Choice And Consequence

CHAPTER 9

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSUALT

READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED***

LISTEN TO:

Hostage - Billie Eilish
Experience - Ludovico Einaudi
Poor Marionette - Sarah Cothran
Secrets And Lies - Ruelle

***

When they arrived back at the chateau, Vladimir firmly grasped Madelaine's hand and led her upstairs to her bedroom. There was an urgency in his steps as she struggled to keep up with him.

Sharply turning the door handle, he pulled her inside. Madelaine's breath caught in her throat, her heart drumming against her chest.

Vladimir glanced around her room and then back to her. Madelaine gulped.

"I didn't like your behaviour with Amari today. Thought you could try to get him on your side, huh?" His tone was almost dangerous. Her heart missed a beat by his palms on her jaws and his thumbs putting pressure on her chin to make her look up at him.

"Lay on the bed," he commanded with a monotonous tone.

"You are sick," Madelaine breathed, feeling her blood boiling beneath ever inch of flesh. She tried to twist her face out of Vladimir's grip, but he held her still. "Twisted and sick." She was unsatisfied and unfulfilled by the violence in her words. She wasn't sure anything could satisfy her in this moment.

But the slight flicker in Vladimir's expression - the crack in the stone - was a start.

Even so, it was painful for the girl to even look at him.

He stripped Madelaine of her shirt, flinging the fabric across the room. The sudden movement caught her off guard as she fell backwards onto the bed.

Madelaine's breath hitched. Her nerve endings caught fire, her thoughts scattered. All she had left was her thundering pulse and her numb fingers, useless at her sides.

He leaned over the bed until his cruel face was only a breath away from hers. Madelaine dragged her eyes away from his face and stared up at the canopy. Anything to avoid looking at him.

He was inside of her before Madelaine had any way to prepare for it.

A cut cry escaped her lips, shocked at the intrusion, at the angle. All of it.

She screamed. Yanked away from his mouth and his grip, and curled herself away into the pillows, bucking against them and squirming as she rode out the waves of almost painful pleasure. Madelaine hid herself from him, tucking her face into the cushions.

She stayed that way, gathered up in a foetal position, until her breathing slowed and the shaking stopped.

She felt the mattress adjust, accommodating Vladimir's weight as he crawled up behind her. Madelaine felt his cold hand curve around her chin, pulling her face from the tear-soaked pillow and forcing her to look up at him.

"Sleep well, ma cherie". Madelaine detested the sweetness in his words. She lay tensely, feeling the unmistakable relaxation of his body into sleep.

***

The day dawned crisp and clear.

Regaining consciousness, Madelaine felt the other side of the bed empty. Even with this acknowledgement, she refused to wake up. Her spine and the back of her neck felt overheated, while the rest of her body was ice cold.

It was almost noon before she finally dragged her exhausted body out of bed and into a bath. She scrubbed every inch of herself ritualistically, in a desperate attempt to excise any trace of Vladimir from last night.