A/N: A disclaimer: This is written for fun, not profit. I do not own anything except the plot. Just a dark little thing from my twisted imagination. Rodolphus/Bellatrix with some Bellamort if you squint hard enough.

"If you knew how much I love you, you would run away

[How could you do this to me now ?]

When I treat you bad, it always makes you wanna stay

[How could you do this to me now ?]"

- Pretty When You Cry by Vast.

She comes home in the middle of the night, hair disheveled, eyes wild.

He glares at her from where he is sitting, already halfway through his second bottle. She lets out a little delicate laugh at his dark expression, flips her dark hair back, fingers caressing the side of her neck absent mindedly. She has the long, delicate fingers of a piano player and the neck of a ballerina, he thinks to himself in his drunken haze.

Her throat is exposed, glistening, pale and vulnerable. The purple looks striking against her skin.

Images flood his brain: Waxy fingers curling around his wife's throat, pale porcelain against deathly white, skin slick with sweat... Blood red eyes, smirking at him, mocking... He jumps to his feet, suddenly furious. His blood pounds in his ears as he pushes her against the wall.

"You don't even bother hiding his marks anymore, do you ? I bet you wear them proudly." He hisses softly, his fingers tracing over the bruises.

"Rodolphus." She sighes, her tone laced with amused pity, like he is a spoilt, tiresome little child throwing a tantrum over sharing his toys.

He wraps his hand around her throat, matching his fingers to the prints and digs in. She doesn't flinch but simply raises one eyebrow challengingly, a ghost of a smirk at her lips. He presses harder, a wild urge to break her neck grips his mind and his fingers tighten.

Her scent fills his nostrils - dark amber and chocolate with a hint of something heady he can't quite place, something twisted and intoxicating - and somehow he is able to restrain himself.

He settles for cutting off her air instead, watching her face slowly turn a purple that matches the shade of the patterns on her throat. As her fingers claw at his hand, breathless, desperate; they both revel in her pain.

The thrill coursing through her at the feral glint in his eyes makes her feel more alive than his love ever could.

And he can only forgive her for being so beautiful when he is the one breaking her, not the other way around.

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