Chapter 209

Chapter 292: All the Worse Things

Kushi jolted awake and blinked at the baffling darkness around her. She didn't know what had awoken her, whether it was a noise in the room or simply a reckless dream.

Her sleep-foggy eyes picked out the features in the room and, having also assessed her poise in the armchair, she realized where she was.

"Stupid girl!" She got to her feet, mumbling to herself, "Sleeping wherever she sits!"

She checked on Lady Deviyani to see if the delirium-struck mother was asleep and saw that she was. But the old lady's usually kind features were marked with worry.

Guilt rocked Kushi's heart again.

"I am sorry, Nani. But the many damages that accompany the truths I hide from you will sting you even further." She then bent over her and kissed her lightly on her forehead, "I only pray that Fortune return soon and bring you happiness again."

With that, Kushi departed, closing the door gently behind her, and made way down the corridor. She supposed that Lord Arnav was fast asleep and would treat her with sound rebuke in the morning for not having spent the night with him.

All at once, her steps halted.

Before her was their chamber and the sight that she beheld, gripped fear to her very core.

The door was wide ajar and manifold articles were strewn all over the floor. A pillow have been mercilessly pierced, few of its feathers scattered about and hovering in the breeze from the balcony.

Gasping, Kushi turned around, looking for traces of movement. Immediately, she noticed that there was light coming from the living room.

Fearing the worst had happened and that the two beasts had decided to confront each other, Kushi lifted the sides of her white night robe and rushed down the stairs barefooted.

Leaping from the last stair, she raced across the hall and through the living room until she stopped suddenly before the massive central doors.

They were also wide open and the crazed wind that blew outside swept at her and undid her hair from its bun.

Kushi looked over her shoulder, into the darkness of the Castle behind her, praying for signs of someone who could accompany her. She could go and get Rahim Chacha. She even made a move in the direction of the kitchen, but stopped, deciding that she didn't want anyone else to be in danger.

Turning back towards the doors, her bare feet cold on the floor, she stepped outside, clutching her arms around herself to keep the robe fastened to her against the biting cold.

Kushi had barely crossed the stretch of the lawn before her, when she thought she had trodden on something wet on the grass that didn't feel like dew. It was sticky and, as she squinted down on the dark splotch on the grass, red!

Shocked, Kushi stepped back and looked about, fearing something dreadful would appear from the shadows any moment.

She was breathing heavily and she tried to calm herself, comprehending that the splodge of blood was perhaps the consequential sign of the fight the two men were presently having somewhere in the vicinity.

Spurring her freezing feet, she raced across the lawn and around the Castle, circling it and glancing every which way that her limited gaze could reach.

She had nearly made a circumferential inspection of the place, and was beginning to understand that they were perhaps confronting each other in the forest, away from the Castle, when she stepped on something wet and sticky again.

She didn't need to look down to know what it was. She saw that it was blood and, as her horrified eyes examined the territory, she realized there was a trail of blood leading from that point.

Walking gingerly, cautious to any hint of sound or movement, she followed the trail of blood until she turned around the bend of the wall and froze where she stood.

A few distance before her, lay her husband, naked and shivering, stains of blood on his arms and chest.

Tears chocked her as she rushed towards him and fell on her knees beside him.

Lord Arnav's face was white as sheet, his skin cold as ice and he was entirely drenched in sweat.

Lifting his head to her lap, she breathed out fearfully, "Arnavji?"

Her hair framing them, Kushi bent down and kissed him all over his face, trying to warm him with the little warmth that was still inside of her and which the wind hadn't gotten to.

She didn't know what had happened to him but she knew if he wasn't warmed soon, he would die of the cold. But no sooner had she kissed his nose warm and moved towards his cheek, his bloodied hands lifted and forcibly pulled her face to his.

Crushing his cold lips to hers, he sucked in.

Kushi's eyes widened as his burning tongue seared her, and pained tears sprang from her eyes as the rancid taste of metallic blood mingled with their saliva and she realized in horror that he had indeed transformed in the night. She worried, in terrific horror, what or whose blood she was tasting in his mouth.

But she could neither reason nor resist him. The heat of his tongue roved and ravaged through her insides and she felt incapacitated under its blinding scorch.

Slowly, as strength returned to his flesh, without releasing her from his tormenting kiss, he turned her over and pressed her to the cold grass. Gripping her by her knees, he drew her legs apart.

Shocked, Kushi tried to undo what he'd done and hold her legs together, but his indomitable hands kept them apart. Her muffled protests went unheard as he tore her robe off her.

The cold wind didn't commiserate with her skin and then his hard chest was crushing down on her. Kushi dizzied, knowing that any moment he would force himself into her and she felt her heart break.

Then, just for a second, when he had released her lips so they could catch their breath, Kushi found the sudden drive to lift her hand and slap him, hard across his cheek.

The slap rattled his mind and he halted, staring blankly at her.

Hot tears streamed down Kushi's cold cheeks as she glared at him.

Sense slammed into him and he realized what he had done. Instantly, he rolled off of her and lay on the grass, staring vacantly at the sky.

Kushi gripped her thwarted robe close to her chest and lay curled on the grass, wanting to not speak for a long time. She knew he was not himself when he acted the way he did, but the horror of the moment was so devastating, she felt sick to her insides.

