Reborn To Change My Fate-Chapter 272 - Two Hundred And Seventy One

The morning light filtering through the thin, dusty curtains of the west wing bedroom was grey and unforgiving. It did not bring warmth; it only illuminated the dust motes dancing in the stale air, the unmade bed, and the emptiness of a room that no longer felt like a home.

Ashlyn stepped inside, closing the heavy oak door behind her with a soft, final click. The sound echoed in the silence, sealing her in with the man who had destroyed her. She leaned back against the wood, her body trembling with exhaustion and a deep, bone-weary shame that seemed to seep from her pores.

She was still wearing the pale pink nightgown she had woken up in at Prince Liam’s residence—a flimsy, humiliating garment that felt like a brand on her skin. She had wrapped a rough, borrowed cloak tightly around herself, clutching the edges with white-knuckled fingers, desperate to hide the evidence of her night. Her hair was a tangled mess, windblown and unkempt. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes hollow, stripped of the arrogance that usually defined her.

She looked up.

Carlos was there.

He was waiting for her. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his bad leg propped up on a velvet stool to ease the pain. He was dressed in his work clothes, but he looked as if he hadn’t slept. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face unshaven. He looked up when she entered, and a flicker of complex emotion crossed his face—relief, perhaps, that she had returned, mixed with a flash of guilt that he quickly suppressed behind a mask of normalcy.

He stood up, grabbing his crude wooden crutch. He rushed toward her as fast as his injured leg would allow, limping heavily, the crutch tapping a frantic, uneven rhythm on the floorboards.

He opened his arms, a wide, welcoming gesture. He was acting as if nothing had happened. As if she were returning from a morning walk in the garden, or a visit to the market, not from the bed of another man he had sold her to.

"You are back," Carlos said. His voice was bright, false, and sickeningly cheerful. "I was worried. You were gone a long time."

He reached for her, trying to hug her, trying to pull her into the familiar embrace of a husband, as if his touch could erase the last twelve hours.

Ashlyn didn’t speak. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t think.

SLAP!

Her hand moved in a blur. She hit him across the face with all the strength she had left in her body. It wasn’t a weak slap. It was a blow filled with a night’s worth of terror, humiliation, and burning, white-hot rage.

The sound cracked through the room like a whip.

Carlos stumbled back, clutching his cheek. The impact had shocked him. He looked at her with wide, bewildered eyes, as if she were the one being unreasonable.

"Ashlyn..." he started, his voice whining, reaching out again.

"Are you even human?" Ashlyn asked.

Her voice was a low, trembling hiss. She stared at him, her eyes burning with a disgust so profound it felt like nausea rising in her throat. She looked at him and saw a monster in human skin.

"You drugged me," she said, stepping closer, forcing him to back away until he hit the heavy wooden bedpost. "You put something in my wine. You smiled at me, you toasted with me, and you poisoned me. You knocked me out. And then you put me in a box like a piece of luggage. Like a sack of grain to be traded at the market."

She poked him in the chest, hard, her finger digging into his ribs.

"And you gave me to another man," she whispered, her voice breaking into a jagged edge. "You sold me to Prince Liam. Your own wife. The mother of your dead child. You traded me for a chance to sit at his table, for a chance to be his dog."

Carlos panicked. He looked at the door, terrified that the servants would hear. He looked at the window, afraid of spies. He reached out and covered her mouth with his hand, his palm sweaty and rough against her lips.

"Lower your voice," he whispered frantically, his eyes pleading. "Please. Don’t shout. If they hear us... if the Dowager hears... we are finished."

Ashlyn didn’t care about the Dowager. She didn’t care about the servants.

She bit him.

She sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his palm, biting down hard enough to taste copper.

"Argh!" Carlos yelped.

He pulled his hand away, shaking it, looking at the teeth marks in his skin.

"Is that honorable?" Ashlyn asked, spitting the taste of his skin from her mouth. She glared at him. "Is silencing me honorable? Is selling me honorable? Is that what a husband does? Is that what a man does?"

Carlos looked at his throbbing hand, then at her fury. He dropped his act. His shoulders slumped. The facade of the worried, loving husband crumbled, revealing the weak, desperate, pathetic man beneath.

"No," Carlos admitted, his voice small. "It is not."

Ashlyn scoffed. It was a harsh, ugly sound that tore from her throat.

