Bullied Bride Page 2

  “This was just for fun, right?” Desmond says to me, doing the last button on his top. “Nothing more.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Fun.” My voice is a little flat. I’m buzzing with that dissatisfaction, that unreleased tension. “You’re running away from me now?”

  He hesitates. “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Seems like.” I stretch, then start fumbling for my own clothes. He watches me, looking strangely guilty.

  “Sorry. It’s just… I’m not really supposed to do this. I’m here because Bobby thinks I’m uptight all the time – been with too few women. Something about blue balls, too.”

  “I’ve heard that’s an excuse guys come up with so they get to fuck,” I say, and he smiles sheepishly in response.

  “Sounds about right. We’re always coming up with ways to get to it, I hear. There’s a guy I know – refuses to have sex before marriage, so instead he has “temporary” marriages to justify his own morals and get some.”

  “Temporary marriages?” I perk in interest, tying on my bra, fishing for my top. “People do that?”

  “Yep. Marry and divorce in a night. He’s not fooling anyone but himself.” The familiar grin perks back up, before it fades. He switches topic. “I’m not technically supposed to be messing around anymore. My father expects me to marry soon.” He rubs the back of his head. “People turn a blind eye, but you hear the whispers.”

  “So why do it?” I ask, though I feel every inch the hypocrite. I’m not supposed to be doing this either. The rumpled bedsheets hide my pants, and I’m in everything but my socks now. I pick up my leather jacket. He turns an appreciate eye over my form again.

  “The demon in my head always tempts, I suppose.” There’s an apology in his voice. “Thank you. I'm sorry if it was too quick, or –” The smile on his face freezes, however, when he sees my clan sash poking out of my jacket pocket. The shy camaraderie between us vanishes. The atmosphere in the air turns awkward, icy.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, confused by the sudden tightness of his expression. His eyes are wide; his teeth are clenched.

  “What’s that?” he hisses, pointing to my sash. “You’re a Hartson?” My surname is spat out as if it’s a filthy slur, the worst kind possible. Like only slime would want to be called Hartson.

  No use pretending otherwise. I hide the sash away. “Yes. What’s it to you?” There’s a horrible, dawning suspicion blooming in me, sending a sickness almost as intense as the way Desmond said my family name.

  “No...” Desmond’s look becomes wild. “No, you can’t be. I’d never – I’ve never touch one of you.”

  “Claymore,” I say, letting it escape my mouth as a curse, when he reveals his hidden clan colors for the first time – white and blue stripes. The colors blast away any last vestiges of desire I had. “Oh, hell no. No wonder the sex was so bad!”

  The urge to wash and scrub myself clean overwhelms. I can’t believe it. How could I have done something so disgusting? How could I have allowed myself to be touched by that?

  He takes one menacing step forward, all warmth gone, hate boiling in his eyes. I stand up to that hate, letting it fan my own. “You slut. You tricked me!”

  “Me? I tricked you? Why in the world would I want to sleep with a fucking Claymore?” My voice rises to a screech. I search for a weapon – anything to take him down, and settle on a fire poker. He stops his advance, and beats a hasty retreat out of the room as I come after him, swinging. I’m howling in fury at this point, ashamed and humiliated and hating all at once. I chase him out of the rooms, down the stairs, and briefly take in the sight of a gawking crowd, who had heard our heated words, my howls of anger.

  “Claymore!” I shriek, causing Emma to gasp, causing a whole tumult of conversation, and hands grab at me, taking away the poker, and I see two men with the gray and black forcing me away from Desmond, who is also being restrained, as he made a bid for attack the moment I was disarmed. We scream the vilest insults at each other, and I can’t stop myself, because the horror of what I’ve done shames me to the bone.

  I can’t have slept with a Claymore.

  No decent Hartson would ever allow such a thing.

  2

  Pearl

  Hatred poisons my veins. Tension forms in my mind like an elastic band restricting the skull, burning ever hotter when the news hits my ears, one time when I visit Emma in our lands, at the local inn she loves to visit after a hard day’s labor. Heads turn to me when I enter, and gossip quietens. Eyes stare.

