Chapter 21:Bacchus' Bane: The Night of Regret

Content Warning: This chapter contains graphic depictions of sexual assault, violence, and disturbing themes. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

James paced the corridors of Shaw Manor, a maelstrom of rage and humiliation roiling beneath his breastbone. The scorching indignity of his father's fury still burned like white-hot coals, searing his pride in a way that verged on the existential. He was the heir apparent, goddammit—groomed from birth to assume the mantle of unrivalled supremacy that his lineage represented. Yet in one singularly brutal dressing-down, his motives and judgment had been called into withering disrepute.

As the raw edges of the trauma inflicted by that searing dressing-down calcified into a cold, hardened kernel of resentment, James strode over to the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a tumbler of smoky scotch and drained it in one caustic swallow, savouring the lingering burn as it seared his throat.

Time held no meaning as he continued drinking, his mind awash with a volatile mix of anger, humiliation, and lingering desires left unsated. The image of Sarah in her riding clothes, carefree and vibrant, contrasted starkly with the sobering realities currently weighing upon him—a constant, maddening reminder of the disrespect her father had shown by dismissing James's intentions so publicly.

Eventually, whiskey bottle in hand, James began stumbling unsteadily through the corridors, staggering towards his chambers with the intent of sleeping off his drunken haze. The usually impeccable heir was dishevelled, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated as the alcohol took its merciless toll.

Waves of disorienting vertigo washed over him as the world tilted and swayed in a sickening blur. The plush carpet beneath his feet heaved like a treacherous sea, threatening to pull him under with each unsteady step. Blinking heavily, he tried and failed to bring his surroundings into focus—the familiar lines and edges of the manor's decor bled together into an indistinct smear, ornate wallpapers crawling and undulating before his whiskey-blurred vision.

A low, mocking chuckle reverberated in James' ears, seeming to emanate from the very walls themselves. He whipped his head around, attempting to locate the source of the sound, only to be met with the distorted funhouse mirror reflections of himself in the antique hall mirrors.

"Look at you," the apparition jeered its voice a warped echo of his own slurred tones. "The once-proud heir, laid low by drink and pettiness."

James snarled, lashing out at the mocking spectre, but his flailing limbs met only empty air. The chuckle returned, layering upon itself in a kaleidoscope of scorn.

As he careened down the corridor, shouldering off doorframes and bouncing from wall to wall, dreamlike visions began to materialize in the amber-tinged haze clouding his senses.

One vision danced at the edges of his whiskey-soaked psyche – a fleeting image of Victor Mallory, brow furrowed in rueful contemplation as he beheld the spectacle of James' dissolution.

The enigmatic figure shook his head slowly, as if in sorrowful acceptance of some unspoken cosmic truth. Then, he was gone, fading like a spectre on the morning mist as James' mind slipped into blessed insensibility.

James recoiled, shrinking from the scathing rebuke, only to collide with another apparition—a hulking, shadowed thing with glinting fangs and soulless pits for eyes.

"The beast stirs..." it rumbled in a guttural rasp, its form shifting and contorting into the visage of Jonathan Whitmore. "But even beasts know to cower before their masters..."

Shuddering, James pivoted and attempted to flee, only to find his path blocked by a mass of gnarled, clutching branches that erupted from the floorboards like grasping talons. They twisted and constricted around his limbs with binding strength, anchoring him in place.

"Let me go!" he howled, thrashing in impotent fury. "I am James Shaw, heir to an inviolable legacy! I won't be subjected to such debasement!"

But the hallucination held him fast, immobilizing him until all he could do was sag in defeat, the illusory drink continuing to taunt and jeer from every shadowed recess. 

Trigger Warning: Graphic Depictions of Sexual Assault

After feeling that he could move, he ran and ran, until he found his fiance…

There was Sarah, resplendent in her riding clothes, lips curved in a teasing smile as she beckoned him closer. 

Stumbling towards her," Sarah..." he slurred, the alcohol thickening his tongue. "Why didn't you support me? We're intended, damn it. When your father disrespected me in front of everyone, you just stood there!"

The vision of Sarah recoiled as James angrily hurled the bottle to the side, shattering it against the wall. Her eyes widened in terror at his outburst.

"We've had this arrangement for a long time. Our families, our legacies, all intertwined," he ranted, gesturing wildly with one hand while the other gripped an imaginary glass. "Yet when I tried to take control of our future, you let your father shut me down like some mewling child!"

His words tumbled out in a torrent of bitterness and self-pity, fueled by the alcohol coursing through his veins and the lingering sting of wounded pride.

