The news was not received well by her brothers, or so she'd heard. The news was received quite differently in the Dreadfort. Roose seemed pleased and it unnerved her with just how pleased he seemed to be. It also disgusted her. He cared about no one but himself. Appalling, all of them were.
And the worst part about being with child was the fact she was constantly in the presence of the one person she despised the most -her loathsome husband. He took pride in making her life hell, pointing out what he wanted to call his son and how he might just feed her to the hounds after this one child.
They were currently standing on the battlements and she watched the thousands of men training just outside the fort walls. Her stomach was just starting to swell and she felt sicker than the normal and it wasn't pleasant at all. He seemed to know this to. "You look rather peaky." He pointed out.
"And I don't care." She hissed, fed up with him constantly tormenting her. "I'm sick and I want you to leave me be." She finished with furious green eyes. He grinned, smug about riling her up into a rage. She was so much more amusing pregnant, it seemed, her temper flying out of control at the slightest thing.
"You must do for you look so enraged." He countered and she clenched her jaw, eyes narrowing and sliding over to him. "I'm quite fine, thank you. I'm cold, tired, sore and annoyed by being in your presence all the time. Can you blame me for being quite irritated with my current predicament?"
He smirked. "Not at all. I had no idea I infuriated you such." He said simply and she snorted. "You would think being a grown man that you would be better at lying, especially to someone whose unfortunately married to you." She snapped angrily, turning away from him to look at the southern wall, eyes glaring over the snow covered hills. Her brothers were somewhere out in that cold, but where? There'd been no more letter other than the one that some stranger had smuggled her. She still didn't know who that was.
But he just wouldn't let her be and he simply moved beside her, he too looking out over the southern walls. "Some people in the Dreadfort are less than pleased as Father and I."
She turned to glance at him. "Myranda and the rest of your bed warming whores? I'm not stupid. I know Violet was chased down and murdered because she was pregnant. Is that what you have planned for me? Chase me down with your rabid mutts and then name a pup after me? Why can't you just let me go?" She grumbled before turning away from him and he smirked. "So you know about everything, do you? The child mightn't of been mine. Violet was know for spreading her legs for everything that walked on two legs and talked."
A sharp hum vibrated through her. "I know that too. Myranda likes to talk when I don't want to hear or even see her. Must you have her be a such a nuisance? I feel fit to jump off these walls."
He levelled her with a look and she snorted. "And give you the satisfaction of driving me to killing myself? No thank you."
That made the smirk return. "Let us talk about that letter your brothers smuggled in somehow. How did they get it into the Dreadfort?"
She sighed deeply. "I suppose since I'm not getting out of this, I'd better tell you then." She said quietly and his smirk widened. "Why of course," he said, feigning innocence and she glowered off into the distance. "Don't mock me." She hissed. "You've assaulted me over and over again from the time I was forced into marrying you to the time you eventually got me with child, and now you have no reason to touch me. Go and let me go back to solitude because its much more pleasurable than your company."
He chuckled with wicked amusement burning in his blue eyes. "Is that so? I have plenty of reasons to touch you, Callidora, but before you say something that I'm sure you'll come to regret, quieten the pretty mouth of yours. I won't have you being disrespectful in front of the guards, my dear wife." He said dangerously and she glared out over the hills in the distance, wishing that Marcellus armies would appear as if she had commanded them to do so.
But no such luck befell her and she sighed. "I don't know who brought me that letter, and I left it because it didn't have anything important in it. It was simply comforting words."
She brushed the snowflakes from her shoulders in irritation. "I'm cold." She grumbled and he made a face. "You're a Northerner, my lady. Cold in winter? I don't think so."
Her mouth thinned irritably. If this was what she was going to be subjected to, perhaps jumping from the battlements wasn't a bad idea after all.
Blurred eyes and a whooping cough didn't make for better days, but it got her out of being in his presence, or so she thought anyways. He let her be for the morning, and tormented her from that time afterwards. Whenever she'd try to get some rest and shut her eyes to block him out, he was cruel and would rouse her with a sharp nudge.
And after the fifth time, she'd had more than enough and moved away from him, grabbing the pillow from under her head and pressing it to her abdomen. She heard and felt him move again and when he went to touch her, she moved further from him. "Don't touch me." She grumbled wearily, the words forming out into a violent cough. She covered her mouth with the pillow, eyes watering as she did.
A devilish chuckle came from behind her. "You don't tell me what to do." He laughed it off as though it were an amusing statement, but to her it most certainly wasn't. She turned over and narrowed her eyes, a furious fire burning inside her. "Will you please," she forced that word out, "just let me sleep? I'm exhausted." She whispered, pleading.
"I'm bored." He replied simply and she sighed, eyes rolling like marbles. "Then let me be and go amuse yourself with the poor souls you torture each day. Go to your whores and bed them. I don't care as long as you let me be and let me sleep." She snapped and his smirk widened. "Is that so? Maybe I should seek my pleasure much closer to me than a whore."
Her eyes widened. "You have what you set out to achieve -I'm pregnant. You don't need to touch me." She was pleading now, eyes misting over. And she watched in dread as his smirk widened. "Then I suppose I'll just have to be a little more gentler than normal, won't I? Not too gentle, of course." He said it with a false smile and false pleasantness. "You do after all need to be put back into place for disrespecting me and thinking that because you're pregnant I won't touch you."
She quivered fearfully as his mouth grazed her ear, tearful eyes going down. "Wrong," he hissed, grabbing a fistful of her lank hair and gripping it so tight he forced her head back. Watery eyes stared at amused cold blue ones. "You don't need to." She whispered in a last attempt to escape what she knew yet dreaded was coming. "I'll do anything, but please, don't make me..." She trailed off when he shushed her mockingly, taunting her. "Begging doesn't become you, or suit you, my lady."
A shudder rippled through her as his murderous fingers stroked her jawline, the deceptive gentleness terrifying her more so than what she knew was coming. Tearful eyes stared up at him, silently pleading him not to do what she knew was coming.
And come it did. Fingers clenched tight enough around her throat to form bruises and she spluttered, clawing at his hand while her eyes went wide. "This child would make life a little easier for you if it were a son." He commented casually while his other hand went to the ties on her nightdress. Her lips began to turn blue and she dug her nails into his hand, the show of violence only making him smirk darkly as he released her throat, air spluttering back into her lungs as black spots danced tauntingly before her eyes and she felt those violent hands move to rid her of the said garment. Tears burned in her eyes. It was like living in hell, and he was most certainly the devil incarnate himself.
