"Don’t you have any normal clothing?"

They were walking down yet another luxuriously appointed corridor. Karchiss was attempting to remember the way they had travelled, all the rooms that they had passed, but the Duke’s mansion was enormous. He quietly shook his head.

"I suppose you like dressing as a woman, then? Or did he already ruin what you came in with?" She smiled viciously. It seemed to be the only type of expression she was capable of forming. "You know, ripped shirt, trousers stained with semen?"

"Excuse me, Fraulein, but I do not yet know your name-"

"You don’t know the Duke ’s name either." The woman looked as though she’d caught hold of a sudden idea. "Since you can only call him my Lord, it’s fitting you refer to me as my Lady."

So much for any hope of a normal conversation. He sighed.

"You know, I don’t find you particularly attractive, and I’m certain the Duke doesn’t either. He probably only chose you for the sake of novelty, seduced you just to see if he actually could. How disgustingly perverse." She shook her head. "Nevertheless, you’re his. That’s the only reason I want you, the only reason I’m going to touch you. Don’t delude yourself about love, or desire, or anything like that. You are nothing more than a tool that I will use against him."

She suddenly stopped walking. "How many women have you been with?," she asked, as though it was the most usual question in the world.

Karchiss stared at her for a moment. "None, my lady."

"Then you really are a child." The fraulein leaned against the nearest door and pushed it open. "And how many men?"

Karchiss considered his answer carefully. He wasn’t fond of lying, but under the circumstances, a few undetectable lies might give him a certain advantage. "Properly speaking? None, my lady."

That set off an uncontrollable burst of laughter. "You should be grateful to me for interrupting you when I did, then. It seems I’ve preserved your virginity just long enough to deprive him of the pleasure." She arched an eyebrow. "Were you really going to allow him to-?"

"To do what, my lady?"

"You mean you don’t know how it’s done?" Karchiss shook his head. Apparently the woman found his feigned innocence endearing. She quietly took his hand. "Think carefully. There’s only one place for it to go."

His face twisted up in confusion before finally frowning slightly. "You don’t mean-?"

"Yes. Exactly. Think how distasteful it must be to be struck through there, like a woman."

Ah, yes. Distasteful. That was exactly what he had felt. Distaste.

He took a glance around the room. It looked very much like the Duke's, furnished with the same fine hangings and furniture, only with feminine trinkets scattered all about. He was observing these in greater detail when he felt smooth hands begin to unfasten his dress. Karchiss instinctively drew away.

"No." He shook his head. "I love Yufina. I won’t betray her."

"Isn’t it a bit late for that sort of sentiment? You weren’t nearly so squeamish with the Duke-”

Lord Venomania paused, his loosely curled fingers hovering tentatively a few inches away from the door. Going there may have been a grave mistake, but he couldn't very well sit back and do nothing. There was no other way to approach this.

He rapped firmly at the door. "Are you awake, little dove?"

There was a shuffling sound from within the chamber, heavy, like slow uncertain footsteps on the floor.

He knocked again. "Yufina, my darling, please come to me. It's important."

The door opened. The lady greeted him with a yawn. "Lord Duke," she murmured, looking confused. "I'm sorry, I didn't think it was yet my turn-"

"If it was only that, I wouldn't have bothered to wake you."

Yufina smiled and stumbled drowsily against him. Venomania put his arms around her. "I came to talk to you about Karchiss." The Duke's lips brushed against her forehead. "Let's go inside." She nodded softly as he closed the door behind them.

"It's an odd time for you to be asking about that," she whispered, without stepping away from his embrace. Yufina trusted him with the kind of innocent affection completely wasted on her father, which was why what he'd come there to say was so earnestly painful.

"Karchiss never left this place," he whispered, "and now I've unwittingly put him in danger."

"Danger?" She instantly seemed to shake off her drowsy stupor. Yufina lifted her face to him, frowning. "What sort of danger?"

Venomania sighed. "I told him that, before I allowed him to see you and possibly take you away, he must be able to care for you properly, as he had never been able to back in the village-"

Unexpectedly, she laughed. "In other words, you seduced him."

The Duke stared at her, dumbfounded. This wasn't exactly the reaction he had expected. "How did you-?"

"My Lord, you're thoroughly compulsive. You complain about this woman and that, how there are too many of us, how exhausted you are with the whole situation, and yet you never turn anyone away-"

"I turned someone away tonight," he responded. "She did not take it especially well."

"Why?"

His shoulders sank. "Because I wanted to be with him." Yufina kissed him reassuringly. "She was waiting outside. She saw us, threatened to tell you about the whole situation, and Karchiss went with her, because he didn't want to break your heart, not again." Venomania met her eyes. "You are the woman he loves. He came here fully prepared to kill me, all for your sake, because he thought you were being held against your will. Please, you must come with me. Her threats mean nothing if you already know. She will have no power over him."

"You are trying to protect a man who attempted to kill you."

