Settle, pet. I’ll not let her hurt you. You’re safe. Lucien’s voice sounded in my head and it was just his voice, not a command, my body was at my will.
Even so, I stopped moving.
Suddenly, Katrina tensed from the top of her head to her toes. She tilted her head back and let out a wild screech that hurt my ears and it felt like it even shook the windows.
After she was done, her eyes sliced to me.
“I’m going to kill her,” she screamed.
My body grew tense but I stayed still.
Lucien’s voice was a snarl. “You touch her, f**k, Rina, after this you even look at her, you’ll f**king burn.”
Her gaze moved to Lucien and she changed her threat. “Then I’m going to kill you.”
Instantly, to my shock and despair, he dropped her and stepped back. His hands went out to his sides and he issued a one word invitation.
“Try.”
A roar of fury tore from her throat and she lunged.
That was pretty much all I saw with any clarity.
They were too fast, too powerful, all their movement was a blur. Every once in a while Lucien would pin her and they’d come into focus but she’d escape and their movements would become indistinct.
The table in the hall was turned over, the vase on it shattering into pieces, those pieces kicked wildly about as they moved.
I took two more steps back, these up the stairs when I heard Lucien again in my brain, Still, pet.
I stilled. I didn’t want to. I didn’t even know why I did. I just did.
Even though I didn’t see it I knew it was brutal, savage even. The noises they made, her grunts of pain and effort, Lucien’s grunts solely of effort, the sounds of fists against flesh, the noise of bodies colliding, all of this slashed through the air.
I had felt a great deal of fear in the last few weeks but I’d never been so terrified in all my life than I was at that moment.
This was because I was witnessing something extraordinarily vicious.
This was also because I was witnessing, no matter how indistinct, Lucien beating the shit out of his wife.
If he ever got physical with me in that way he’d kill me in seconds.
My body started trembling and I wanted to run, I really did, but my fear rooted me to the spot.
Finally, Katrina came into focus, her body slamming against the door making its heavy, solidness shake.
She stopped, as did Lucien facing her but slightly turned to the side. I could see bloody, angry scratch marks marring his chest and neck.
She was far worse for the wear, her nose bleeding profusely, her lip cut, angry red marks at her neck and wrists.
At the sight of what Lucien had done to her, a violent tremor shook through my body nearly bringing me to my knees.
“I got the Severance papers this morning,” she spat at him as she wiped the back of her hand under her nose, smearing the blood across her face.
Her words confused me.
“You don’t say?” he retorted carelessly.
Her face twisted with rage. “You’d throw me away for a mortal?”