his light bare-footed steps running down the stairs into the darkness. And then, after a few minutes, as quickly as he had gone down, he was coming up, his steps presumably dawdling as though he was carrying something. She didn't wait to see what it was. Her surprise at his vanishing had disabled her senses to act, and it was only when he was returning back to the room that she realized she had forgotten to escape from the room herself.

Stepping away from the door, she remained silent and stood in the darkness, afraid to even breath and give away her presence, if he was in his wild moods like he had been last night.

In the gleam of the moonlight from the open balcony, she saw him enter and shut the door with his back, a belt tied around his mouth, clenched between his teeth.

Her gaze fell on his arms and she comprehended that what he had carried in was food, probably obtained from the pantry. What is he doing with all this? She wondered and then she saw him sit on the floor beside his bed and untie the belt.

He clenched his jaws shut and seemed to be struggling to keep it so, the hair over his forehead wet with sweat and his breathing sounding rough and hard.

Slowly, she backed away towards the balcony, concurrently ensuring that he was not made aware of her presence. But she stopped retreating when he started gorging down the food, licking some before eating. She was utterly confused and didn't know what to decipher from the bewildering sight.

She could see that the food would be over in a few minutes and then he would come searching for her…….

She stepped back again but instantly froze when she saw the food in his hand drop down as he lifted his face and sniffed the air.

He had sensed her.

Oh dear Goddess MOTHER!

The moonlight shone on his face and his cold gaze spotted her by the balcony in the darkness. Kushi turned on her heels and raced for the cage.

He had hung the cage such that the door and the dented side of the cage were not facing the room for his wildness to sense it. Sprinting around the cage, her hands fumbled at the bars for the door and, on finding it, she opened it and leapt into the cage.

Shutting the door behind her, she stared at the archway of the balcony and found him crouched there, staring up at her.

Please don't dent it, please don't dent it, she prayed earnestly, and then she her heart leapt in fear as he pounced upon the gold bars, the cage swinging madly with the force of his seizing.

Anxiously looking over her shoulder, Kushi paled when she saw the sheer drop that the cage had to the ground below. Why did he have to pick a room upstairs? She tried to appease her mind but when his hands pulled and pushed at the bars, her composure failed and she lost all hope. He's doing it again!

Before she knew it, his resilient hands had pushed the bars away making another dent and as she scrambled to the farther end of the cage that was swinging dangerously over the balcony railings, he slinked into the cage and moved towards her.

When her back made contact with the farthest corner of the cage, she stilled and stared at him as her arms slid protectively around her trembling body.

His hungry gaze never once left her.

He crept closer and closer towards her and she shut her eyes, praying harder than she had in all her life. Even with her eyes closed, she could sense his unceasing approach.

She stiffened when she felt his nose sniff against her cheek. She clenched her fists in an attempt to rouse her courage. I'm not going to yield like last night, she decided, I will not let you win.

And that was exactly what she did though I would have advised her against it.

She pushed his face away and when he angrily reached for her, she kicked at him. In all certainty, her attempts only further angered him and he pinned her to the cold surface of the cage floor. The cage was madly swinging to and fro but Kushi interminably struggled against him and he became livider by the minute. He held her under him and gripped her by her shoulders, but she refused to surrender to his pinning power and kicked him hard at his knees. Wincing visibly, he snarled, his eyes darkening with rage.

And then it happened.

He bit her on the underside of her arm, near her elbow, which was the nearest part he could get of her in the struggle.

As soon as his teeth had sunk into her tender flesh, she opened her mouth to scream but her screamed faded away as a strange weakening feeling swept over her. Her arm numbed over and a coldness spread through her nerves and veins and, consequently, her brain was doused in a numbing coldness. She gasped and tried to breathe but before she could catch her breath, her mind slipped and she fell unconscious.

Lord Arnav shivered and woke up in the middle of the night. He stared up at the moon above him. Why is the moon closer tonight? He wondered and that is when he realized he was looking at the moon through bars.

What the!

Springing up and setting the stilled cage to swinging again, he stared around.

How had he come to be here? His eyes fell on Kushi, where she lay on the cage floor, sleeping.

Darn! He smashed his hand into a bar and gasped in astonishment when he saw how easily he had bent it.

