Son of the Devil's Wench

There was only one answer, it was his fault, he was the reason, it was he that was at fault for everything.

Or so he thought.

The door to Lydia's room was ajar as Jared padded down the long dark stairs, and from the room spilled voices, voices that Jared recognized but never wanted to hear together; especially when Jared kept hearing his 'name' thrown into the mix. So hidden in the shadows of the stairs Jared crouched and listened to the conversation that seemed to revolve around him.

"How can you do this to your son Brother?" Lydia's rich sounding voice asked from the depths of the room. "How can you live on knowing that it's you that is hurting him so bad? And to not even name him, Brother, how can you be so cruel?"

"That..." His father sought a word in the flicking fire like of the room. "Whelp is not my son. He is the Bastard Son of a Wench." The words where spoken with a lot of venom, even for his father, Jared knew that his father Hated him with every fiber of his being. "Yes, he is Brother, he is the Bastard son of you and me, the Son of your incest, but he is still your son."

Jared felt his vision failing him, and there where large black voids swimming around his mind. All the information that his 'parents' had spoken in the last few moments where killing Jared, they where filtering into his brain and clogging it with words that he didn't want to hear, words that where killing Jared.

He was the son of his father, and his father's sister.

Jared was the product if an incestuous one night stand between brother and sister.

It was when the dull light of the room hit him in the face did Jared realize that Lydia had opened the door and found him listening. "You know," Lydia whispered. "You heard us didn't you my Son."

"NO!" Jared screamed and pushed past Lydia into the room, his mind shutting. "NO! I am not your son! I am the Son on the Devil and the Devil's Wench!" He had pointed them out as he screamed, his mind finally giving up.

"Why you Bastard!" Edward King yelled as he lashed out at his son, lashed out with the only thing that came to hand, the red hot poker from the fire place. Jared dropped to the ground, the pain too much to stay standing.

The metal landed with a sickening sizzling sound on the collar of Jared shirt, and left a angry mark as it puled away, taking skin and burnt fabric along with it. "You Son of a Whore!" Edward screamed as he beat Jared again and again with the poker, the red hot metal leaving more then bruises and pain behind. Red angry scars where blooming through Jared shirt as he writhed on the ground, writhed as he held his screaming in.

All the while Lydia the Devil's Wench stood and watched in silence as her brother and the father of her only child stood over her son and beat him. Watched as Edward, the love of her life beat her child with anything that came to hand, one of the black leather whips that normally hung on the wall, and finally the bowl of salt that Lydia used to keep demons away was poured over her little boy. And all the while she watched, tears streaking down her face as it all happened.