He had never hated anything as much as he hated her. From their first meeting, when she cringed away from him almost before he even saw her, he loathed her. His murderous hatred for his brother paled in comparison, and he had long ago become convinced that nothing would ever eclipse that. But her fear set his rage alight, and there was nothing he hated more than fire.
He was well-trained, at least. In his darkest moments, he thought that was the only thing that separated him from his brother, and as such he clung to it with all the passion his repressed desire for salvation could offer. His obedience kept him from taking any action against her, gave him at least the appearance of calmness in his limbs if not his eyes. And it hardly mattered what his face revealed; she wasn't alone in her refusal to meet his gaze, which gave him the relief of letting his emotions have free reign there, even if the bitter cause prevented him from finding any true enjoyment.
The wine had been a mistake. It had never been anything but destructive, but his dual hatreds had been beating in his skull all day, and in a delusional moment of weakness he had hoped that perhaps this time he would be able to drink his mind out of itself. He had failed in that as in everything, only managing a temporary respite from his unceasing, unquestioning obedience for a time.
He might have stumbled back to the castle if chance had turned differently, or perhaps even tripped in the woods and drowned, too drunk to save himself. Instead the worst had happened: he had been all alone with her, just for a few moments, and his fury had blazed so high he was no longer certain who its target was.
He had tried to regain some measure of control by viciousness, spoken if not acted upon. If she had shown any fight at all, things would have been different. Perhaps his hatred would have cooled and hardened into permanence as had his feelings towards his brother. Perhaps he would have fucked her until any pretensions to goodness she had were as defiled as her body. Perhaps he would have stormed into the woods and drowned as he hoped. But she proved to be as docile and pliant as he had known she would be, taking his abuse with no resistance beyond frightened tears standing in the blue of her eyes, and her passivity latched onto something in him he hadn't known still existed. His words veered around to himself before he knew they had changed, and by the time he realized what story he was telling the awful truth was pouring out of his lips into her all-too receptive ear.
He had thought the hatred was the worst of it. He had been wrong. Her pity cut into him far worse than the anger ever had. He had run from it, he who had never run from anything but fire turned and fled the pity of a half-grown girl. But her horror, her sympathetic tears, were nothing at all compared to the next morning, when he awoke with the taste of vomit in his mouth and agony in his skull and found the rage was gone, leaving only a smouldering desire and a flicker of something worse in its place.