A / N : Dedicated two ways - to Inkfire and Mesteria.
Bella jolts upwards, wild-eyed and white-faced – and before he can stop her she has blown out the candle, plunging them into darkness.
She sits ramrod straight, jaw set, fists balled tightly (angrily) in the blankets.
(She is being mocked.)
He doesn't know what to say to her, so Rodolphus says nothing, and lets silence fall between them - something solid, like iron pressed against his tongue.
He can't see her, but it doesn't matter. He doesn't need the light. He knows her well enough.
Every hollow of her heart . . . or so he hopes.
He has traced every inch of her, with shaking fingers, in the dark. He has watched her bleed and shiver and laugh. He knows her.
Her breathing is shallow and her forearms shake, braced against the blankets. She stills them with obvious effort, and then . . . .
Bella's smile is almost palpable, in the dark.
She turns to him, runs her fingers across his arm.
The lightest possible touch - at first.
Then a little harder. (Fingernails.)
"Shhh . . ." she whispers. Little more than a breath, laced with just a hint of a laugh.
Shh, she says, with that sound.
Shh . . . it's a secret.
Shh. (Don't tell.)
Shh . . . shh . . shh.
Rodolphus frowns.
He finds her shoulders in the dark, finds the curve of her neck, the hollow of her jaw . . .
When he finds her lips, he does not hesitate. He hauls her into line, and kisses her hard.
Bella giggles - the sound hitching oddly in her throat - and tries to struggle. But she has lost her wand, thrown it aside in some fit. She cannot hold her own here and she knows it . . . so she laughs all the harder. Drunkenly, senselessly. Desperately.
Rodolphus crushes her wrists (a lockhold) and pushes her back against the bed, back to sanity - or what passed for it not so long ago. He kisses her until she is more than breathless, until she falls limply against the mattress.
Until he has pulled something more than air from her chest.
And then he pulls her tight against him, his grip livid against her skin - a mark of his own, to keep her here.
(For her own good. For her own bloody safety.)
Rodolphus tightens his hold and pulls her close, so that his lips brush her throat when he admits defeat.
"I love you," he says hoarsely.
Bella laughs sleepily, too exhausted to deny it.
"Sometimes . . ." she murmurs, "I think you want to die."
Her eyelids drift closed. Rodolphus watches her chest rise and fall – watches her shiver almost imperceptibly, the Mark burnt black against her skin.
Bella puts out her tongue to taste the sweat on her lips, and curls into a quiet, twitching ball as the Mark burns on.
(She is not permitted to answer the call, tonight. She was granted as much - she asked and she was told . . .)
Rodolphus frowns again. He can only suppose the call itself is a punishment, intended to wound her pride and curb her impudence.
(Impudence. He suppresses a snort. That sounds about right . . .)
Bella, however, doesn't seem to view things so rationally. She drifts between sleeping and waking, utterly spent but unable to sleep. Her eyelids flicker - the motion sharp as a serpent's tongue - and she mutters to herself, a restless incantation alight upon her lips. She has scarcely breath enough to give it voice . . . . but there it is all the same, unbidden.
"Love," she whispers.
(Delirious contempt, the word sour on her tongue.)
"Love . . . love . . . love . . ."
Rodolphus tries to ignore the sweat which prickles across his forehead.
He tells himself he saw it coming.
He tells himself he expected nothing less.
(He tells himself he knows her too well.)
He pins her arm against the pillow, kisses her in a gesture Bellatrix hardly seems to feel. His grip tightens painfully on her arm, and then, to his surprise . . . she falls still, strangely obedient to the unspoken command. Rodolphus swallows.
"Bella," he mutters.
He loosens his hold and Bella frowns, arching a little closer to him. Half-asleep. There is a part of him that wants to shake her, kiss her . . . pull her out of whatever savage dream holds sway.
But Bella seems lost to it already. She moans when he loosens his hold, and then her tongue brushes his lips - a curious, faltering taste.
She opens her eyes with a laugh - with a sudden sharp flash of something strangely like . . . . disappointment.
"Love," she says scornfully.
Something icy floods his insides . . . and Rodolphus struggles to recall what it was he did expect, from his wedding night.