The storm raged outside, pummeling the windows with its fists, the wind howling through the branches. The inside of Viktor's mansion, the air was still with heavy with smoke, sweat and perspiration and a coppery bite of blood.
Tatiana's arm continued bleeding from Lila's knife, the wound staining her silk cuff like a blooming rose. Sofia stood alongside her, a wicked smile playing on her face even as the bruise colored her cheek.
"Enough," Viktor whispered -- too softly, with a soft tone.
Lila could sense it -- the change in him. This was not anger. This was not violence. This was the type of calculating deliberation, cold-making decision that resulted in a body growing cold on the marble floor.
Viktor took a step forward, his eyes shifting back and forth between his wives. There was once a time when he wanted them both — their looks and beauty could improve their safety, --- When their beauty was enough to buy them their safety. But Desire fades and wanes as time passes by. And here they were, trouble wearing pearls/ just problems dressing in pearls.
"I warned you," he said. "If you touch her again, I will tear and rip the flesh from your skin."
Tatiana wiped blood from her mouth on the back of her hand. "You're not going to kill us," she sneered. "We know too much."
Viktor's smile was slow, menacing and dangerous. "Then I will ensure your tongues are the very first thing I am going to excise."
"Then I'll make sure your tongues are the first thing I cut out."
Sofia attacked, lunged first — a moment of desperation, a mistake born from desperation. She picked up the knife Lila had let go of, heading for Viktor's throat.
She never made it.
Viktor seized her wrist out of the air, twisting it till the bone snapped like brittle wood. She screamed as she knelt, but Viktor was far from finished. He tugged her along the floor by her hair, her dress ripping, her flesh and skin scraping on the marble.
"Please," she panted, but Viktor's clemency and mercy had perished a long time ago.
Lila was frozen, her breath stuck somewhere between awe and fear. This was the man he was–not the man who kissed her on the neck and whispered in her ear, but the monster who controlled a kingdom forged of blood and flame.
Sofia's shriek turned into a gurgling, wet noise as Viktor snapped her neck -- swift, violent, no flourish. One wife down. One wife to go.
Tatiana didn't flee or run. She stood tall, chin raised, eyes shining with malice, eyes filled with hatred. "They think they could kill us and that would cause her to love them more?" She spat at Lila. "They'll get to her soon, you know. The moment you tire of her, she will be like us."
Viktor didn't reply. He didn't need to. His arm spanned Tatiana's throat, pinning her back against the wall, her own feet inches above the floor.
Lila took a step closer, speaking. "Don't."
Viktor turned, his brow rising. "Don't what?"
"Don't kill her." Lila's voice shook, yet she met his eyes. "Not on my account."
Tatiana's laugh was harsh and bitter. "Sweet girl," she choked, "You believe mercy will set you free? You're as good as dead already. You just haven't started to decay yet."
Viktor's fingers constricted her throat, but Lila placed a gentle touch on his arm, the only one in all the world that could bring him back from the brink. "Let me," she said.
The silence was absolute that followed.
Tatiana's eyes opened a little. "You?" She laughed. "You don't have it in you."
She smiled small and sweet, the same smile her parents used to wear when they sold her body to strangers. The smile that indicated I'd already perished. One more corpse. What difference did it make?
He gave her his knife, not the small one used previously, but his own. Black steel on which his family crest was etched, with a stain on its blade from a hundred other lives.
Lila drew near to Tatiana, their noses inches from each other. "You hurt me," she whispered. "You attempted to take something that was mine."
Tatiana sneered. "He was never yours, you stupid little whore."
She drove the knife in deep - not quickly, not kindly. She twisted, her other arm covering Tatiana's mouth, so the scream was smothered into something nearly gentle. Hot, slick blood rushed over her fingers, staining her nightgown.
"Now he is," Lila whispered.
Tatiana's body slid down the wall, lifeless, her blood accumulating at Lila's bare feet. Lila stood frozen, shuddering, her breathing coming in jagged, shallow gasps.
Viktor observed her–not with horror, not with revulsion–but with a kind of pride.
He drew her into his arms, blood and all, his lips crushing hers in a kiss that had a taste of iron and obsession. "You're mine now," he whispered on her lips. "Completely."
She gripped him tightly, her fingers pressing into his back. "And you're mine."
They stood embraced, surrounded by other bodies belonging to Viktor's past, which lay at their feet, cooling.
Later, with the mess clear and the storm outside dissipated into silence, Lila was in Viktor's bed, her skin rubbed raw, her head replaying the instant the knife had gone between Tatiana's ribs.
She didn't regret it. Not even a little.
Viktor stretched out alongside her, his arm slung across her waist, his fingers outlining lazy designs on her hip. "Do you feel guilty?" he murmured.
She turned her head to face him, a slow, dark smile on her lips. "No."
He kissed her shoulder. "Good."
Because guilt had no role to play here. Only possession.
Only survival. Lila had finished being the prey.