Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play) - On Hold

CVII. The Endʼs Beginning

❦❧♱❦❧

Badamp.

When the rain could not cry anymore, when the snow disappeared with the dead, it came to Desdemona. That once and future queen. She didn't come down in wild thrashes, didn't sink its claws deep, but simply flowed – slinking through the silk of her skin, mesmerized by the cool touch of flesh. Lisbon, where she had met Caïn, was a distant memory – a darkly lit church, with its dark spires, creeping in. Now, the moon no longer held her sway, the world that remained was dark and smoky, and all that was left was a distant sense of longing. A feeling of fear, that no matter the bounds of time and space, could not find its quiet. A boat lost at sea. She clung to Berchánʼs prophecy like she would a prayer.

Before God, and before Man, however, she knew Catahoula County was the place prayers weren't answered.

Badump badump.

Her heart ached that night, with Caïn in her arms – so close, so far, so impermanent – and her mind raced all the same. She swore she imagined things: the door clicking open, the cicadas singing, the scent of oak shavings, the warmth of El Tesoro tequila and Hendrickʼs gin, the retracting of Caïnʼs knife. There were wicks of blood that crusted the hunting cottage, the leather sheath with the wolfʼs crest, and the night called to her. Craved her body and his. Her desperation made her beg and panic, her hunger made her raucous and wanton, and what came into her house that night came in with her heart, beating, screaming:

Badumpbadump.

"Make it go away, Caïn," Desdemona moaned, alcoholic kisses feeding an addictive high.

The shadow that came to them that night, the ill-gotten b*tch, she saw red. The thunder snarled against the window, devouring the rain, consuming it, and as she came towards Desdemona and Caïnʼs bedroom, the doors whined and screeched in protest. The devils came that night and they came with a fury.

Badumpbadumpbadumpbadumpdɯnpɐq–

"Make the need go away, Caïn," Desdemona repeated, sultry, desperate. The pounding of her heart was too unbearable. It lurched against her chest, sawing away the bristles and bones that kept her heart locked away. Her head split into a migraine, nearly cracking in half as the blood in her eyes pounded against her ears. And even then, even as her instinct screamed at her to run, Desdemona gripped the coarse black stubble of Caïnʼs face, her lips bruising his with brutish force. Roughly brushing her hips against his, her fingers touchng his body – a fleshy marbled sculpture of scratches and scars – Desdemona sank into the bedroomʼs sheets and watched the two of them groan. She let him take her, the pinches of pain and pleasure that spread across face exhilirating and indescribable, the way she grabbed Caïnʼs tousled hair in sheer desperation, the way his mammoth frame encompass her, ensnare her, ensheath her.

Love was what she could not have and she ran towards it. Begging, screaming.

The devilʼs shadow came to her in that moment, begging, screaming.

BadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpdɯnpɐqBadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpdɯnpɐq–

"She locked me in there," she had said. "For months. Months of experiments, of being drugged, of being r*ped."

"She locked me in there."

Panic, fear, pandemonium, frenzy.

Desdemona choked as the storm suffocated her.