Chapter 70: The Lamb with Teeth

CONTENT WARNING: This Chapter contains graphic descriptions of past trauma, sexual assault (implied/attempted), and extreme violence. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

“Olivia?” Kyle’s voice dropped, the sword slipping from his trembling fingers and clattering to the floor. He looked at Mathias with a face flushed crimson, then turned back to her, his bravado vanishing like smoke. “What… what are you doing here? I thought—”

Olivia arched a single, elegant eyebrow, her gaze cutting through him like a blade. “What am I doing in my husband’s chambers, Kyle? Is that truly the question you’re posing?”

A wave of pure, unadulterated terror washed over him. Olivia was beyond irritated; she was a storm contained within silk sheets.

“All I wanted was to sleep,” she hissed, her voice vibrating with exhaustion. “Is that such a monumental request? And why is everyone standing here as if this were a public square? Get out. All of you.”

Her gaze shifted to Kyle, sharpening. “And you, Kyle. You are the Crown Prince, yet you carry yourself like a common fool. Storming into a Duke’s private quarters? Have some shred of decency.”

“He’s my friend!” Kyle stammered, trying to regain some dignity.

“Your ’friend’ whose throat you were ready to slit seconds ago?” she countered coldly.

“I thought… I thought he was betraying you!”

Mathias let out a dry, mocking snort. “Betraying her? Honestly, Kyle, have you lost your mind?”

Olivia sat up, the blankets falling around her. “I don’t know what goes on in that head of yours, brother, but do you truly believe that if he were to betray me, he would be left breathing to tell the tale?”

A sudden chill swept through the room. Even Mathias felt a slight shiver trace his spine.

“Hmm,” Mathias remarked, breaking the silence with a wry smile. “I’ll make sure to keep that in mind. Treason is forbidden if I wish to keep my head attached to my shoulders.”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” Olivia deadpanned. “You’re just as much of an idiot as he is.”

Leon and Leila struggled to stifle their laughter, watching as Olivia effortlessly dismantled the egos of the two most powerful men in the room. Kyle scratched the back of his neck, the picture of embarrassment. “Look, I’m sorry I hit you with the pillow. I didn’t expect it to be you. Now, come on, get up. Leila and I came all this way to see you.”

Olivia looked toward the door where Isabella stood. “Isabella, clear them out. Is this a bedroom or an exhibition hall?”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned back and buried herself under the duvet once more. Mathias pointed toward the exit, giving Kyle a pointed look. “You heard her. Get out.”

“That includes you, Mathias,” Olivia’s muffled voice came from beneath the layers. “Out. All of you.”

“You can’t kick me out of my own room,” Mathias protested, though his tone lacked any real bite.

“You know what? You’re right.” Olivia suddenly sat up, grabbed the heavy blanket, and wrapped it around herself like a royal cloak. She stood and marched toward the door, leaving them all standing in stunned silence. She paused at the threshold, looking at her lady-in-waiting. “Isabella, wake me in an hour.”

“As you wish, Your Grace,” Isabella replied with a respectful dip of her head.

Olivia retreated to the silence of her own quarters, the bone-deep weariness finally catching up to her. The nightmares had been relentless, and the fatigue felt like a physical weight. She collapsed into bed and fell into a heavy, dark slumber until a soft voice pulled her back to the surface.

“Olivia… Olivia, wake up.”

She forced her eyes open, the world blurry for a moment before Isabella’s face came into focus. “Hah… I’m awake,” she whispered, the echoes of her dreams still lingering in the corners of the room.

The doll sat forgotten in Olivia’s lap as the air in the room grew stagnant, heavy with the stench of a memory that refused to rot.

“The sanctity of my body?” Olivia let out a hollow, jagged laugh that sounded like glass breaking. “No, Isabella. They tore into me like rabid dogs. Their hands were cold, greasy, and smelled of stale ale. I can still feel the grit of the floor against my spine as they pinned me down. But it was the sound—that rhythmic, metallic rasp of a belt being ripped from its loops—that snapped something inside my brain.”

Her eyes glazed over, staring at a point in space where the horror was still unfolding.

“I didn’t think. I reacted. When he leaned over me, his breath hot and foul on my neck, I lunged. I didn’t just strike him; I reached for the only thing I could grasp and I tore it away. I felt the wet snap of tendons and the warm, arterial spray of blood across my face. His scream wasn’t human—it was the shriek of a slaughtered pig. For the first time in that hellhole, I felt a surge of pure, divine euphoria. I watched the others stumble back, their eyes wide with a newfound terror of the ’broken’ girl.”

A dark, predatory smirk twisted Olivia’s lips as she recalled Elvira’s entrance.

