Rudra Tara - A Love Bound By Duty

1.B .PROLOGUE

As Tara turned to leave, Rudraksh lunged at her, gripping her arm with a desperate, almost frantic force. His eyes burned with a fierce mixture of rage and obsession.

"What is this vermillion doing in your hair's partition?" he demanded, his voice low and seething with anger.

Tara looked at him with a steely resolve, her face a mask of pain and defiance. "You married, so why can't I? This vermillion is a symbol of my marriage, and I belong to him now."

Rudraksh's face contorted with disbelief and fury. "What? How can you do this to me? How can you marry someone else?"

Tara's voice, though firm, was laced with sorrow. "You can marry, so why can't I? You've had your way, and now I'm having mine. I am happy with my decision. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds."

Her gaze was unyielding as she continued, her voice trembling with raw emotion. "Every part of me-my heart, my soul, my body-belongs to him now. You have no claim over me. You are nothing to me now. I need to go to my husband. It's our first night together."

"No! No!" Rudraksh's voice was a guttural roar, filled with a possessive rage. He seized her by the neck, pinning her roughly against the wall with one hand pressing tightly against her throat and the other gripping her waist.

His eyes were dark and feverish as he growled, "Your heart," his fingers pressing against her chest, "belongs to me. Your soul, it belongs to me. Every inch of your body is mine! I can't bear the thought of you with someone else. I'll kill him if that's what it takes to keep you with me. I can't live without you. This vermillion should only be marked by me!"

With a feral intensity, he dragged her toward the Shivling, where the vermillion for prayer lay. He grabbed a fistful of the red powder, his hands trembling with a twisted mixture of rage and obsession. Roughly, he smeared it over her head, his movements almost frantic.

"Now you are all mine," he hissed, his voice low and menacing, a dark promise in his tone. "And as for your husband-he won't see the dawn. I will make sure of it. He'll be dead by sunrise if that's what it takes for you to belong to me. Forever."

Tara's eyes, wide with terror and defiance, met his as he pulled her close, the weight of his possessive declaration sinking in. The sacred place, once a symbol of their love, was now a battlefield of obsessions, marking the end of their shared past and the beginning of a dark, twisted future.