Ashford stumbled backward up one step, then another, his eyes fixed on the growing red stain on the marble. He couldn’t breathe. His ears were ringing. The shouts of the servants sounded distant, muffled.
He needed to get out. He needed to be anywhere but here.
He spun around, intending to flee up the stairs to his rooms, to lock the door, to think.
He took one step and collided with a solid, immovable wall of a man.
Ashford jerked his head up.
His father, Duke Valerius, stood on the stairway landing above him. The Duke had been on his way down, drawn by the commotion. He was still dressed in his formal day attire, a dark grey coat that made his silver hair seem even colder.
The Duke’s pale blue eyes were not on Ashford. They were looking past him, down into the entrance hall. They took in the scene with a single, sweeping glance: the servants clustered in horror, Abel kneeling and weeping over a still form, the dark pool of blood stark against the pale stone.
The Duke’s face, usually an unreadable mask of authority, went ashen. All color drained from it, leaving his skin the shade of old parchment. For a fleeting second, raw, undisguised shock flickered in his eyes—the kind of shock that comes from seeing a carefully controlled world violently unravel.
Then his gaze snapped to Ashford. To the practice sword lying discarded at his son’s feet. To Ashford’s own horrified, guilty expression.
"What," the Duke said, his voice a low, dangerous rasp that cut through the background noise like a blade, "did you do?"
The question wasn’t loud. It was worse than loud. It was absolute.
Ashford flinched as if struck. He shook his head, his hands coming up in a frantic, warding gesture. "I didn’t—Father, I didn’t mean to! He fell, he slipped, he—"
"Liar!"
The shrill cry came from below. A young maid, the one who had first screamed, stepped forward from the crowd. Her face was streaked with tears, her cap askew. She pointed a trembling finger directly at Ashford. "I saw him! We all saw him! He pushed him! Lord Ashford shoved the consort right in the chest!"
A murmur of agreement rippled through the gathered staff. Heads nodded.
Another servant, an older woman who worked in the laundry, spoke up, her voice tight with anger. "He was mocking them, Your Grace. Mocking Lord Abel’s... episodes. The consort was just being nice, trying to calm things. He said Lord Ashford was working hard to be like his brother."
Her words were fuel on a fire. A footman, emboldened, added, "He told the consort to shut up, called him an Omega, then shoved him. Clear as day."
Ashford felt the world tilting. "No! You’re twisting it! He was provoking me! That damn Omega with his smiles and his—"
"And what about yesterday?" A sharp-faced hall boy piped up, his eyes narrowed. "Come to think of it, I saw him talking with that maid Liana. The one who dropped Lord Abel’s horse and started all the trouble at the reception. They were whispering in the west corridor before it all happened."
The implication hung thick in the air.
Another maid gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. "You don’t think...? Did he plan that too? To make Lord Abel look bad?"
The whispers grew louder, more accusatory.
"Jealous, that’s what it is."
"Now this... he could have killed him!"
"Look at all that blood..."
The dam of their fear and subservience broke, washed away by the shock of violence and the sight of their gentle, wronged consort lying broken on the floor. They weren’t just witnesses now; they were a jury.
"SHUT UP!" Ashford roared, his voice cracking with hysteria. He took a threatening step down toward the crowd, his fists clenched. "Shut your mouths, all of you! You useless, gossiping lowlifes! Before I have every one of you whipped and thrown from the gates!"
His threat, meant to cow them, had the opposite effect. It confirmed every suspicion of his cruelty.
An elderly groom, a man who had served the family for forty years and had little left to fear, spat on the polished floor. He looked Ashford dead in the eye, his voice gravelly and cold. "Who’s the unstable one now, my lord?"
The insult, coming from a servant, was a slap in itself. But the real blow came a second later.
*Crack.*
The sound was sharp and clean in the tense air.
Ashford’s head snapped to the side. A bright, stinging pain exploded across his left cheek.
He stood there, stunned, one hand slowly rising to touch his face. His eyes, wide with disbelief, focused on the man who had struck him.
It was his father.
Duke Valerius had moved with a speed that belied his age. His arm was still extended from the backhanded slap, his own face a rigid sculpture of icy, monumental fury. The quiet, controlled anger they were all accustomed to was gone. This was something primal, something deadly.
The entire hall fell into a silence so profound they could hear the drip of Orion’s blood hitting the marble floor. *Plink. Plink.*
The Duke lowered his hand. He stared at his second son as if seeing a stranger. A dangerous, venomous stranger.
