🍷CW - blood

I awoke in a feverish sweat.

Heart pounding, I stared up at the ceiling, its gold intricacies invisible under the swath of darkness. At night, the ceiling of the King's bedchamber looked the same as any other.

Devil. The word thudded in my skull, on my lips. I brushed the canopy curtain aside and reached for the wine. The candles on the table burned low, flames bobbing in pools of misshapen wax.

Philip lay beside me on his stomach. The soft glow of the chandelier illuminated the slope of his spine. His fingers lay limp atop the pillow, smooth and cold like marble. I drew the sheet over him.

A wave of night air raised gooseflesh along my arms. I downed my glass of wine and pulled on my trousers. In the far corner of the room, the fireplace crackled with fresh wood. A servant must have lit it as we slept.

Supper was still spread over the table. The meat looked less appetizing now, brown and cold in a puddle of juice. I swallowed thickly. The sight of the discarded food turned my stomach. I thought of my brothers, Mercy and the orphans, the men in the servants' quarters.

Here in the royal chamber, a slab of steak lay to rot while they dunked crusts of bread in watery stew.

I tried to summon my mother's voice. My mother with her green meadow eyes, her soft smile. My mother would be happy to see me here. She would hold my face in her hands and say, I always knew my Auden would dine with the King.

And for what? I was washed clean of my grime but I would never be washed of my sins. The wine in my glass might as well have been the blood of my people.

In the mirror I studied myself, sinewy arms, sharp jawline, nose a little crooked. Eyes dull pits into the abyss within.

Devil.

Suddenly I could feel tears forming, tears coursing down my face, salt on my tongue. I was sick, stomach emptying, knees crumbling. I stared myself in the eyes as I cried silent tears. I felt wrong, like a fly in a feast. A bloom of rot in a field of flowers.

I sank to the floor, knees up to my chest, cheek to the marble. Tears pooled around my face as my body closed in on itself. It felt like being in a well, a deep well, surrounded by darkness and wet with no way to climb out.

Gnashing jaws. Hunger. A rotting pig's head with a smile carved into its flesh. Blood on my hands. Blood in my mouth.

"Auden?"

I looked up. He'd put his breeches on. One of his stockings had slipped down to his ankle. He looked cute. Devastatingly trusting.

"Go away," I croaked. "Get away from me."

Philip got to his knees where I lay on the floor and reached for me, felt me shuddering and rocking myself like a lunatic. I sobbed, tears making the sight of him blurry. I felt his lips on the shell of my ear and his arms around me. Auden, it's alright, shh. He was warm, too warm, like a bed of hot coals. Auden, shh.

My mother's voice. Hush, love.

I lay in the King's lap and wept, the top of my head pressed to his stomach, tears soaking his linen shirt. He stroked my hair with his soft cherubic hands and somehow this gentleness hurt me like no pain ever had. He kept whispering things like Auden, answer me, and it's alright, just tell me what's wrong.

I can't breathe. I can't breathe.

"I'll send for the doctor," Philip said.

Sucking in a breath, I sat up. "No." My face was burning hot, blotchy, lips wet with tears. I stared at him. He looked scared, and I forced myself to look away.

"Are you ill?" he pressed. "Was it the food?"

I still felt feverish, a little dizzy, like if I tried to stand I would fall. For a moment I thought: poison. My wine was poisoned. My fingers fumbled for it, that glass of red-blood-poison-wine, before a more chilling thought came to me.

The poison wasn't in my glass. It was in my very soul.

I sat on the daybed, Philip beside me, and stared down at my bare feet, his rumpled stockings. What a pair the two of us were, the King and the servant, half-naked and half-drunk in the dead of night.

"What am I doing here?" I asked finally.

He didn't respond. Just looked at me.

"I mean it. What am I doing? What are we doing?" I stared at the table of food. The uneaten steak at the center, the glass of spilled wine still knocked over beside his plate. "Exactly what do you plan to do with me, make me a man of your Court? Dress me up in gold coats and little shoes? Mask my stench with a dab of perfume?"

Philip looked at his lap.

My tongue tasted bitter. Saliva pooled in my jaws, thick and heavy. "I'm poor. No amount of perfume will change that. It's who I am. I'm a roach." Another tear rolled down my cheek. "A rat."

Devil.

I sniffled a little. I stared at him, pleading with him. Please tell me I'm not.

"I don't belong here," I whispered. "You are a king and I am nothing. How could you-" The words caught in my throat and my only real question lingered on my tongue. How could you ever love me?

"Auden." He took both my hands. I felt my heart form a fist inside my chest. "You mean everything to me. Everything."

