All the blood drained from Sophia's face and for a moment her head spun. Her vision started to turn black at the edges and she squeezed her eyes shut to prevent herself from collapsing. . Blake grasped her arm to prevent her from falling when she swooned.

Her father was here. Her father was here.

Why was her father here?

Her heart pounded furiously against her chest, so fast that it seemed to crack her ribs. She was afraid it would burst through her chest any moment. Breath didn't reach her lungs and she started to hyperventilate, as she gasped for air.

After all she had done to not bring this union to his notice. After all she had done.

"F... father. What are you doing here?" Slowly her head turned to his fellow companions. Her head cocked to the side and faint recognition sputtered din her eyes. "Darius?"

He smiled slyly in response.

She shook her head, confused. "Father, that is the meaning of this atrocity? Do you mean to stop this marriage, for that is the only reason you can be here? But why are they here? Why do they have to witness this show of power?" Sophia blubbered.

Eyeing the man besides Darrius who cut an imposing presence and was look at her with flint like eyes, she demanded, "Who is other man with Dar..." her words ailed off as a woman was pushed in front of them by Darius, her blonde curls flying everywhere.

Colette.

"She'll give you all the answers."

"You monster," she raged at the three men as Colette peered up at her with frightened eyes. She looked worse for the wear, with tear streaked cheeks and deep circles formed beneath his eyelids. Sophia wanted to rush towards her, but Blake restrained her and pulled her back. He was suprisingly silent. Assessing the situation perhaps.

No, his grip seemed to say. Don't.

She threw fire out of her eyes at him.

"She is my sister." She hissed.

Sophia lurched out of his fingers surprisingly strong and rushed towards Colette who was slightly shifting side to side and looking on the verge of fainting. Sophia pulled Colette into an embrace and whispered, "Are you ok? What did they do to you? I am so sorry for dragging you into this. Did they hurt you to know where I was? Did Father hurt you? What do they want? To stop the marriage, yes?"

Colette looked up at her with a broken spirit and deadened eyes at the onslaught of questions. Sophia took this time to press her fingers all over Colette face, searching for injuries. But Colette did not bother to respond.

Blake finally spoke up and took her position of inquiry instead. "My lord, Conway. What is the meaning of this?"

Conway's face split into a wide sneer. "I am here to get my daughter back. If you haven't noticed, you stole her from me and decided to elope with her without my permission. Who do you think you are to do so?"

Blake's eyes widened. Why would Conway care what happened to his daughter? He hadn't before. Something didn't sit right with Blake and with judging the malicious glint in Conway's eyes, he suspected something else was abrew.

Blake shoot back, "I had to send about seventeen proposals to you before you even read one to accept my hand in marriage for Colette. What makes you think I would believe that you cared a damn for you daughter and the reason you are here is for her. Why don't we stop these games, my lord, and you can tell me why you are really here."

Anger slowly started to boil his veins the more and more he stared at Conway. The slowest inkling of fear started to curl inside him as well. Not for him, but for Sophia. Conway looked positively dangerous. He had the look of a man about to kill.

He could hear the Scottish witnesses to his marriage whimpering behind him, whispering and huddling together at the sudden intrusion and danger that lurked in every corner.

"She is my property, you son of a-"Conway blathered before the man besides him shushed him.

"Quiet. We are in the presence of God."

"God be damned," Conway spit. "He never helped me, even my father nearly killed me with his beatings. He can go to hell." Everyone in the room let out an audible gasp.

"Sir, what is the matter? Why are you here?" Blake tried to reason again in a calm tone, trying to discern the motives of this man. He truly wished to punch him and extract the information, but he didn't like the way his associates, especially the one Sophia had named Darius was looking at him.

"Give me my daughter back. That's why I am here."

"No."

"Then, I challenge you to a duel to work this out. Like men, if you want to do this the hard way.

Sophia suddenly bolted up and whipped towards him. "No, Blake. Don't accept. It's illegal."

"I won't," he reassured her and turned back towards Conway.

"I deny your proposal," Blake shot back, his fingers curling. "Now leave. You have your answer for what you came here for to get."

Conway pulled out a gun and cocked it at him. "Well then, we'll have to do this the hard way, won't we?" Blake froze as the pistol's aim centered on his chest. The witnesses behind him and Tom all let out an audible gasp.

Sophia screamed. "No!." She put her between the gun and Blake. "Father, this is insane. Don't do this. Blake has done nothing. It's just marriage, not something like murder! Why do you want to kill him?"

