Whimpering, she looked up at him as he removed the plating around his thighs and then undid his pants, shoving them down just enough to release himself.
"You are my wife, you will submit!" he yelled in her face, furious that she was still being difficult.
"Only… In Winter," she wheezed, not wanting to surrender.
"No Etani, I will never stop being your husband. Here or in Winter, you belong to me."
Dread filled her as she looked up into his cold, dark eyes.
She didn't know if she still belonged to him, she didn't know if it was in Winter alone, or if he owned her no matter where they were. Could she fight him?
The resounding 'no' rang in her head and she bit her lip, hating him for everything he had ever done to her.
She was too weak to fight him, and she knew the law. She knew he had a right to her, but that didn't make it any easier when he was violent.
He read her cracking resolve and smirked in the face of her doubt.
"Submit to me and I will be gentle," he coaxed, hesitating as he leant over her. "All you have to do is submit and it will be easier."
Doubt ran through her and finally, she could only nod once. If she obeyed, he would be gone faster, right?
Biting her lip, she found a spot on the ceiling and focused on it. She needed to focus on something else, something that would keep her away from what her husband was doing to her.
He at least kept to his word, he wasn't excessively rough with her as she assumed he would be, but he did make sure that his sounds of pleasure were loud in her ear.
Her mind wandered to the twins, and specifically Jaia in that moment. She didn't know why it was him she thought of then, but his hard, stern face lingered in her thoughts. She wished she was in the basement with them, she wished she was anywhere else but in bed with her Winter husband.
Grunting in pain, she came back to herself and looked up into the sweaty, bloodied face of the drow. He had bitten her breast. She could feel the blood rolling down her ribs to stain the mattress under her.
He looked confused, almost high before he looked down at her in return. "What did you do?" he asked in a dazed voice.
"What?" she asked, not sure what he was talking about.
Drizdan paused and then leant down again, biting hard into her left breast before shuddering atop her.
"Sweet Mother…" he groaned, his entire body clenching as though in pain.
When he began to move against her at a feverish pace however, she knew it wasn't pain he was feeling.
***
She didn't know how long he kept her, only that he was growing excited by something with the more he hurt her. She knew he was a sadist, but she couldn't explain his response to the pain that drove him wild.
By the time he was done with her, the stab to her abdomen was healed but she was left littered in cuts and bruises. A rib had been cracked, leaving her unable to breathe properly. Her lip bled and she tasted blood where her cheek had been cut against her teeth.
He had focused mostly around the sensitive parts of her body, her breasts, ribs, inner thighs and backside; leaving long cuts and punctures all over her, and his name scrawled over her right breast in large letters.
Sitting at her side, he was panting heavily as though he had run a marathon, staring at the blood soaked bed in wonder.
"What are you?" he gasped, brushing back sweaty hair from his face. "This isn't normal. You aren't normal."
Looking up at him through a haze of confusion, she didn't know what to say and so she remained silent.
After a moment of looking down into her eyes, he grunted and pushed himself off the bed. Turning back to her, he scooped her limp form up and took her into the bathroom to get cleaned up.
"Can't have my wife looking and smelling like a whore when we go back to Winter," he growled as he began to scrub her down.
It was incredibly painful, her wounds stinging all over again but he ignored her feeble attempts to escape him, keeping one arm around her middle to ensure he could finish the job.
With both of them clean, he set her down on her feet but didn't immediately let go of her, a faint hint of concern showing in his face as she swayed.
"You are weak," he said in disgust, as though his abusing her was her fault. "We'll get you something to eat before we head back."
Nodding once, she remained silent and watched him.
He was a handsome man if she looked past the fear and hatred. If she ignored those for a moment, his physical appeal was enough to set her heart to fluttering, but he was a monster. He was abusive, violent and cruel.
He was also her husband and she didn't think there was anything she could do to stop that… unless she killed him.
***
The thought lingered in her mind as he moved around the bathroom, roughly pulling a black robe over her shoulders and using a towel to scrub her hair dry. He was muttering to himself about not wanting a lazy wife, but he still did the work while she simply struggled to stay standing.
"Can't wait to see what Epharis makes of that," he grinned, touching the no longer bleeding spot on her chest that showed red on her pale skin. 'DRIZDAN' sprawled over her skin. It looked angry and inflamed, but it was healing quickly enough.
The thought of what Epharis would do made her distinctly nervous, glancing towards the bedroom. She would need to hide the evidence. She wanted to kill Drizdan, not leave it up to her husband.
The thought eased some of her distress in the moment, and she began to plan, looking back at Drizdan. She was going to kill him, but how?
He deserved it, even if he was only following orders, their kind did not kill children. It didn't matter that the child he murdered hadn't been born yet. Even a child still in the womb needed to be protected. But she wanted to do it herself. She needed to do it herself.
The plan settled into her mind and she took in a deep, slow breath as her suffering began to ease in the light of a plan.
She would be the one to end his life, she simply needed a way to do it. Right then, she was too weak. She was tired, angry, and hurting.
She needed to hide what he had done to her body, she needed to reset herself. She needed to be stronger.
Drizdan seemed entirely unaware of his wife's plans, drying himself off and dressing before guiding her back out into the sitting room and setting her down on the couch.
"We will be heading back to The Underneath in two days," he was saying, setting a case out on the table and beginning to throw her possessions into it. "This time we won't be coming back. You will stay there and have your blood sent to your damned vampires. You will stay in Winter with me."
She tuned out his angry ramblings, looking around the room she had come to know as hers.
Even with her living there so long, there was very little to show for it. She didn't tend to collect trinkets, she didn't stockpile shoes or pillows as some ladies did.
She did however, have a small collection of items that she had been collecting without really knowing why.