I looked into his eyes, trying to believe him. Trying to imagine a world where I was good enough for him.

I wanted to hug him, kiss him, and say you're right, let's go back to bed. Let's forget this whole thing. But I couldn't. It wouldn't let me.

"I'm a whore," I said.

He flinched. Unmistakably. "What?"

"I fuck men for money."

His hands slipped from mine. He shook his head once, as if unsure of even that. "I don't understand."

"What do you not understand? I'm a whore." The words shot from my lips like daggers. Raining down on us, piercing my skin. "I find men on the streets and fuck them. Tell them things. They're so big and strong and I've never sinned like this before. They pay me."

Philip's eyes grew dim. The color of wood after the rain, dark and wet.

You will poison the King. You will drain him until there is nothing left.

"Please say you're lying," he whispered.

The need for confession had flooded my veins and now I sat soaked in the aftermath, tears dripping from my chin onto my trousers. Sharp little raindrops.

"Do you want money?"

"No."

"I can give you money, Auden. I can give you land, livestock. A title."

"I don't want a title." I forced the words out like mouthfuls of bile. "I don't want anything from you." I was ruining us, killing us both with every breath, but I couldn't stop. Once he knew the truth, he wouldn't be able to look at me. He would send me back where I belonged.

"Then why do all this?" he demanded. "Why show me London, why take me to your home? Why act like you care about me?" His voice shook. "Why stay with me at all? Why not just leave in the middle of the night?"

A scream welled up inside me, like a drop of blood at the prick of a needle. A scream so loud and bright it burst out as only a whisper. "Because I'm in love with you."

He stared at me, silent, and the scream swallowed me whole. Choked on me, spat me out. Have to go. Have to get out. I heard myself sob and look around for something to relieve the pain. Get out. And before I knew it I was on my feet, tearing at my hair, staring up at the ceiling. The chandelier swayed, glinting at me.

My fist collided with the mirror.

The world fell silent. Long cracks cut through the glass. I locked eyes with my distorted reflection. Devil.

I could feel my heartbeat in my skull. Ears hot, pounding with blood.

Again.

Shards of glass broke loose. Silence. Then searing pain. I looked down. Blood dripped from a gash between my knuckles. Drip, drip on the marble floor. My hand shook uncontrollably.

"Auden."

I fell into his arms. He sat me down on the daybed and kissed the top of my head. I felt faint. I kept staring at my hand, at the blood, at the glass on the floor.

"Auden, I love you."

His hands clasped mine and I relished the softness, the warmth of his palms sheltering my torn knuckles. His hands felt like home. "I love you," I said. At once I was wracked with so much guilt, I wanted to get down on the floor and kiss his feet. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Auden," he whispered. "Look at me."

My eyes rose slowly, eyelashes wet in the corner of my vision.

"I love you," he said. "I love you more than anything. You're not a roach to me. You're everything. You're my best friend." He took in a breath through his nose. "You're my only friend."

"You have so many people who love you. Worship you."

He looked into my eyes. "Not like you."

My throat felt tight, my chest too. My heart thudded hard. "I told you what I have with you is real. I've never wanted you to give me any money. All I've ever wanted was to be with you. I want to go everywhere with you. Do everything with you. If you want to go to the sea, we'll go to the sea. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth."

"And the other men?"

"I've never been in love before. You don't have to believe me. It's the truth. I started falling in love with you when I realized I liked being close to you. And it became all I wanted. All I could think about. I've never felt anything like that."

He was quiet for a long time. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to shed my skin entirely and start anew. But I was done pretending.

Philip stood in front of the broken mirror. The gold frame twinkled in the candlelight, as if oblivious to how broken it was inside. He took a slow, deliberate breath then lifted a shard of broken glass from the floor.

My blood ran cold. "What are you doing?"

He bit his lip in response, eyes distant. He turned the sliver in his hand. The light of the chandelier bounced off the glass.

I stood. Hand still bleeding, heart still pounding. "Come on, darling, put it down. Please. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I don't own this country, you know," he told me. "This country owns me."

I shook my head. "What are you talking about?"

"It owns my life, my body, my every waking breath. I never wanted to grow up. I never wanted this. I never wanted to be King."

He was crying. I was crying. My hands cupped his elbows. The shard of glass lingered just before my chest.

"My wedding is in four weeks. I don't want to be married. I don't ever want to marry anyone." He stared up at me, eyes heavy with tears. "Except you."

I laughed. A soft, shuddering little laugh as he turned the glass away from me and pressed it to the soft flesh of his palm. "Marry me? Are you out of your mind?"

