Author's Note:
You may have missed two updates before this.
Alphros
It was not a match his father agreed to.
In fact, his father and uncles were vehemently against it. His mother kept her silence, but he knew she disapproved.
He should have listened.
His ears were full of derogatory remarks. Alphros kept his head lowered. He wished to speak up, to voice his objections to his wife's continuous tirades but his tongue seemingly stuck to the roof of his mouth. Instead, he kept his hands on his thighs and held his silence like a good man. Her words fell on his ears but he did not seem to hear them. They were not different from the ones she used before. There was a time where he grieved when she insulted and mocked him. But now he was only numb, as if his wounds were rubbed raw for so long that his nerves decayed into nothing.
He suddenly felt tired, and slowly rose from his chair.
"I shall retire to bed now," Alphros announced softly but firmly. He added, "Alone." With that he turned on his heel and went to his set of rooms that he kept separate from that of his wife.
The next thing he knew was the sharp pain on the back of his head. His head swung on his neck, loosely and he lost his balance. He stumbled into the chair he just left and blindly reached for support. He found it and gripped hard the edge of the table, turning it into his anchor. Pain shot through his head, and his eyes blurred with unshed tears from it. A new headache blossomed and Alphros' battle-honed instincts roared in defiance.
He turned around to face the sneering curl of his wife's lips. Once he considered her beautiful, with a gentle heart and a smart wit. She was all that a man could dream to have in a wife. But that only lasted the first two months of his marriage. The rest of the year and a half was nothing but heartache and lies.
She held a candlestick in her hand, the discarded candles strewn on the floor. Alphros grimly brought himself to his feet and faced her.
She held up the candlestick high above her head to hit him again. Alphros caught her wrist before her hand came down on him. He clutched it tight in warning, but not tight enough to leave marks on her skin or force all feeling from her hand.
"Beware, my lady," he said in deadly quiet. "The next blow will be returned in full."
With that, he released her and turned to leave.
She did not follow.
Author's Note:
We are all fully aware of the domestic abuse that women go through, but very little are aware of the kind some men have to face. Some argue that men cannot be subdued, but with the right cocktail of drugs, weapons, emotional and verbal onslaught, as well as moral and legal bindings, anything is possible.