"In all this time, you've never truly let me in," he slurred, reaching out to grasp her hands. Sarah tried to pull away, but his grip was unyielding. "Am I not good enough for you? Why are you so disgusted by me?"

Sarah's apparition looked at him with a mixture of fear and pity, unable to respond or escape his delusional tirade.

With a growl of primal desire, James yanked Sarah forcefully against his body, powerful arms wrapped around her waist in an unbreakable embrace. She gasped, screamed, and twisted in his grasp, but he held her firmly in place with brute strength.

"You're mine, whether you like it or not, whether Jonathan agrees or not," he growled, grey eyes burning with unrestrained lust.

Before she could protest, James seized her wrist and brought it to his lips, hungrily trailing openmouthed kisses up her arm. Sarah whimpered, her free hand clawing uselessly at his iron grip.

When his lips found her neck, she cried out, back arching, as tears streamed down her reddened cheeks. He sucked at her flesh, nipping with his teeth, unmoved by her anguished sobs.

Suddenly, James gripped her face between his calloused palms, forcing her to meet his ravenous stare. Sarah inhaled sharply, but before she could turn away, his mouth crushed against hers in a bruising, searing kiss. A trembling whimper tumbled from her lips into his as his demanding tongue invaded, taking what he perceived as his due. Crimson bloomed across their joined mouths—the coppery tang of blood mingling with the whiskey on his questing tongue as he bit deep.

His hands, stained with her tears, left smeared prints across her porcelain skin as he dragged her, stumbling, towards the sanctity of his chambers—her muffled cries for help and desperate pleading ringing in the empty corridor.

The anguished cries sliced through the estate's bustling quiet like a banshee's wail. In the kitchens, Thomas's head whipped up at the familiar sound, utensils clattering from his gnarled hands. Beneath the harsh clang of metal, a young woman's desperate screams echoed...achingly familiar.

Down the corridor, Henry froze mid-polish, rag and cloth tumbling from his grip. "Sophie..." he breathed, face draining of colour. Her name fell like a leaden weight from his lips, dread coiling in the pit of his stomach. His sweet girl, his pride and joy—there could be no mistaking the desperate, gut-wrenching cries torn from her very soul.

"Sophie!" A father's anguished bellow ripped from Henry's throat as he raced down the hall, propelled by a desperate urgency that overshadowed all reason or restraint. Each ragged sob lancing his heart like a jagged shard of ice drove him onward.

Henry, face twisted in anguish, slammed his fist uselessly against the unyielding oak door. "Sophie! Sophie, answer me!" His pleas were met only with the faint, pained sounds of his daughter's sobs from within, lancing his heart with each broken cry.

Hot tears of helpless rage stung his eyes as Sophie's cries grew softer, more distant—as if retreating from some horrific, inescapable reality.

"It's no use," Thomas said, reaching out a staying hand. "That bastard's locked it from the inside." He fixed Henry with a haunted look, eyes reflecting past traumas. "I warned you about bringing her here, didn't I? That man is a beast, a monster. He already took advantage of my own daughter, making false promises before casting her aside like refuse when he grew bored."

Henry's face drained of colour as the Thomas implication sank in, a sickening realization creeping over him, his sweet Sophie, his precious little girl...violated by that monster's depraved urges. A rage more potent than any he'd known blazed through his veins...scorching away all reason and restraint.

"Then we find someone who can put a stop to this madness," Henry growled through gritted teeth, hands clenching into white-knuckled fists" Lady Evelyn must intervene."

The two men raced with grim purpose toward the drawing room where Lady Evelyn was. They burst in dishevelled and breathless, alarming Lady Evelyn.

"Please, my lady!"Henry implored, desperation cracking his voice. "Your son, he has...grievously wronged an innocent maid in your absence. I beg you, intercede before there is further violence!"

Evelyn's face faltered into something approaching shock—tendrils of unease slithered up her spine as she was about to agree to help. Yet fragmented memories from the evening resurfaced, unwanted recollections of her husband beating her child, her son's arrogance and pride crumbling for the first time under his father's brutal hand.

"My son bears grievous humiliation today," she said at last, jaw tightening. "If bringing a maid to his bed helps soothe him, I consider it the girl's great honour to provide such service to the Shaw name."

A ringing silence fell, the drawing room's air stilling beneath the callous cruelty of her words. Desperately, Thomas tried again, horror and revulsion written stark across his weathered features.