He gave me a crooked smile. "Yes." Then he dragged the glass across his palm.

Blood ran down his hand and streaked red lines across his wrist. He panted, trembled, as if he'd just cut into his heart. He was opening himself for me, giving himself to me.

He met my eyes, the bloody shard firm in his grasp. "Will you marry me?"

Giddy with excitement, I took the shard and pressed the edge to my palm. I wanted a clean slice. I hesitated, then grit my teeth and drew a line across my skin. It hurt less than I expected. Drops of blood bloomed like red roses, then filled in the line. I let the shard of glass fall to the floor and took Philip's hand.

"Marriage is a union in the eyes of the State. But we are above the State." Blood dripped between our fingers onto the cushion of the daybed. "We are above marriage." My entire palm was dark red, blood gathering in the creases of my fingers and inside my ring. "We are blood."

"Blood," I whispered.

We were silent for a moment, solemn. His blood pumped through my veins, mine through his. Then Philip started to giggle. He brought his hand up to my cheek, drops of crimson painting my bare chest. I felt the wet blood on my face and trembled. "Now I'm yours," he said.

I licked my lips. Counted the heartbeats in my ears. One. Two. Three.

His hand started to slip away. In a split second I gripped his wrist so hard my fingernails left marks. His skin was ghostly white, nearly translucent, blue veins visible beneath. Hunger. Blood on my hands. Blood in my mouth.

He sucked in a gasp as I licked the line of blood from his wrist. I looked up at him, crimson smeared on my lips, and listened to my heartbeat. One-two. One-two.

The fear drained from Philip's eyes. He smirked, ever so slightly, then pressed the tip of my bloodstained finger to his tongue.

"I understand now," he whispered.

Slowly, my fingers crept up his palm to the pool of dark red. "Understand what?"

"When you said you wanted to be closer than clothes, closer than air. I understand what you meant."

His breath hitched as I gave his hand a squeeze. It was so easy to make him flustered, to turn his cheeks pink and get his heart beating. "Are you sure you understand the full extent?"

He lifted my hand and traced the edge of my cut. I winced at the twinge of pain. "Closer than flesh."

"Closer than blood."

My lips grazed his, then captured them, and then both of our hands were everywhere, staining white linen with traces of red. We lay side-by-side, close enough to feel each other's breath on our lips. "This is how I want to picture you," he whispered, eyes drifting open and shut. "When we're apart. This is what I shall think of."

I stroked the blotches of red on his cheek. My palm stung from the movement, but I didn't mind. Pain meant my blood was still flowing. Heart still beating. "I wish you hadn't seen me like that."

Philip smiled. "But I had to. Your soul is bare to me now, and mine to you. We share blood." He traced his own chest with one finger. Right above his heart, where the marks I'd kissed into his skin hours ago lingered.

If somehow, I could convince myself that everything I'd done, every choice I'd made, had led me to this moment, then it would all be worth it. To lie here with him, flesh to flesh, blood to blood.

"This is my promise to you," he said. "To love you like no other soul that has ever lived. To ensure you are always taken care of. I would say I'll give you the world but you've already given it to me. But Auden-" He crushed my lips in a kiss. "I'll give you everything I have."

I took in his words. I tried to imagine a life where I was not poor, I was not angry or hungry or longing. A life where I no longer needed to take, to kill, to claw my way to the top.

I held his hands between mine and kissed his knuckles. The blood on our hands was drying, the cuts thickened. "I don't need the world," I told him. "Just you."

"I'm yours, Auden."

I caressed his cheek, ran my thumb over the curve of his lower lip, then let my hand fall to his neck. I felt his pulse. One. Two. Three.

"Say it again."

His neck craned back, giving me more access to his throat. "I'm yours."

I kissed him. I could taste salt and iron on his tongue. "My name."

"Auden." He tilted his head back further, so he was hanging off the side of the daybed. The back of his hand dragged on the marble floor. His chest rose as I slid my fingers down his body. His spine curved. "Auden, Auden."

I looked up and saw myself in the cracked mirror, bloody handprints on my bare chest, eyes dark. Devil.

"Is this what you see in your dreams?" I whispered.

His amber eyes locked with mine. He trembled. "Yes."

A smirk cracked my lips. I could practically feel the black wings bursting from my shoulder blades and spreading over us. Philip lifted his hips, gripped my backside, and pressed me to him. My back muscles flexed, cracked, as I leaned down over the swell of heat between us.

I kissed him again. Cupped the back of his curly head and lifted him to me. Devil. Sent by Satan to collapse this country.

And in my arms England collapsed.