Editor's note: this story contains scenes of incest or incest content.
Chapter Four
"You, boy, are going to learn some manners..."
That incident had happened a long time ago when mark had only been a small child -- he'd not hit his growth spurt, in all honesty, until later than most. The others boys had shot up like beanpoles and he had still been the smallest of them all, which had only made it all the easier for his other grandmother, Agatha, to loom over him and scowl down, lips turned down into that ever-present frown of hers that never failed to promise trouble.
That time, he couldn't remember quite what he'd done wrong, although he knew it had had to be something. It was always something and it was always him. A child couldn't make any more sense of it than that, even if there was always going to be more to the story than what actually met the eye. He wasn't allowed near her all that often but, when there was no school, sometimes they'd run out of options for childcare and, eventually, he'd had to be left with her. The maids could only do so much and one too many falls out of trees had convinced his mother, of course, to get him a nanny, yet their illness came at a most inconvenient time for them.
Mark could not have said just what turned him from Agatha, with her jet black hair and narrow, beady eyes. She would have been a beautiful woman in her youth and had the potential to truly be regal in old-age, but her sourness hollowed her face into something sallow -- something that needed a smile to bring and breathe back life into.
"Little boy, you are going to learn..."
She advanced on him and he knew no more, shutting out the memory of the arrogant woman and all that had happened. Nothing physical, of course, but a verbal tongue-lashing from a tiny but mighty woman such as her was more than enough to make him quail when he was that young. He had hunkered down and tucked himself away and his mother had done her best to protect him, ensuring that, after so many reports of screaming and tirades, Grandmother Agatha no longer had the influence in her grandson's life that she wanted.
Yet standing before her in her own home, a smaller mansion that she resented her whole life even with all her resounding, stealthy kind of wealth, he was no longer that little boy anymore and he could draw himself up tall and proud, looking down at her. There was a good foot and a half in height between them and she could hop and make ugly faces at him all she liked with a face that should have been so much prettier than it was. Really, there was no power she could hold over him anymore and even what she had sought to take and claim for her own when he was but a young boy had been brief and tentative, as much as the wounds gaped and scars itched in memory.
"A pleasure to see you, grandmother."
It was formal, too formal, but he was not there for pleasantries. Agatha frowned -- proving, yet again, that it was indeed possible for her lips to turn down more than they already were -- and parted her lips in preparation for the tirade to come. Venting was her strong point and scathing rants her forte but there was no longer any time or place in his life for the cold-hearted woman to get even a single handhold on over him.
He cut across her with the skill of a bolder man, becoming the king that he truly envisioned himself as, lips curved up in the very faintest essence of a smile. It was time. Her voice would no longer be heard in that manner any more. Never again.
"Pacta Sevanda."
She wavered, lower jaw falling slack, and then dropped mentally, falling into the grasp of his will as if she'd always been meant to linger there, to belong there. She was not the woman who should have ever tried to take a controlling hand over his life but a mere pawn, a slave to his whims and desires, regardless of the direction they came from or what influence, indeed, they ended up having over her own life. In her sitting room, the reception that she entertained and received visitors that never came to visit her, she tipped from one side to the other without losing her balance, allowing him to look her over in the moment of stillness, no longer apoplectic with seething, roiling rage. It had never served her well anyway.
Licking his lips, Mark stifled a groan. Not yet. The time would come for that. But there were too many swathes of fabric over her body that he had seen in far less during the course of his lifetime, a long dress falling down to the ground as if she would not even allow her ankles to be shown, feet neatly tucked away in the appropriate and demure heels for a woman of her age. That was something that he would be quick enough to change but it was time to see what goods she had on offer to him, if her body was as delectable as he remembered from the stolen peeks and nuances glimpsed through steamy baths and clothes that draped and caressed in a very different fashion. It had been innocent, way back then, but things were about to become a whole lot less innocent than they ever had been before.