  When Emma inquired around, it soon became clear.

  Desmond Claymore spreading gossip about the Hartson slut he’d encountered. Making it sound like I was a wicked temptress who used a damn magic potion to lure him to the trap between my thighs. Some of the Graves vassals in the Hartson inns laugh themselves sick to repeat it, while the Hartson vassals alternate between a heavy conviction that the accursed Claymore had dared to touch a Hartson, or that the Hartson responsible for this piece of gossip is a heinous traitor. Either outlook drags the family name through the mud.

  I knew with what had happened in Graves territory, the incident would hardly have stayed quiet. What burns is the vile twist on it, the fact that somehow I’m the instigator, the one at fault, and some of my own people look at me as if I’m poisoned.

  One man bumps into me as he passes with two tankards, and when he realizes who he crashed into, he swears. “Get away from me. I don’t want to touch a Claymore’s whore.”

  My cheeks burn, and before I know it, I’m at him, and he’s spilled his drinks, and Emma is pulling me away, and so is Ezran Gameson, my family’s own personal retainer, who I hadn’t realized had followed me into the inn to keep a discreet eye on his leader’s heir.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be going to these places,” Emma says, her face heavy in apology, adding a hasty goodbye when I’m placed in front of my parents.

  Who have, of course, heard the wrong thing. That slimeball’s side of events. I’m a harpy, a witch, a thing of the devil, listening to his side of events. His words are vile: I’m proof that the Hartsons are depraved sinners, that there is no redeeming us.

  My father sits on his dining chair, looking as if his features are carved from stone, for all the expression he shows. His blonde hair is trimmed shorter than ever, and it’s the main thing I got from him, since my mother’s hair is dark. Mother, on the other hand, paces up and down in front of me, while I cringe on the other side of the big, rustic dining table, which in its best moments can accommodate eight guests.

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” mother says. Her blue eyes smack of disappointment. “After all the things I’ve told you, what you know is your solemn duty, and you go and taint yourself with the enemy. A murderer from a family of killers. Who have killed dozens of Hartsons and their vassals over the years.”

  “I didn’t know who he was at the time,” I snap back, interrupting my mother twice more, just so I can give her my side of events. “I just wanted to have a good time without having a daily reminder of all the children I’m not yet having. I went to Graves territory – he didn’t have a sash. I was hiding mine… he’s spreading lies, mama!”

  “Lies or not,” my father says, his voice curt, “people will see you as the Hartson who was tricked by the enemy, or betrayed us to them.” He slams a fist on the table. “No daughter of mine will ever be caught in such a situation again. You are confined to our estate. We will search, more actively, for someone for you to marry – someone who will probably require a heavy dowry payment to even accept someone tainted by a Claymore – and you will not despoil yourself again.” His jaw quivers, and he shakes his head.

  “That boy they saw you with,” my mother says quietly, “his father killed Alan’s brother.”

  Alan being my father. A lump forms in my throat, thinking of all the dead Hartsons. All the people who had suffered over the years to the Claymores. To the enemy. People celebrate in the bars if one of their patrols catch a
Claymore on their territory, and they kill them. People grieve and rant and rave if one of ours is taken. I remember seeing my father sunk in rage and grief when his brother died, over fifteen years ago. I was only five then. I didn’t understand it, or why he was so deep in his cups, and went absent for long hours at a time, sometimes staying out the whole night.

  I also remember a few months later, how ecstatic he’d been when he’d joined some vassals on a hunt, and came back with a Claymore sash, having taken one down at the border. This was before the Graves had increased their patrols to try and curb some of the clan raids, to keep our fragile economies stable so that the bandits from the ruined lands would not collapse everything.

  The only Graves in our household right now is my uncle, who I hear seems to have considered that he married down, rather than up into our family.

  “I swear I didn’t know. We didn’t have our sashes; we didn’t say our last names. It was meant to be a neutral place.” It’s not like anyone had hung a picture of Desmond in the family estates either to call him out for me.

