Chapter 1215: Owain’s Wedding Gift (Part Two)
That predatory, self-satisfied smile that had haunted her dreams, the one that never reached his eyes, the one that said he knew sothing she didn’t, that he was still in control even when everything suggested otherwise.
For a mont, as she stared at Percivus and Percivus stared at her, Jocelynn was struck by the feeling that this was all so kind of sick act. That Percivus was waiting here to torture her, and that Owain had just delivered her into the Inquisitor’s lair, even though he was the one who was bound, chained, gagged, and hanging from the ceiling like a fish hanging from a line.
Jocelynn stepped back involuntarily, her body reacting before her mind could process, as though she’d been physically struck by the weight of the Inquisitor’s gaze. The sudden movent made her stumble slightly, and she would have fallen if not for Owain’s arm around her waist, catching her, steadying her.
"Easy," Owain murmured, mistaking her recoil for overwhelming emotion at seeing her torntor brought low. A smile spread on his lips as she pressed up against him, just as he knew she would, but he quickly schooled his features into a mask of concern rather than letting his satisfaction show. "I know it’s a shock to see him like this. But you’re safe now. He can’t hurt you anymore."
Owain said that Percivus couldn’t hurt her, but her mind refused to believe it, even as her gaze flickered from the chains at his wrists to the gag in his mouth. He looked helpless at the mont, but this mont wasn’t what terrified her. What terrified her was that Percivus looked exactly like a man who believed, no, a man who knew beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, that this was not the end of his story. That this imprisonnt was rely another Chapter, one more trial to endure before the inevitable mont when the Holy Church would co for him, when the authority of the Inquisition would trump even a Marquis’s desire for vengeance.
He was calm because he was confident. Confident that the Church would not abandon one of its Inquisitors, no matter what cris he’d committed in the na of hunting heretics. Confident that Owain’s rage would eventually cool, that political reality would reassert itself, that the institution he served would protect him as it always had. But underneath all of that lay a confidence that, once he was free of this cell, he would once again place Jocelynn in chains, and he would be even less forgiving of her than he’d been before.
And worst of all, looking into those dispassionate hazel eyes, Jocelynn feared he might be right.
And Owain was looking at her with such pride, such expectation, waiting for her gratitude, her relief, her joy at seeing her torntor in chains before her.
"You see?" Owain said softly, his arm sliding around her waist to pull her against his side. "I told you I would take care of everything. He can’t hurt you anymore, Jocelynn. No one can. Because I’m here, and I won’t let anyone take what’s mine."
Behind her veil, tears had gathered at the corners of Jocelynn’s eyes, but Owain couldn’t see them. He couldn’t see the horror, the revulsion, the way her mind was fracturing at the edges as she stared at Percivus and saw proof of exactly what Owain was capable of when crossed.
If this was what he did to soone who had hurt ’what was his,’ what would he do when that person, ’who was his’, tried to leave him?
"I’ve learned everything from his acolytes," Owain continued, his voice dropping to sothing dark and dangerous. "Everything they did to you. How they looked at you, how they stripped you, how they starved you and worked you like a common seamstress doing their nding," he said, his voice trembling with rage at the idea that Jocelynn, his rare, precious, beautiful Jocelynn, had been treated like a commoner, forced to earn ager als with painstaking needlework.
"And I want you to know," he said as his grip on her waist tightened. "That I’ve made them pay for every mont of your suffering."
He turned to look at her then, his free hand coming up to touch her veiled cheek.
"Did you think I wouldn’t find out?" Owain asked. "Did you think I wouldn’t care? You’re going to be my wife, Jocelynn. The mother of my children. The Marchioness of Lothian March. Anyone who dares to harm you has to answer to ."
"My lord," she whispered, her voice barely audible through the veil and the tears. "I... I don’t know what to say," she said, because it was the absolute truth. ’Thank you’ seed almost vile. It was such a casual expression of gratitude that it belonged to gifts of flowers and fancy dinners. Things that were normal. Things that were... sane.
But Owain had brought her a bound and gagged Inquisitor, in a room built for torture, with a table full of wickedly gleaming implents resting casually against the wall next to the worn-out wood and leather cot. This wasn’t a gift that was ’sane’ in any sense of the word, and expressing gratitude for... it? Him? Expressing any kind of appreciation for this kind of cruelty felt like an endorsent of it, like she accepted it, when what she really wanted to do was to turn and run from this dark place as quickly as her feet would carry her.
"You don’t have to say anything," Owain assured her, mistaking her paralysis for overwhelming emotion. "Just know that you’re safe now. That I’ll always keep you safe. That’s what a husband does for his wife, isn’t it?"
"Co," he said, ignoring Percivus as he guided Jocelynn over to a table covered with implents too terrifying to na. "It’s a little early, but clearly, you need this now, and what kind of husband would I be if I made you wait for it. This is my wedding gift to you," he said as he selected a curved filleting knife from the table, guiding it to her hand and gently wrapping her fingers around its hilt.
"This man left your cousin, Eleanor, down here to die," Owain said. "He deserves the sa fate. And he should suffer that fate at your hands," he added as he gently caressed her cheek. "I know you’ve never killed anyone before," he whispered. "It’s hard to take your first life, but don’t worry. I’ll show you how..."
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