Azael's Chains

Reckoning

"I--" Hermione licked parched lips and swallowed down the hyperventilation threatening to wheeze out of her.

"Are you going to kill me, Hermione?" His voice was smooth, interested, but otherwise unaffected.

That wasn't right. She was the one with the wand, the power.

She straightened her shoulders. "I can. I should."

A shake of his damp curls, a huff of amusement. "You won't, even if you could, my little lioness."

Though she colored with humiliation there was no sense in prevaricating. "But I am going to stun you."

He threw his head back, roaring out his amusement. When he leveled his eyes back at her, they still glimmered. "You'd be better off killing me, love. You know I won't let you go."

Her nails dug more deeply into her palm and she wondered that there was no blood dripping yet. "You won't have a choice."

"While I live, you are mine. And I do not relinquish what is mine, Hermione. If you leave me, I will hunt you down. I will not let you go."

"I know," she croaked. "But I will never stop running."

They were so still that she could hear the echoing spill of a drop of water that fell to make ripples in the bath. He'd once told her he needed a wand to read her mind, but Hermione felt transparent before the steel of his pale gaze. She knew she needed to act; why, then, could her limbs not move against him?

"Who gave you the wand?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"Was it the Malfoy boy?"

She snorted.

They lapsed into silence again, Antonin drumming a forefinger on the porcelain as he thought.

"Hm. Severus, then. He'd have the opportunity, but what of the motive?" He raised a brow at her, reading what he could in her flushed cheeks and fluttering lashes. "Well, I suppose he still isn't over his dead mudblood, whatever the Dark Lord might think."

"Do not use that word."

"Or what? You'll hex me?" His lips quirked. "Put your wand down, love." Antonin's expression softened to sorrowful affection she knew too well and he tried for reassurance.. "I knew you'd make a serious attempt eventually. I'm not angry, not even disappointed."

She shook her head. "No. No, this is happening, Antonin. You're not winning."

"My sweet girl, you need me."

"No!"

"You do. You'll need me more in the months to come." Antonin's voice had fallen low, a tender whisper across her flesh. "I'm only trying to take care of you, my love."

Why was this so hard? Why had she still not said the word? "Don't call me that."

"But I do love you, Hermione. I want to spend my life with you, have a family with you--"

"Stop it! Shut up, shut up, shut up. " Her wand hand was shaking with lactic acid build up, but she did not lower it, couldn't yet. "I hate you. I will never be your wife. I will never be yours. I hate you ."

Her resolve hardened, nostrils flared, and Antonin's pupils widened to engulf the silver of his eyes. At her last growled words he flung himself forward and decided her timing for her.

" Stupefy! " The spell shot from her wand with months of pent emotion feeding into it. It barrelled into his wide chest, red as blood, red as the Cruciatus , and he flew into the wall behind him with a sickening crunch, drywall cracking around him. "Fuck!"