#talentless

The crack of the General's hand against her cheek left Penelope tasting blood, and not for the first time. Her eyes burned as she turned back to him, glowering and wiping her mouth on the back of one hand, almost surprised when there wasn't a trace of the blood she tasted marking her skin.

"You dare," she hissed, "to strike me?" As though by pretending as though the action were a new one might make her husband reflect upon his choices.

Any hope that she might have had that he would find her words intimidating — small though the chance might have been — vanished as he scoffed, his hand darting out to catch her by the chin and yank her close to him.

"You dare to speak to me so insolently?" he hissed.

Penelope twisted from his grasp, slapping his hand away. "I do." She raised a hand to the space between her breasts, the place where her small dagger sat nestled between them, as it always did, as she glared at her husband. The unspoken threat didn't faze him. She shouldn't have been surprised; it never fazed him even when it was spoken aloud either. "Who would have thought the great General Vancil could be goaded so by mere words?"

"Silence."

"No."

Rage flashed in the General's eyes. Penelope knew what would be coming next, but the knowledge of what he would do was little enough preparation for the way he shoved her back into the wall.

"You have yet to learn your place."

Her place. The box he seemed to think he could cram her into if he only trimmed enough of her away. As if she could ever be held within whatever narrow definition he expected to contain her. He'd always liked her fight, her fire, yet now he sought to douse her, tame her to be the soft glow of a candle flame instead of the blaze he'd been scorched by and chosen to capture anyway.

"You have never had a place for me."

"You would find it if you behaved." The response was expected, turning it around on her, as though she were ever the only part of the problem.

General Vancil caught Penelope by the chin once more, his thrice damned blue eyes all but smouldering with rage, and something else, as he stared her down.

She refused to look away, glaring right back and noting the way his pupils widened the longer she returned the challenge in his gaze.

It was the only warning she had before his mouth was upon hers.

So often — not always, but often — it was what their fights became. Sharp words turned to the domineering need to keep the other person from speaking in the most primal way; tongues, teeth, and lips used to enforce each other's silence. Blows became hands fisted in clothing that was soon ripped — sometimes literally — from each other and discarded, the garments casualties of the Vancil couple's personal war.

Love had never been a factor. Not even on those nights they had conceived their children, their crude rutting little more than finding a release they could never seem to find through fighting alone.

It was no different this time. There had never been any of the tenderness that Penelope had been given to expect between husband and wife, not with him. Each staggered step to their bed was like ceding contested land in a centuries long skirmish, a give and take which overall left neither any richer.

The General pushed Penelope's legs apart, forcing the shape of himself between her thighs and driving his length into her with all the gentleness she imagined him using while spearing a boar while on one of his infernal hunts.

She scarcely made a sound as he began to thrust, swallowing back all but her sharpest gasps. He'd never earned anything more.

Her fingers digging into his back and scraping up his hard flesh only ever encouraged him, hastened his release, tactics Penelope had learned early on in their coupling that she employed often to bring about a quicker end. It had become habit for her to ensure she'd picked her nail beds free of all traces of him as she cleaned up in the aftermath.

Penelope's teeth sank into the General's shoulder, his motions sparking something like pleasure in her core, a precipice he'd ever led her to the edge of, drawing her closer, and closer. The promise of something more always just on the horizon.

General Vancil grunted his release, his seed spilling into her, off in search of a womb that would never again allow his or any other's offspring to take root. He rolled off of Penelope, satisfied with his own part of their coupling, his movements loaded with self-satisfaction.

If the thought of walking away from the General — from everything — didn't feel so much like conceding him yet another victory, Penelope might have left long ago. The passing humiliation of having his wife leave would only temporarily dull the shine of General Vancil's reputation, and merely temporary would never be good enough. Penelope wanted to see the day the exalted General lost his favour, would not be reduced to learning of it through barely reliable hearsay.

No. When the man who had ruined her life finally fell from the pedestal he'd been placed on, she'd get to watch it as it happened.