"If you knew it was shameful," she demanded, tears standing in her eyes, "why commit such disgusting acts? Why treat me like cattle? Why did you do it, Carlos? Did you even hesitate?"

Carlos didn’t answer with words. He couldn’t. There were no words to justify it.

He limped back to the bed. He reached underneath the frame and pulled out a long, flat wooden box. He set it on the mattress and opened it.

Inside lay the black leather whip he had used on her before. The symbol of his control. The tool he used when words failed him, when he wanted to feel powerful.

He picked it up.

Ashlyn laughed. It was a cold, incredulous laugh that sounded more like a sob.

"So what?" she asked, looking at the whip in his hand. "Do you want to hit me? Is that your answer? You sell me, and then you beat me for complaining? Is that how you fix this? Is that how you become a man?"

Carlos hit the floor with the whip. The sound was sharp.

Ashlyn watched him, confused and wary.

"Do you think silence will conceal this?" she asked. "Do you think fear will make me forget where I slept last night? Do you think pain will wash away the memory of his hands? You cannot whip the memory out of me."

She waited for him to strike her. She braced herself, ready to fight, ready to scream, ready to tear the house down around them.

But Carlos did something unexpected.

He dropped to his knees.

He fell to the floor in front of her, ignoring the pain in his bad leg. He held the whip out to her, handle first. He bowed his head, exposing his neck, submitting to her completely.

"Ashlyn," Carlos said, his voice thick with desperation. "You must understand me. Please. Look at our situation."

He looked up at her, his eyes wet with tears.

"Everything has been taken from me," he whispered. "My title. My money. My home. My pride. I am a cripple living in a worker’s hut. I am nothing. I am less than nothing."

He gestured to the room, to the luxury they were about to lose, to the world outside that mocked him.

"My future is bleak," Carlos said. "I have nothing. Only Prince Liam can help me. Only he has the power to restore me. To restore us. To give us back our lives. To give you back your dresses and your jewels."

He pushed the whip toward her hand.

"I know I have wronged you," Carlos confessed. "I know it was unforgivable. I know I am a monster for what I did. But please... help me regain Prince Liam’s trust. He likes you. He wants you. If you stay close to him... we can survive."

He bowed his head again, pressing his forehead against the floor.

"Strike me if you must," Carlos offered. "Punish me. Beat me until you are satisfied. Take your anger out on my skin. Make me bleed. But don’t leave me. And don’t stop helping me. I need you, Ashlyn. I cannot do this alone."

Ashlyn stared at him. She looked at the man kneeling at her feet, offering her a whip so she would agree to be a mistress for his gain. She looked at the father of the child he had killed.

She reached out and took the whip. The leather handle was warm from his grip. It felt heavy.

She raised it. She looked at his back. She thought about hitting him. She thought about making him bleed like he had made her bleed. She thought about the pain in her own back, the scars that were still healing. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to make him pay.

Carlos shut his eyes tight, wincing in anticipation, waiting for the blow.

Ashlyn looked at him. She saw a coward. She saw a man so weak he would sell his soul and his wife for a crumb of power. She saw a man who would never change, who would always sacrifice her to save himself.

Slowly, she lowered her hand. She didn’t want to touch him with the lash. He wasn’t worth the effort.

"You are spineless," Ashlyn said. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

She didn’t use the lash. She reversed the whip in her hand, holding the leather and exposing the heavy, wooden handle.

Thud.

She used the handle to slap his face. It was a dull, heavy blow that knocked him sideways. It wasn’t a punishment; it was an insult.

"Open your eyes," she commanded.

Carlos opened his eyes, clutching his bruised cheek, looking up at her in shock.

"Look at yourself," Ashlyn said, her voice filled with a profound, icy revulsion. "You are on your knees, begging your wife to sleep with another man so you can feel important. You are pathetic. You are not a man."

She looked at him as if he were something rotting on the floor.

"You disgust me," she whispered.

She threw the whip on the floor in front of him. It landed with a clatter. She turned her back on him. She walked toward the door.

"But don’t ever touch me again," she said over her shoulder. "We are partners in crime, Carlos. Nothing more. You have lost the right to be my husband."

She walked out of the room, leaving him kneeling on the floor with the whip, alone with his shame and his hollow victory. The door clicked shut, separating them forever.