Lord Arnav's eyes moistened and he wished he could sink into the ground. Mortified by the shameful deed he had let happen, he could only hate himself. His fingers dug into his palms as he fisted his irredeemable hands.

Wincing as fresh blood erupted from his palms, an accidental groan escaped his hard-pressed lips.

Kushi looked up and saw what he was doing.

She sat up and frowned, "Stop that!"

Lord Arnav looked up at her and then sat up too.

They didn't make a move to near each other.

Kushi draped her robe around her and was about to knot the single bind around it when she noticed that it was torn.

Tears rose in her eyes and a single drop streamed down her cheek.

Warm hands hesitated for a moment before sliding across her shoulder and embracing her towards a hard chest that was warm and safe.

She wept against him, her tears cleansing the red stains of blood on his chest.

"Kushi," he whispered, his voice rough with emotion.

And then he held her face lovingly in his hands and, leaning forward, kissed her tenderly on her lips, ceasing their tremble.

Kushi responded gradually and they kissed for a long minute, sitting on the grass and washed by watchful moonlight.

When their lips withdrew, he caressed her face, his tear-filled eyes admiring the beauty of her dark, drowning eyes.

Then his expression stilled, noticing the blood stains on her face that his hands and chest had bestowed on her innocent skin.

Kushi too realized what was yet to be unaccounted for: her finding of the blood on the grass and his naked, cold form on the ground.

Lord Arnav released her and Kushi sat up, clutching the edges of the robe together at her chest.

He looked away and, hastily, overturned his hand.

Kushi looked at him and deciphered his deliberate attempt at hiding something from her.

She reached out a hand and touched his.

He looked at her.

She looked at him, a light of determination in her eyes.

He surrendered, his shoulders relaxing.

She turned his hands palm-side up.

The moon shone upon his palms and Kushi gasped:

His hands were bloodied red and there were indistinct marks on it.

She shot him a glare, assuming it to be ones he'd made by digging his fingers into them a few minutes ago.

But a closer look at his palm revealed to her more marks that only something immense and piercing could create.

There were lines crisscrossing across the entirety of his palms and across his fingers. Some wounds were deep and some not so much so. And yet, all these marks were sufficiently severe to draw blood enough to stain his chest and the grass around him.

Blanched, Kushi stared at him, "What is this?"

Lord Arnav swallowed hard and only stared at the wounds.

"Did you...change?"

He nodded, looking at her.

Kushi was about to ask him something when she remembered the many times she'd seen him blood-drenched in the nights after a dismal episode. She had always thought he'd gone and killed some little animal of sorts to contain the beast in him but this night proved her different.

In fact, she realized that it was not any man or animal's blood but his own.

"But why-?" Kushi began, and then paused as a new insight struck her.

His hands, that had always been rough for reasons other than masculine biology, were presently scarred. Scars that were long and wide and stabbed as though he'd...

She looked at him and he stared at her, knowing that she knew.

Her gaze shifted from his face to the distance beside them, where, in close proximity, stood the towering rose bush.

"No," Kushi breathed out, shattered by the comprehension.

She looked at him to repeat, "No."

He didn't uttered no word in confirmation of her worry but his silence claimed it true.

Every night he couldn't stay the beast within him, he had hurt himself on the rosebush. He had tortured himself to not endanger others.

Appalled, Kushi inhaled hard as fresh tears glistened in her eyes.

Bending down, she kissed his bloodied palms, her lips grazing on the jagged scars of his deep gashes.

A teardrop fell on his palm.

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes and blood on her cheeks, "Please don't do this ever. Not as long as I live."

Regaining his bruised valour, Lord Arnav wrapped his arms around her shoulder in a childlike hug and inclined his head close to hers, "I won't. If you won't ever leave me alone in the night."

Kushi leaned her head against his shoulder, "Nani was not well. I thought I'd stay with her until she slept but I hadn't anticipate dozing off myself."

Lord Arnav kissed her on her head, "I know a sorry won't take away what I did-"

Kushi interjected, "Nothing happened. So let's not talk about it."

"But what if it happens again?" he wanted to say, but he stopped himself. He feared his dream was impending and that any query or doubt he sowed in Kushi's mind would dismiss her forever from his dangerous existence.

He was a great risk. No woman would find the courage to remain his wife, unless she was Kushi. And he was exhausting her mettle beyond limits.

Embraced in her husband's arms, sitting on the dew-kissed grass, her head pillowed against his shoulder, Kushi's gaze was drawn towards the eerie rose bush, shadowy and tall against the moonlight.

A memory crossed her mind: A flash of an illusion from the night of their consummation.

She had thought they were hallucinating sketches of her desire-induced mind but, now that she thought about it, she knew there was something untoward about the whole thing.

Miles away, standing at the shore and scrutinising the dark, rolling ocean, the Lady in the Dark Hood crushed something in her hand.

"Now is it time?" asked a coarse voice in the darkness, impatient yet eager.

Silence prevailed for a few seconds as though she was meditating on the answer.

"Yes," she affirmed finally, "It is time."

She relaxed her fisted hand from which fell a crushed red rose onto the moist sand.

The dark foamy wave which splashed onto the shore, drew with it, in its return, a few shells, some sand and the neglected, battered rose, which was dragged into the salty darkness in a swirling dust of the sand and water, at the very time that, through the murky waters, arrived a dark phantom ship.