"He has ruined everything," the man beside her father murmured and Darius grunted his approval.

"And he stole my property. You," her father reiterated, but Sophia only honed on what the other man said, which seemed more like the reason than the nonsense her father was spouting. Suddenly her cares about her and her future? Not a chance!

"What? What has he ruined. Tell me!" Sophia cried, her chest heaving in panic. Suddenly, a sharp tug came at her from the side and she stumbled. It was Colette.

"What are you doing," she hissed, as she tried to peel of Colette's fingers from her arm. They dug in deeper and Sophia winced. "Stop it."

"Let them kill him. That's all they want. They'll let you go. They have their reasons. Drop it." Colette's voice was heavy and tired, her eyes fluttering as she tried to reason with Sophia.

Sophia stumbled away from Colette in shock. "Wha...What?"

What was Colette doing? Why was she saying this?

"Listen to your sister, Sophia," Conway cried out, his lips pulling into a sneer. "After all, she is the one who helped us get you two together, forced you to elope and helped us plan this.. confrontation after all. Don't question us. She knows what we want and won't stand in the way of it. Or they will be consequences. I suggest you do the same."

Sophia clutched at her stomach as betrayal pierced through her veins. "Co—Colette why." She gasped loudly and for the briefest of second her heart seemed to stop.

Colette stepped towards her but Sophia staggered back "No, no stay away."

"Pleas understand, Sophia. It was an old grudge. Some... agreement that got messed up because of Blake. They want revenge and forced me to help them," Colette started to blubber.

"How. Could. You. Do. This. To. Me" Sophia gasped, her breath coming out as shapr gasps. She could hear Blake also breathing heavily in shock.

"At least tell me their agreement. What it was about. How Blake played a part. Make me understand why you would do this. Try to," Sophia pleaded, tears streaking down her cheek.

Colette tried to do so with her hands open but Sophia continued to lurch away from her. "Explain without coming near me because I do not think I can stomach the touch of someone who delivered my love to the hands of a murderer."

"Sophia, they threatened to kill Jeanne and Jeffrey. I had no choice. It was you or them, and I chose them. Their life over Blake's."

"You always had a choice. I could have helped you. I could offer you a way out. Instead you chose to be the scared little girl you have always been and take the easy way out. You thought I couldn't be trusted that you were being blackmailed? That I wouldn't have helped?" Sophia started to shriek.

"Sophia. No. It's not that, I promise."

"Get away from me, "Sophia spit out, pure revulsion filling her eyes. But more than revulsion, disappointment. Hurt. Pain.

"I didn't have a choice," Colette pleaded.

"You did. And you chose the one where one sibling was pitted against another. We could have walked out from this, sought shelter and protection elsewhere. Instead you have led Blake to his death. For these men, full with revulsion to their bottomless souls, have hearts of murderers."

She could faintly hear Darius or one of the men agreeing under their breath as they watched the betrayal unfold. She could also hear Blake swallowing his sobs loudly, at both being betrayed by someone he considered a friend and for her. His pain was her pain and vice versa.

Perhaps that was what her father aimed for after all. To cause the maximum pain possible until they broke.
"Do be quiet now, my lady," Darius finally cut in when he had heard enough and Sophia gritted her teeth. She turned towards her father then. "I don't know what vendetta you have against my to-be husband and why you are disguising this as being mad at him for an elopement. But stop. This is murder. You don't have to do this."

Conway twisted his head to the side. "Yes, I do. You know nothing. What he cost me."

The gun was still pointing towards Blake' chest. He slowly started to move forward, holding his hands up in surrender but the man next to Darius, who Sophia finally assumed to be his father as the likeness slowly started to unfurl.

"Stop there, young man." Darius's father spit out.

"All right. But my lord, can we please discuss this rationally. Whatever I have done, I will repay it. No need to resort to violence." He sounded like a man trying to calm down a child. Reassuring.

The whole hall grew deathly still for a moment. Then before Sophia could blink or take the next breath, Darius grabbed the gun from Conway's' hand, cocked it and shot it right ate Blake's heart, screaming. "He cost me my dukedom!"

Hell broke loose I n place where heaven was to be celebrated.

No one saw that coming. Even Darius' s associates had various expressions of surprise on their face. Sophia didn't expect that either. For a whole second, she believed Blake could talk her father down. That that shot would never be fired.

What a fool she was.

The next second, Blake groaned as the bullet sunk into his flesh and red bloomed across his white shirt, like an unfurling flower. For a few seconds, he remained standing, just looking at the wound and then collapsed.