"You will be silent," the Duke said, each word dropping into the quiet like a stone. "You will take not one more step. You will say not one more word."
He then turned his head slightly, not taking his eyes off Ashford, and spoke to the head butler who stood rigid nearby. "Summon four guards. Here. Now."
The butler bowed swiftly and hurried away.
The Duke’s gaze swept back over the scene below. His eyes lingered on Abel, who was now rocking slightly, Orion’s hand clutched to his heart, utterly lost in his grief. He saw the physician, Master Arlen, rushing into the hall with his bag, his face grim as he knelt beside Orion.
Finally, the Duke addressed the room, his voice regaining its steely command, though it was colder than the northern wind. "You." He pointed to two senior maids. "Assist the physician. Fetch whatever he needs. You others," his glance swept the rest, "return to your duties. There will be no gossip. Is that understood?"
They scattered instantly, cowed by the direct order, but the looks they shot Ashford as they left were filled with a new, fearless contempt.
The Duke descended the remaining stairs, walking past Ashford as if he were a piece of furniture. He went straight to where the physician was working.
Master Arlen had rolled Orion onto his side. The back of his head was a mess of dark hair and glistening red. He was pressing a thick pad of linen against it, his fingers already stained. Orion’s face was ghostly white, his lips pale. This story is hosted at g.com.
"Well?" the Duke asked, his voice low.
"The bleeding is severe from a laceration to the scalp," Arlen said without looking up, his hands moving with practiced efficiency. "Possible fracture. Certainly a severe concussion. He is deeply unconscious. We must stop the bleeding and get him to a bed. I cannot assess further here."
"Do it," the Duke ordered. He glanced at Abel, who was staring blankly at the physician’s hands. "Abel."
Abel didn’t respond.
"Abel," the Duke said again, more firmly.
Abel’s golden eyes, clouded with tears, slowly lifted to meet his father’s.
"Let them take him," the Duke said, and for a brief moment, his voice wasn’t that of a Duke, but of a father urging a child to release a wounded bird. "They must help him."
Slowly, agonizingly, Abel’s fingers loosened their death grip on Orion’s hand. He allowed two careful footmen, under Arlen’s direction, to lift Orion onto a folded tapestry used as a makeshift stretcher.
As they carried Orion away, moving swiftly but carefully toward the family wing, Abel scrambled to his feet to follow, his tears still flowing silently.
The Duke watched them go. Then he turned.
Four household guards in crisp uniforms had arrived, standing at attention by the bottom of the stairs. Their eyes were forward, but their posture was alert.
Ashford still stood on the step where he’d been slapped, frozen. His cheek bore the vivid, angry red imprint of his father’s hand. He was shaking.
The Duke walked back up to him, stopping one step below so they were nearly eye-to-eye.
"You," the Duke said, his voice so quiet only Ashford and the guards could hear, "will go to your apartments. These guards will escort you. You will remain there. You will speak to no one. You will see no one. You are confined, by my order, until I decide what is to be done with you."
Ashford found his voice, a thin, reedy thing. "Father, please... it was an accident, he was asking for it, he—"
"Do you hear yourself?" the Duke interrupted, his whisper fierce. "A man lies near death, and you speak of provocation? You, who were meant to be the competent one? The reliable one?" He leaned in closer, his glacial eyes boring into Ashford’s. "You have not only harmed your brother’s husband. You have shattered the peace of this house. You have turned the servants against the family name. You have acted with the impulsive brutality of a common thug in the home you wish to rule."
He straightened up, all traces of the father gone, leaving only the Duke. "Take him," he commanded the guards.
Two guards moved up the stairs, their hands firm but not rough on Ashford’s arms. He didn’t resist. He seemed hollowed out, all his arrogance bled away by the slap and the accusations and the sight of his own ruin reflected in his father’s eyes.
As they led him away, up the grand staircase he had once thought to descend as the master, the Duke stood watching, alone on the steps.
Below him, the maid who had first accused Ashford was quietly cleaning Orion’s blood from the marble floor. The water in her bucket was already pink.
The Duke closed his eyes for a single, long moment. When he opened them, they were fixed on the red-stained water.
He had spent a lifetime building walls of duty and control to hold back chaos. And in one fit of petty rage, his own son had kicked a hole right through them.