And then he looked at Kushi again, fear rising in him. He noticed that she looker paler than she usually did and crouched closer to her.

"Kushi?" he called out to her, "Kushi?" he reached out his hand and touched her hand that was resting on her chest.

Instantly, he withdrew his hand and his face paled, "No!"

Her skin was ice-cold.

He reached out and touched her hands and face and his breath held itself in shock, "No, Kushi!"

Without a moment's lag, he kicked open the door of the cage, and after leaping out of it onto the balcony floor, he reached his hands up and dragged Kushi out of the cage.

Rushing into his room with her limp form in his arms, he laid her on the bed and began rubbing her hands and feet to warm them.

"Kushi, Kushi," he called out to her, but she remained motionless and her hands and legs refused to turn warm. Infact, they were getting colder with each passing second.

"No, no," he looked around helplessly, his vision beginning to blur.

He held his hand over her face to see if she was breathing but he could feel nothing. He realized his own hands were trembling.

Anger raged inside of him and he stepped out of the bed.

He stormed towards the balcony and with a wild snarl, his hands clenched at the cold bars of the cage and, forcefully bending them, he tore them off the metal clasps. Grunting and growling, he pulled out each impossible bar off the cage and angrily flung them all down the balcony railing.

He walked back into his room and standing before the rope that had the cage at one end and the bedpost at its other end, he gripped at the rope with both his hands and snapped it into two, letting go of the rope-end by which hung the cage. The cage fell tumbling and crashing onto the garden outside, in close proximity of the rose bush and, with the fall of the mangled cage, died memories that had haunted him for years.

Lord Arnav rushed back to the bed, to his wife who lay motionless in the warm center of the bed. Climbing onto the bed, he lifted her up by her shoulders, "Kushi, wake up!"

Her head lolled backwards, her eyes shut. He stared at her closed eyes, her colorless face and felt life draining out of him, "No……." he whispered weakly, "No, Kushi, no."

He blinked away the strange water in his eyes and looked around for some resort to help him revive her.

And then he paused and looked at her. His rampant emotions had been fogging his senses but slowly his mind, in its desperation, tried to work out the reasoning.

She must have been bit by him.

He felt like kicking himself for panicking over what had happened instead of connecting with details and deciding what to do next.

Immediately, he laid her back on the bed and placing both his hands on her face, ran them down her body, feeling her skin, her curves and her limbs. He would sense where he had bit her even with her clothes on.

When he didn't find anything with her laying on her back, he turned her over and ran his hands from the back of her neck and down her spine till he reached her heels. He tried the back of her arms, sliding either of his hand down her arms and when his frantic hands were passing over her elbows, he suddenly stopped.

One of them stung colder than the rest of her body.

He flipped her again and she fell lightly on her back. He lifted her arm and rested it on a pillow. Then drawing the sleeve of her nightgown to her shoulder, he let his thumb feel the marks of his teeth on her unusually icy skin.

"Don't worry, Kushi," he breathed out, "I won't let anything happen to you."

He leaned down, his face nearing the underside of her arm, close to her elbow, and then his mouth was on the bite mark. He flicked his tongue over the bite wound and kissed her cold skin repeatedly until he could feel the warmth of his tongue rubbing off on the bite wound. Every time he sucked at her wound, he looked at her face to read the colour of the cheeks, disappointed when he saw the paleness had not changed.

He kept sucking and licking at her wound for nearly an hour, knowing well the cursed cold had probably spread into her entire body for when he awoke to find her so, a long time must have passed after he bit her.

His tongue was tired and his heed reeled with the lingering taste of blood that he had to fight back from evoking his other side. But there was no stopping for he was determined to resuscitate her back. The darkness of the night sky slowly welcomed pink shades and he knew dawn was approaching.

His tired hands reached out and held her hands. He felt lightened when he found them warm. He looked at her face and saw the flush of reluctant red on her cheeks.

"Kushi……" he smiled in relief and then pulled her to his chest, pressing his face against the crook of her neck, "Never again…….never again……"

Just then a knock on the door resounded and Lord Arnav looked up into the darkness, wonderingly. He laid Kushi gently upon the pillow and leapt out of bed, slowly edging towards the door.

"Who is it in this hour?" he demanded in a low voice.