A scream pierced out from Sophia's lungs and she sprinted towards Blake. "No, no, no. No!" Hysteria was her best friend and Sophia couldn't keep her emotions at bay. She pressed both of her hands to the gaping wound. Blood spurted out and soon a large portion of his shirt was drenched in blood.

The blood slowly pooled out on the floor and stained her beautiful gown a deep red. The white anf gold was now marred with blood, purity chastened with violence. She frantically tried to tear her skirts to tie the wound, as she supposed so should do till she got help.

She didn't know what to do. He was the one who knew basic medical care, not here! His mother had been a nurse and taught him medical care, not hers!

She wasn't a doctor, and he needed one now.

Looking at Tom staring at her with bewilderment and shock, she yelped "Get some help. Go!" Before anyone else in the room could react, he nodded sharply and slipped out the door. The marriage witnesses looked too shell-shocked to do anything except stare. One of them had even fainted.

She could hear her father's cries in the background. "You fool. It wasn't time yet. We had to make it natural. You fool, you said the real reason. You have ruined everything."

"He's dead now anyway, so doesn't matter anyway. Anyway, Colette would have told Sophia."

"And only told her! Now four more people know. They could testify against us and we don't have leverage against them to prevent them from speaking up, as we do with Sophia." A sharp smack echoed from across the room after the statement, but Sophia shut it out. She had to.

Blake. She had to focus on Blake.

His eyes had rolled back into his head. "Sophia. Sophia." He croaked out and his arms around limply She grasped one of her hands in his, the blood squelching between her fingers.

"I am here. I am here. Stay with me. Help is coming." Her skirts were full of red ink, staining it deep.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she was being pulled up and dragged away from Blake. "No," she hollered, her eyes wild and feral. "No."

But the strength that her forearms was being held with was too much and struggle was futile. But she did not give up. "Let me go! Haven't you done enough! Let me be with him! Let me go!"

She tried to punch, kick and hit, to get back to Blake but it was useless. With every passing second, she and Blake were farther apart, and even in his last moments, she could not be with him. Her heart died as well. As she crossed Colette who just stood next to a pew, all blood drained from her face. Colette glanced up. "I am so sorry."

That undid it; Sophia for a few seconds was able to push out of the man, Darius, that held her, rage pumping through her body. She leaped towards Colette, her claws outstretched. Colette shut her eyes for the scratches to come. It didn't.

But as much as she wanted to tear her sister into shreds ta the very moment, all Sophia could do was grasp her shoulders and wail loudly. "You could have stopped this."

"Why, Collette? Why didn't you?"

The next second, she has yanked back again and Colette followed her, with eyes downcast and her chest wracking with sobs. "I did to protect them. I did. I did. I did. I promise. I did it to protect Jeanne. Jeffrey. I did it to protect them.

The church bells rang. Where it was supposed to be holy, a place God had blessed was streaked with an act of sin. Blood flowed down its halls and splattered its walls.

"Please, Darius. You got what you wanted. Petty revenge, though I still don't understand the cause for it. Please let me at least be with him as he leaves this world. Please," Sophia begged, sobbing uncontrollably.

"No. He deserves to suffer, he deserves to die alone."

"Why?"

He pushed her forward while whispering the cause and plan hatched because of it to her. Sophia just grew greyer.

"Was killing him the only option." She murmured as she twisted her head to take a look at Blake one last time. Darius' frame was too large to do so.

"I said, that's what he deserved," he cried and he pushed her forwards like a prisoner.

'Keep your lewd hands off of me," she bit out.

When Darius prodded her again like cattle she stumbled and she fell and landed on the floor that was now drenched with blood from her dress that trailed on it. Her hands came away red and she shuddered.

Blake.

He would die from that wound and she would never say goodbye.

"Please, please let me seen him," she pleaded one last time, to everyone that had conspired this but it was futile. She tried to run again but was ensnared in Darius' grasp again.

Sophia thought heartbreak was horrible before, but nothing could talk about the feelings thundering through her now. She felt as if her soul had been ripped for her body and she watched as it slowly perished, inch by inch.

Misery engulfed her and she sobbed. "Please. Please." She didn't know who she was asking. And a few minutes later she passed out as sadness engulfed in their folds and she could take no more.

A/N: Oopsies. I might have killed Blake. Or have I? You won't know till next week.

*evil laugh*

Comment your thoughts!

Please don't kill me XD

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