Craziness Runs in the Family

"Was it the fifth or sixth try?", Lady Brandon asked with a giggle as the messenger soldier closed the door a bit louder than necessary.

Katherine plopped a grape into her mouth with a smirk. "The seventh. I wonder when they will try to bring me out to meet him forcefully? After four full hours, I'm nearly out of excuses. It should be obvious by now that I don't want to go. Do you think he will come up to meet me himself or make them drag me out?"

At the last mention, Lady Brandon seemed a bit concerned. "Don't you think we have stalled them enough?"

Katherine shrugged. "Every second is one more for Nathaniel to come back. It would be bad if we left here and he isn't ready yet to free us off the entourage on the way. And actually... I want to annoy Ethan. I don't know if it will work, and maybe it's not very clever but I'll take every petty chance I can."

"Well... I can understand that. But in your condition, you should be careful not to make him too angry. If you get hurt, I believe your husband will go crazy regardless of your healing ability. And you heard the doctor. Magic - even for healing, we don't know otherwise - might be bad for the -"

"Shush", Katherine made with a finger before her lips. "You hear that? Someone is coming again."

From the quiet sound of the footfalls, not hurried, not accompanied by the clinking of armor, Katherine deduced who it was and hatred flashed in her eyes. Yet she was fast to hide it behind a calculated, cold facade. Even before a knock was heard, she stood up to open the door herself.

Seeing the man that came down the corridor in long strides, she forced herself to smile brighter with each bout of pain that squeezed her heart. "Cousin! What a surprise! I was just about to come down."

"Kitty." Goosebumps rose on her arms at this familiar sound, but she managed to suppress the shudder of repulsion. The man before her didn't change much, like those villains in novels who exchanged their souls for immortality. Surely, he was evil enough for that, yet his appearance was not worth the preservation for eternity.

Barely taller than Katherine, he had brown hair, murky eyes, and the face of any John or Tom from the streets. With a kind of superiority, Katherine thought that her loved one looked much better than this man. The only things that spoke for Ethan were his swift mind and innocent, gentle smile that deluded everyone into liking him at first glance. Now, these were the things she abhorred more than anything else.

This same smile she knew so well now blinked into existence in his eyes, his mouth curling upwards as he saw her. With a faster pace, he reached the door in a second, his black traveling coat fanning out behind him. Then he stretched out his arms as if to embrace her.

She slapped him. Hard. It was an instinctive reaction, but already when his head snapped to the side did she know that it was the wrong move.

She saw his shoulders twitch. If her hairs weren't already standing on end, they would now, when she heard the giggle. With his head still turned, the red handprint striking on his cheek, Ethan was laughing. It was completely incomprehensible. Turning back to Katherine, he wiped the tears from his eyes and shook his head in amusement. "Kitty, your paws are so cute!"

And then, when the shock still held her in place, he embraced her for real, pressing her arms to her side in a tight grip, and nuzzling his head into the crook of her neck. "Aw, I missed you!"

For a few seconds, Katherine was so overwhelmed with disgust that she didn't know what to do. Her arms were rendered immobile. She heaved breaths in big puffs, her cheeks a fiery red and shoulders pulled up. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and yelled at the top of her lungs: "LET ME GO, YOU JERK!"

He flinched back, pressing his hands to his ears. Viciously, she followed up with a knee into his crotch and when he bent down grabbed his hair to bring his ear up to her mouth again.

"Dare to touch me again with your bloody claws, and I will cut them off one at a time", she hissed. "Should you utter one more of these sweet words with your lying tongue, you will know how sick it feels when I make you swallow your tongue whole. And if you touch anyone that I love again, know that you will live the rest of your life wishing I didn't have the power to heal even people on the brink of death. It's really sad that I can't kill you here."

After her statement, she shoved him back, rubbed her hands as if clearing away filth, and finally showed her teeth to the two soldiers always standing on both sides of her door. Those two had only reacted to the events when she screamed, and now warily pointed their swords at her. Katherine glared at them. "Shouldn't you protect me? Does this jerk look too pitiful or is it that you only move for money? Anyway, I'm going now."

With a signal to Lady Brandon, the two women swaggered down the corridor as if nothing happened. At the end, Katherine turned once more. "Don't forget my bags! If you can't protect me, you can at least do this much."

The man bending down with his hands still over his throbbing crotch was totally ignored. Nobody saw the harmless smile forming on his lips again or the new, crazy glitter that lit up in his eyes for barely a second. When he straightened up after Katherine turned the corner, it was gone. "You heard my lovely cousin. Go get her things."

Just like Katherine, he left as if nothing happened. Well, maybe he flinched a bit at his first steps. The soldiers could only stare after the crazy people with disbelief. Then they shared a look that read 'Do they always greet like that?'

.

Trembling with adrenaline and excitement, Katherine pulled Ella into a side corridor halfway down to the courtyards. "How did I do? Was it threatening enough? For a second I thought I could just kill him, but that would have locked us up here forever, right? I was sooo close!"

Ella, who noticed Katherine fumbling with the hilt of her dagger through the pocket in her skirt, halted her hand. "Take a deep breath. You did well. A bit more aggressive than planned, but now that I've seen him, I think that's okay. It must have been unbearable to stay in his arms for longer."

Katherine pulled a grimace. "I wish I could burn my clothes and scrub my skin red. Really, what is he thinking? He acts as if he's done nothing wrong at all! It's so infuriating!"

Pressing the trembling hands of her friend tightly, Ella consoled her. "Humor him just a bit longer. When your husband is back, we can kill this jerk on the road."

Nodding, Katherine's eyes suddenly widened. "You know what? If he dies... won't I be the only heir to the dukedom?"