  Though maybe I should have considered the name Desmond to mean something. There are a few Desmonds around, however. The same with Pearl. Names are recycled, and don’t have to mean the enemy.

  “I’ll do what I can to play up the side that you were tricked,” father says with a sigh. “But you’re not to leave for now. When you are given that freedom back, you will be under escort. If you break this rule, then I will lock you in your room.” Father’s eyes and tone show he means business. I swallow and nod, feeling humiliated again.

  Even with all the showers I’ve taken since, I still feel like I can’t wash away what happened. It’s stamped on my mind, stamped so thoroughly that even bringing up Desmond’s name makes me want to conjure him up in front of me so I can stab him. I’m dismissed, but it’s clear that I’m under a heavy veil of shame, as people continue to give me mixed glances, from pitying to ashamed to angry.

  They can’t be as angry as I am.

  Ideas boil and fade in my mind. I must have vengeance. I can’t let him get away with this. I can’t let the Claymores continue to feed lies to everyone else.

  Two days pass, with constant, knifing reminders of my shame. Two days to brood, to plot, to find a way to get back at Desmond without risking my life crossing into his territory, where I’d almost certainly be killed.

  Two days of teeth grinding, until the faintest glimmer of an idea arrives, encouraged by overhearing some of the vassals in the kitchen talk about some of the contracts my father has with some of the other families, including the Graves. I have to wait until my father’s away, however, visiting some vassals to help them with whatever their current problems are. I make it into my father’s office, feigning to his guard that I was asked to read through a list of all the eligible vassals I was supposed to marry. The guard, not wanting to protest his master’s daughter, let me in, though his expression was distinctly uneasy.

  Once in, I headed straight to the cupboard where all of his recent contracts lay. I had a few phone-calls to make. Families from when the earth was less ruined had retained a memory of crafting phones, though it was only in stabilized regions like the economy we live in that there is electricity, running water, and phone signal. I didn’t know what went into them, of course.

  Only that they would serve my purpose. For too long, the Claymores have been killing our vassals and family members with impunity. Not a year goes by that someone is drawn to grief, robbed of someone they love. So much blood on their hands.

  To think… to think of what I did…

  I accept that there was always a risk. That with the neutral policy, and people hiding their sashes, there might be that off-chance of speaking to the enemy. Even if Claymores were said to frequent Graves lands rarely.

  But the humiliation he subjected me to, my family to. The fact he tempted me, seduced me – I rub at my arms, as if I can force out the memories.

  You are to blame, a tiny voice in me says. You should have been more careful. You should have listened to your parents, rather than your friend. You should have kept yourself pure, instead of giving into curiosity. As soon as those thoughts appear, I push them away. No. I’m not to blame. I’m not at fault. He’s a Claymore, everyone knows what they do, what they are. He’s the one to blame.

  He is.

  One week later, the Claymores invade across the Hartson borders in force, attacking one of our outlying villages.

  Perhaps my revenge had worked a little too well.

  3

  Desmond

  The bullets ran out after the second village. I head the raid alongside my father instead with sword and shield and vest, with the intention to strike this wretched Hartson village until retreating.

  The Hartsons had gone too far. My father had been hankering for a reason to fully attack them for a long while, instead of small skirmishes, and that opportunity came when they sent demolishers to the mountain estate in the south-east area. The villagers there had been confused as Graves construction workers set to tearing down one of the oldest churches in our territory. One that we used on a scarce basis for Claymore weddings and funerals.

  Oh, my father had been furious. But not as furious as me. We sent all our best fighters to the church to fight off the Graves, but it turned out they were simply doing what they were paid to do, through a sub-contractor. Someone had paid them to wreck the church, and it was near rubble by the time we put a stop to the actions. Heated arguments and heated research later pinned the original contract as a request from the Hartson lands.

  This meant war. Those monsters had gone too far.

