☪Even in the darkness, all I see are the stars☪

It was, of course, some weird and cruel twist of fate that made it such that Kershov was the one to find her. Shame rose and bile swarmed up into her throat, rustling her spines as she felt his eyes rake over her. After all, all of this would come to injure him in the end, and yet still she was but the victim in all of it, a helpless marionette doll whose strings were being pulled. She opened her mouth to apologize, but nothing came out, not a word, not a whimper. He was not in front of her, but even if he had been, her gaze would not have spotted him since her lids were almost matted shut from the dirt and the tears that had mixed together into a thick, adhesive clay. But she knew it was him nonetheless - after all, she had heard his footsteps, and inhaled his cologne, It had brought disappointment and bile into her throat. It is said that femmes, when young, fall in love with their fathers, and as they age, it turns into something more innocent, but they still idolize them and usually end up finding a brute who is just like them to fall in love with and spend the rest of their life with. Without having ever met him when she was young, Briseis had spent her childhood days thinking only the best of him, dreaming that he would recognize her immediately and take her under his wing, teaching her has her mother had. But the only thing that he had lived up to was Henadin‘s physical description - Kershov was a pallid ivory gladiator, with a gruesome torn scar on the right side of his face which exposed his pearled weapons, and could boast innumerable other scars from fights and wars… The rest had been left to Brie’s imagination.

But her imagination had been far from right, and in fact could not have been more off the mark. There have been no recognition of her on his part, and why should there be? He had no idea that Kahlan had become pregnant after their impromptu coupling. And as for taking her under his wing? Yes, he had saved her from the supposed rapist, but Rogan had not been a rapist at all, and in the aftermath, Kershov had threatened her life should she not comply with his demands. And although he had not ordered her to return with him to his pack, it had been a silent command which she knew she could not refuse… Not even if she had wanted to, considering Draven had also commanded that she go to Kershov’s pack. Thusly, she was stuck in a terrible spot between a rock and a hard place, and the only dash of happiness was a split-second of a memory, one in which the stranger Lupin had taken her as a lover and showed her gentleness and kindness. She would not let anything sully that single bright spot in her life, so she had locked it away where not even Draven could touch it. But it was not Draven who was here now, no, it was Kershov, her alpha, her father. As always, with any time she was in close proximity to him, Draven‘s orders rushed like adrenaline through her veins, pushing her mind to think in ways that it would not normally. And after all the moments of silence, that hesitation before he moved in closer, and his confusion as he said her name, almost with concern, a repulsive idea sprouted to her mind that she immediately regretted ever creating… For now she would have to follow through with it. Repulsion swept through her and she gagged, which just so happened to coincide in time with when he stepped closer to her and began to clean her wounds. A wave of piloerection shook along her back, rows of her hairs rising and falling in quick succession, and she whimpered and scooted away from him, partially because she hated what she was about to do, and partially because after being so violently raped and violated, she simply just did not wish to be touched by anyone.

‘What happened?’

It was a simple question, but it was not one that could elicit a simple answer. She had been ordered not to tell the truth in this particular subject matter, and because of that she was stuck either telling a half truth, omitting key facts in order to warp it, or to come up with an entirely different lie. She whimpered again, but finally her shades managed to pull themselves open, and her bright violet pools hesitantly slithered up to meet his gaze. Her mind latched onto the thing that would hurt this beast‘s pride the most, given the previous piece of information that she had learned about Kershov when he had saved her from the rapist - he reviled the idea of rape - and she leapt with it. Her voice was weak, scratched raw from screaming and sobbing, swollen and inflamed from her torture - in the weeks since she had last been with Draven, she had grown supple and soft, her tolerance level lowered. And so it was a soft soprano, stuttering and falling over consonants, that answered.

“I w-w-was r-raped and-d-d b-b-beaten… B-By a...” She closed her eyes and envisioned Draven upon her - he was a beast, but was not also Kershov‘s inner demons one as well? “B-By a b-b-beast. By…” Her eyelids opened and she raised her gaze slowly, crawling up her father‘s paws, then limbs, then chest, until finally she reached his raptor‘s gaze. Her heart sank and shattered as she finished her sentence. “B-By y-y-your b-beast.”

Ω Briseis Ω Chained to Draven Ω Slave of Caidir Olc Ω Azura ΩTable Credit to Xathira