> “Look what you’ve done to me!” Alice screamed through her pain. “And Ela—you have killed my Ela! She was the only one who ever truly loved me.”
“No,” Gavin answered, looking at Alice’s mutilated face with great pity. “It was not I nor Judith who has harmed you, but only yourself.” He turned to Alan as he picked Judith up in his arms. “See to her. Don’t let her die. Perhaps that scar will be a fitting reward for her lies.”
Alan looked with distaste at the cringing woman, then walked toward her.
Gavin took Judith down the stairs to the room below. It was some moments before she was able to relax. “It’s over now, my love,” Gavin whispered. “You are safe now. She will harm you no more.” He held her very tightly.
Alice’s screams, now little more than hoarse groans, came closer. Gavin and Judith watched as Alan led her below. She stopped and gave Judith one last vicious look, then turned away when she saw the sorrow in Judith’s eyes. Alan led her from the room.
“What will happen to her now?” Judith asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I could give her to the courts, but I think perhaps she’s been punished enough. No longer will her beauty ensnare men.”
Judith looked up at him in surprise and studied his face.
“You look at me as if you’re seeing me for the first time,” he said.
“Maybe I am. You’re free of her.”
“I have told you before that I no longer loved her.”
“Yes, but there was always a part of you that was hers, a part I couldn’t touch. But now she no longer possesses you. You are mine—totally and completely mine.”
“And that pleases you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “It pleases me greatly.”