"Yufina," he answered, desperately, "I have no love of violence. A man cannot return hatred for hatred and be anything more than a beast. Please, I will plead with you on my hands and knees if it will convince you. I care for him as I care for you, and I would eagerly sacrifice my pride if that would keep either of you safe-"

He fell to his knees before her, and Yufina sighed, reaching out her hand.

"My Lord Duke, you know you are quite hopeless."

"That was an entirely different situation, my Lady."

The woman's suffocating eyes watched him closely, utterly bemused by Karchiss's answer. "How so? Is it because the Duke is also a man? Or were you so aggrieved by Yufina's refusal you fell into the first embrace that would receive you?" She made an overly dramatic impression of fainting and laughed.

He blushed, as much from anger as from anything else, impatient with her carelessly incessant teasing.

"Forgive my impudence, Lady-" the last word oozed with sarcasm "-but I find many things to admire in him and absolutely nothing admirable in you."

There was a dangerous silence for a moment. The woman laughed softly, stepping away from him, then suddenly her hand made unbelievably firm contact with the side of his face. He pressed one hand to his ringing ear. It stung terribly.

"The Duke would never do as you have done. He would never threaten anyone into submission, nor would he ever lay a hurtful hand on anyone, not the man who came here to kill him, not even you, although he could have overpowered you easily." Karchiss hesitated, expecting a second blow which, oddly enough, didn’t come. "You two are nothing alike," he murmured softly, looking away.

"In other words, you despise me." She pressed her body close against him. "The Duke despises me as well, and yet he has never refused me. Not until tonight."

The woman’s hand crept up his thigh. He felt strangely claustrophobic, overwhelmed by luxuriant softness and erotic perfume. Karchiss shoved her away. Only then was he beginning to realize how truly powerless he was against her.

"After all you’ve done, the Duke will never touch you again."

"And when she learns of your shame, do you expect Yufina will ever do the same for you?" She placed her arms around him, undismayed. "Let us bear our stigma together."

His stigma. The insult of having succumbed to a man to whom he might very well be as disposable as Crim was to her. During the time they’d spent wandering the hallways, he'd had faith that Venomania would finally come to him, but Karchiss was slipping further and further away into the abyss of his own despair. Where was the Duke? Sitting there where he had left him?

Karchiss had never felt so alone.

"The Duke has abandoned us both," the woman whispered suggestively, sensing his vulnerable mood. "Yufina is his favorite. Not me. Not you. Neither of them would ever choose anyone else. You are a fool for thinking it could be otherwise. Even at this moment, he has probably sought out her unquestioning embrace-"

"The Duke would never do that," Karchiss whispered.

The back of her hand stroked tentatively at his burning cheek. "Poor child. You understand nothing of the ways of men."

It's an ugly emotion, jealously, turning honest men to liars-

Her body pressed him closer. Her mouth-

Karchiss suddenly shook himself free. "I may be naive, Lady, but I do know one thing. Your jealousy makes each and every word that falls from your lips a perpetual lie."

She smiled, slowly lifting his skirts, and without any hint of warning, delivered a sharp swift kick straight to his groin. He doubled over in pain.

"That is quite enough," a sudden voice called from the threshold. Both of them looked towards it, she with a terrible grin, he with a face contorted in anguish.

"And if I do not agree, my dear Lord Duke, how do you propose to stop me?"

A shadow materialized out from behind Venomania's back and calmly stood beside him. "Ah, Yufina. Just the person I wanted to see." The woman took a step towards them.

"Don't bother," Yufina scolded. "The Duke has already told me." She glanced at where Karchiss stood, hunched over, nearly crying, and seemed to consider her next course of action. Without another word, Yufina walked towards the woman and unflinchingly grabbed at her hair.

"What are you-" She yanked at it with far more force than Karchiss would've ever deemed possible, and the woman cried out in agony.

"The Duke may be opposed to laying hands on you, but I myself have no such reservations." She jerked at it again.

"Why, you little slut-"

Yufina dodged her clawing nails and dragged her towards the door, while the Duke hurried past them.

"Karchiss, are you okay?" He glanced down in concern, and Crim somehow managed a tremulous smile.

"I may yet survive." The Duke embraced him, sighing, as the woman unleashed more imprecations.

"You are no longer welcome here," Venomania called back to her. "Get out."

"But all of my things-"

"You came here with the clothes on your back, nothing more. You will leave here with the same."

"That's not-" Yufina began to drag her down the hall, screaming like a wounded animal.

"Shouldn't you go and help her?" Karchiss clutched at Venomania’s arm, and the Duke pulled him over across his shoulder.

He smiled. "The fraulein will wake the entire mansion with that noise, and between the two of them, who do you think everyone’s going to come to the aid of?" Venomania shook his head. "That woman is truly vile."

"Jealousy does strange things to people, as you said." Karchiss paused. "Thank you," he whispered, almost inaudibly.

The Duke laughed. "What kind of man would I be to ignore a lady's distress?"

The woman’s gratuitous screeching echoed loudly throughout the corridors. It hurt to laugh, but the irony was unignorable. To be beside the Duke, laughing together, was worth far more than any imaginable pain.