"But my lady, this poor girl is just a child herself! Surely you can see the injustice, the depravity of—"

"I shall hear no more of this revolting discourse!" Evelyn's shrill voice cracked like a whip, freezing them in place. She gestured dismissively, perfectly manicured nails flashing like talons. "The maid's family will be compensated for her...services, as befits our standing. But make no mistake—their honour should be complete in her aiding my son's recovery." Her eyes bored into them, filled with an obsessive fervour that brooked no further argument.

With that, she turned away, effectively ending the ashen-faced audience. The two men stood dumbstruck for a moment, pleas for mercy and common human decency dying on their lips like cloyed ashes.

Finally, shoulders slumping in impotent defeat, they turned away. Only for another ragged gasp of anguish-Sophie cry—to spur Henry back into furious motion.

"I'll put an end to that bastard's foul appetites, no matter the cost!" he snarled, seizing a cast-iron poker from the hearth and charging toward the awful sounds, consumed by a father's wrath.

But Thomas made no move to stop him, simply following grimly as Henry reached the ornately carved door. Sophie's fading cries are like knives in his heart. Muscles tensed, he prepared to bring the iron bar crashing down upon the gate as Thomas arrived, retrieving a heavy cloth from the kitchen.

The corridor was deathly silent now, the only sound the ragged breaths of Henry and Thomas as they steeled themselves for what lay ahead, they pushed inside…

And recoiled in unmasked horror.

Sophie—or what remained of her—lay crumpled and motionless. Tattered remnants of clothing clung to her huddled form, livid bruises already darkening across what little exposed skin they could see. A faint, pained wheezing was the only indication she still lived.

They stared at the monster before them. James slept like the dead, a grotesque mockery of innocence with the nail markings crisscrossing his back—a grim testament to the savagery he had inflicted.

Bile rose in Henry's throat as his eyes travelled to the crumpled cloth shielding Sophie's battered body from view. He could scarcely fathom the depravity, the utter disregard for human dignity that could drive a man to such actions. His own daughter's horrific ordeal played out again behind his eyes, the memory searing his soul anew.

For a fleeting moment, the heavy poker gripped in his hand took on a darker purpose. One swing would be all it took to make this depraved son of privilege pay, to avenge every innocent trampled in his mindless pursuit of pleasure. Henry's knuckles went white as he fought the rising tide of his anger.

But instantly, Thomas was there, aged hands trembling but staying the fatal arc pulling him back from the brink."Not like this..." Thomas rasped, gentling his hold but refusing to release Henry's arm. "You cannot sacrifice yourself or your family in blind retribution. It will only dishonour Sophie's suffering further."

Henry opened his mouth as if to protest, drained gaze flicking once more to the scores marring James's back. But Thomas pressed on urgently.

"You must be the balm that sees her through this bleak tiding, not another weight upon her shattered spirit." His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. "Do not lose her as I lost my Abigail to the same darkness. Be the light she so desperately needs right now."

For a suspended beat, the weight of Thomas's words seemed to pierce Henry's anguished haze. His shoulders slumped infinitesimally, the fight leeching from his frame as pragmatism overrode searing impulse.

Composing himself, Henry knelt and gently drew back the heavy cloth Thomas brought, careful not to disturb the Sophie Fragile form any further. Her face was a mosaic of blossoming bruises, eyes swollen and distant as her mind retreated from conscious torment. He bit his lip until he tasted copper, viciously quashing the fresh wave of rage that threatened to overwhelm him.

With infinite care, he gathered her shivering body into his arms, cradling her like a child as he rose. He would see her to the estate's medic first, providing what meagre solace he could until more permanent arrangements were made for her care and safety. Casting one last glance of purest loathing at James' insensate form, the servant turned and carried his fragile burden from that wretched place.

Only Thomas remained a cyclone of anguish and simmering resolve twisting his weathered features. The poker seemed to take on a twisted purpose in his gnarled grip, its crude weight calling to an older, more brutal form of justice.

His gaze travelled from the tattered remnants of Sophie's ruination to the scourged furrows crisscrossing James's back. For long moments, he stared between the battered innocent and her depraved tormenter, The thirst for vengeance roared through him, visceral and all-consuming as her daughter Abigail's face came into view. He imagined the dull, meaty thud of the iron impacting flesh and bone...removing this depraved Stain from the world, one vicious swing at a time. It would be over in blessed seconds.

But he couldn't, wouldn't stoop to that level. Not yet.

Jaw setting in a rictus of bitter resignation, Thomas spat directly onto James's tarnished form before turning away. No consequences would be ruinous enough to let this evil go unanswered any longer.

His steps were leaden but resolute as he followed the path of Henry's retreat, setting his shoulders to bear the weight of what was to come. A reckoning like no other loomed...and lord help any soul, highborn or common, who dared stand in its path.