  Too many lives lost to their evil, too many good men and women of the Claymore lands who had suffered. The world would be a better place without them.

  I watch as some of my men drag a shrieking woman into a smoldering building, ripping at her clothes, teeth bared in rictus grins. My father screams at them to stop.

  “No! No rape!” He charges towards the men, who are a little too intent on their duty, but curse and scatter under the hooves of my father's horse. “Absolutely no rape, or I'll execute you myself.”

  One man's sullen answer causes my father to whip out his sword, pointing it at the raider. They back off, and the woman, sobbing, tears away. My father doesn't look at her, doesn't check if she's okay, but stares coldly at his men. Checking for other would-be rapists with his shadowed eyes.

  It's always been a stipulation of my father's raids. More than a few men resent him for it, but it's always been this way, for as long as I remember.

  No rape. It's a shame some people tend to... forget in the heat of their hatred.

  I search among our soldiers as well, determined to reinforce my father's policy, though of course, the deaths happen. Some of our own raiders are dragged down in isolated incidents, but mostly the villagers fight, scream, run, or die. I soon stumble across a lone vassal, a Lakemore, since he wears a white and cyan sash – busily tugging down his pants with one hand, pinning a pretty and naked woman with another.

  “That’s enough, soldier,” I say, stepping into the picture. The man ignores me, too intent on his task, and I clout him soundly on the head, knocking him off balance. He curses and whirls on me, dagger at the ready, before he realizes who he’s facing.

  “Sir.” His eyes are wide. “What –”

  “You will restrain yourself from rape. Is that clear, soldier? Or have you forgotten my father's rules?”

  “She’s Hartson,” he says, as if this is a good reason to rape. As much as I hate these people, that doesn’t mean we have to be the same as them. What they do to us – we don’t have to do the same back.

  “I don’t care.” One glare from me gets him to scuttle away, although to my increasing anger, I see that he joins a pack of other men, entering a building where they’re rounding up the prettier women who were not killed or had escaped. Endorsed by my own brother, Rayse.

  Thankfully, my father's already on it, though I k
now I have to back him up. The person I rescued from rape scrambles away without a word. I ride over to my father, and we end up having to kill one of our own men to reinforce his rules, but it does discourage the other men. Rayse, naturally, thinks we're cheating the men out of their rewards for coming here and risking their lives, but my father's having none of it. My younger brother's jaw locks in stubbornness, but he does obey. At least.

  I continue to stalk through the village, attacking any fighting men, trying to control some of the plundering, though I know that the battle lust and spoils are what keep people going, what get them to come out here in the first place to fight.

  When I catch up to my father again, he’s calling for the troops to gather up, drink and eat. “There’s another village across the woods,” he says, wiping flecks of blood off his cheeks. “We’ll hit that one too before dusk. It’s Rosewind territory – two miles from the Hartson estates themselves. We’ve never pushed so far before.” My younger brother, Rayse, grins viciously, like a wolf. He’s reveling in the carnage. I wish he didn’t.

  “Father,” I say, accepting a tankard someone hands to me, “we should probably stop our advance. The longer we stay, the more chance they can muster up their fighters to combat us. Let us not leave the Claymores without a leader or heir.” I point to the three of us. Should my father die, along with me and Rayse, it has a strong chance to cripple our power back home. My brother's uncle in law will take over, but he's not a true Claymore. He married up.

  “They destroyed something sacred,” my father hisses. “My mother’s buried in the grounds of the Fallow Church. My grandparents. My cousin.”

  I raise my eyebrow at the mention of cousin. He's never mentioned one before.

  “Generations and generations of us. I married in that church. You were to marry there too, when we located you a wife. Men fall, son, but that – that’s an icon these monsters destroyed.” Hatred flickers in his eyes, alarming and rabid. His men share it, and for one, the emotion feels alien to me. A part of me is exhausted. Tired of burning with hate, though it is always easy to stoke up. The memory of the sobbing, crying women and children stay with me. The memory of her stays with me. The woman I once thought beautiful, before her identity was fully revealed.