"Chotey, what was that noise in the garden?" his sister's muffled voice enquired.

Sighing exasperatedly, he opened the door and let her in.

Dressed in a night gown, Lady Anjali's worried gaze first fell on Kushi and, as she stepped towards the bed, she studied the young girl's features. She looked perfectly fine, her cheeks flushed and her face angelic in her sleep.

"Is she alright?" Lady Anjali turned to confront her brother, "What was that noise?"

Lord Arnav didn't say anything but looked in the direction of the open balcony. Lady Anjali also gazed to where the breeze fluttered the curtains and the departing moonlight looked into the room sadly.

She stepped forward and, walking into the balcny, looked down the railings to the lawn below.

Lord Arnav heard a distinct gasp escape his sister's lips and she was marching back to him.

"What is all this, Chotey?" Lady Anjali sounded stern and equally concerned, "I hear noises in the night and come up to find that you have torn the cage apart to pieces and tossed them in the garden!"

"I did what I had to, Di," he looked away, his gaze falling on Kushi where she slept peacefully in bed.

"Had to? One moment you order that horrendous thing from the attic and in the next moment you willfully break it to pieces? What is this meaning of all this madness, Chotey?"

"Isn't it obvious, Di? I don't need the cage anymore, so I disposed it off."

Lady Anjali was suspicious, "Did you harm her?"

He didn't answer but looked away, frowning with disapproval. Lady Anjali looked over his shoulder to where Kushi lay.

"She doesn't look ill or affected," Lady Anjali ruminated aloud, and she looked at her brother, "Tell me, Chotey, did you harm her?"

"I may have," he confessed angrily, "But I also revived her back."

Wide-eyed, Lady Anjali slid a hand on her womb and moved towards the bed. She sat on the side of the bed and caressed Kushi's face.

"Of course you would revive her back. She's your wife," Lady Anjali looked at him painfully, "But when you ordered the cage down from the attic, you should have remembered that you are a lot stronger now than you once were. The bars would not have withstood your extant strength. Candidly, I saw no reason why you dragged it all the way to Arhasia anyway."

She absent-mindedly took Kushi's hand into hers and fingered the wedding ring on the sleeping maiden's hand. "I will order the servants to trash the pieces of the cage in the Rear Room first thing in the morning."

"Burn it," Lord Arnav ordered, "And throw the melted gold in the sea. We don't want anything that reminds us of the past here."

Lady Anjali was silent and she looked at Kushi's face, "How she sleeps like an angel!"

Lord Arnav stole a glance upon his wife's face and felt a warm feeling swirl within his insides. And then he was gripped by a worrying thought.

He could not possibly bear to see her thus every night, "Let her sleep with you, Di."

Lady Anjali looked at him, astonished, trying to read the emotion on his moon-lit face, "Are you afraid, Chotey."

"No, I am not," he said, expressionlessly, "Just let her sleep with you for a while until I have worked out a way."

"You should have thought of that BEFORE marrying her," Lady Anjali frowned, and then she prodded, "Why did you do it, Chotey?"

"Do what?"

"Marry her!" Lady Anjali stood up, "I know very well that marriage was not an intention of neither of you, and yet, here you are, husband and wife for life. Why would you do it? What urgency led to this union?"

"I cannot talk of it now, Di," he said with decisively, "Someday I will, but not now."

Lady Anjali shook her head, "Very well, Little One, but know this: the truth will not be hidden for long. I will bring it to light myself if you prolong to hide it beyond one's necessity. And as for her sleeping with me, I will see it to it immediately."

"Not tonight," interposed Lord Arnav, much to Lady Anjali's surprise.

He turned impassive, "She is already asleep. We might rouse her if we are to carry her. Let her sleep here for tonight. From tomorrow, she's all yours."

Lady Anjali smiled, warming in her heart when she realized her cold-hearted brother was having difficulty parting with his wife, "She is never mine, Chotey," Lady Anjali said as she stepped towards the door, "She will always and only be yours." And with that, Lady Anjali left the room.

Lord Arnav's gaze was warm as he looked at the sleeping Kushi, Always and only mine…..

And then the exhaustion of the night's distress returned. He crept into bed and fell into a deep sleep, his arms protectively around his sleeping wife.