“And there she was. Clapping. The sound echoed like gunshots in the cellar. ’Bravo, sister,’ she purred. ’The lamb has grown teeth.’”

Olivia’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the bedsheets. “I tried to kill her. I shattered a vase over her skull with enough force to kill a man, but she didn’t even sway. She was a mountain of iron. She grabbed a fistful of my hair—I can still hear the roots tearing—and smashed my face into the stone wall. Crack. Once. Crack. Twice. My vision swam in a sea of red and grey. My teeth felt loose in my gums, and the copper taste of my own blood filled my mouth.”

“She dragged me down, forcing my bruised, naked chest against the filth of the floor. ’Kiss them,’ she commanded, her voice a silk-wrapped blade. ’Kiss my feet, you pathetic bitch.’ And I did. I crawled through the grime, through the blood of the man I had mutilated, and I pressed my lips to her boots. I was a dog. Her dog.”

Then, the final, most visceral memory surfaced.

“She didn’t just give me a sword; she shoved the hilt into my trembling hand, the cold steel a stark contrast to my feverish skin. She leaned in, her breath smelling of expensive wine, and whispered the most beautiful words I had ever heard: ’They took your dignity, Olivia. Now, you take their lives. Carve them up. Don’t leave enough of them for the crows.’”

Olivia looked at her hands, as if expecting to see them still stained crimson.

“And so, I began. I didn’t just kill them, Isabella. I practiced. I wanted to see how long a human could scream before the lungs gave out. I wanted to know how many pieces a body could be turned into while the heart was still beating.”

The idea ignited in Olivia’s mind like a wildfire, searing away the last traces of the terrified girl she once was. It was as if her soul had been scrubbed clean of fear, replaced by a glacial, hollow stillness and a smile that didn’t belong on a human face. She gripped the sword, the weight of it finally feeling right.

She moved with a savage, rhythmic precision. With a single, fluid strike, she severed their heads, but the blood spray wasn’t enough to quench the thirst inside her. She fell upon their corpses, hacking and tearing, again and again, until the men who had touched her were nothing more than unrecognizable heaps of meat.

One by one, she gathered their dismembered limbs and cast them into the roaring fireplace. She stood there, bathed in the flickering orange light, watching the flames devour the evidence of her shame until they turned to ash and drifted into the chimney.

Suddenly, a pair of cold arms wrapped around her from behind. Elvira pressed her cheek against Olivia’s blood-spattered shoulder.

“Olivia… you are mine now,” Elvira purred, her voice a poisonous caress. “No one can ever take you from me. Repeat it after me: I belong to Elvira.”

“I belong to Elvira,” Olivia echoed, her voice devoid of emotion. She said it again, and again, a dark litany whispered into the shadows.

“Good girl,” Elvira smirked, patting her cheek. “Now you know who your master is. Never dare to defy me or hide your secrets from me again.”

She swept out of the room, leaving Olivia alone amidst the carnage. Moving like a ghost, Olivia walked to the bath. She filled the tub not with oils, but with handfuls of coarse salt, desperate to burn away the phantom sensation of their skin against hers. Even though she remained physically untouched, she felt a profound, skin-crawling filth. She scrubbed the salt against her flesh with such violence that it tore her skin, leaving raw, stinging gashes—a self-inflicted baptism of pain to purge the memory of their touch.

As the tale finally reached its harrowing conclusion, Isabella couldn’t bring herself to meet Olivia’s eyes. The sheer weight of the suffering she had just heard felt like a physical burden crushing her chest.

“Isabella,” Olivia said, her voice eerily calm, “your father may not have been wealthy, and you may never have been draped in silk, but you had something I never possessed: a life. A real life. That is what made you who you are.”

She stood up, her silhouette sharp against the light of the room. “For me, life was never a gift; it was a prison, a fire that never stopped burning. To survive that fire, I had to become the very thing they called me: a monster.”

She paced the room, her resolve hardening with every step. “If survival demanded blood, then I spilled it—then and now. In the past, I endured them with hollow obedience because I had no sanctuary, no ally, and no escape. But now?”

Her eyes flashed with a lethal, unyielding light. “Now, nothing will stop me from crushing them—my father, Elvira—every single one of them. I will force them to swallow every shard of the agony they fed me. I will see them broken, even if it costs me my life, down to my very last breath.”

Isabella looked up, the horror in her eyes replaced by a grim, shared determination. “You’re right, Olivia,” she whispered. “They must pay. Every cent of the debt.”

Olivia leaned back, a small, dark smile touching her lips. “See? I told you… I knew you would understand me.”

Isabella wiped her eyes, her expression hardening as she leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Speaking of understanding, My Lady… I have found her.”

Olivia’s gaze sharpened. “Who?”

“The maid who testified that you were the one in the Duchess’s chambers that night.”

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