Page 38 of The Darkland

She blinked. Then, she looked as if the question confused her. “Is this what it will always be like?”

“Will what be like?”

She turned to him, then. “My marriage. Is this is what it is meant to be?”

He shook his head, unsure of the question. Slowly, he lowered himself into an oaken chair next to the bed. “I do not understand you, lass. What do you mean?”

Micheline stared at him and he could see the tears coming. Closing her eyes, as if she could hardly stand to recall the events of the past hour, she turned away from him in soft sobs.

“My dear God…,” she gasped.

Kirk swallowed. “What happened, Misha? Can you tell me?”

She shook her head, her entire body trembling. “I… I cannot,” she whispered. “It is too… too….”

“Did he hurt you?”

She did not reply for a moment. “There was supposed to be pain.”

Kirk was struggling to help her without squeezing the truth free. It wasn’t any of his business, yet, he was eager to know. Almost frantic. “That’s not what I mean, lass. Other than the obvious, did he hurt you?”

She remained silent, sobbing into her hands. Kirk was preparing to ask again when her voice, muffled and faint, suddenly filled the room. “He made me… watch.”

He gazed at her, laboring to maintain his composure as a creeping sense of dread took hold. “What did he make you watch?”

She wept painfully, believing that the mere words describing her torment would surely make her vomit.

“He… he and Johanne,” she whispered. “He made me watch them, together, and told me to learn well from their actions. He expects the same from me.”

Kirk closed his eyes, shocked and sickened. But in the same breath, fury such as he had never known welled within his chest and he reached out, grasping Micheline’s hand. Instead of pulling away, recoiling from the man who had delivered her to her nightmare, she clutched him tightly.

“Oh, lass,” he breathed. “I am so sorry. I never… I never imagined he would do something like this.”

She continued to cry, so terribly pitiful. “That wasn’t the worst of it,” she gasped. “When they were done, Johanne… she stood by and watched as Edmund forced…forced me to….”

Kirk hung his head. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more. Literally, the pain from Micheline’s humiliation reached out to grab him like a vise and he found it difficult to breath for all of the heartache and outrage he was experiencing.

“Misha, I am sorry,” he whispered, feeling as if he had contributed to her agony. “I am so very sorry. Had I known….”

“And she laughed, too,” Micheline’s voice was high-pitched, strained with emotion and hysteria. “When I cried in pain, she laughed. She told me to bear it well.”

Kirk thought he might vomit. But Micheline wasn’t finished, compounding his illness with each successive word until he thought he might literally go mad.

“Edmund invited her to touch me,” she was gasping for air, struggling to tell her sordid tale.Needingto tell someone. “As he continued to… oh, Kirk, he told her to touch me. And she did.She did!”

Kirk shot to his feet, blind fury filling him. He simply couldn’t stand it any longer and was determined to punish Edmund for his vile doings no matter what the personal cost. Before he reached the door, however, Micheline threw herself at him, pleading for calm.

“Nay, Kirk,” she begged, clutching his arms with all her frail strength. “You have no right to condemn them. He is my husband and has every right to do with me as he pleases.”

The gleam in Kirk’s eyes frightened her. “He has no right to treat you like….”

Micheline nodded firmly, struggling to gain control of her tears. She could see that Kirk was beyond his limits and the sooner she regain her composure, the better for them all.

“It is his right,” she insisted, sniffling. But her gaze was steady as she faced him. “You know as well as I do that you have no control over what he does. No matter how barbaric. And certainly it is not your station to judge or punish his actions.”

“But….”

“You have noright.”