She dropped her gaze to the redwood floor. If she could just slip away into the numbness she sought so many times before, maybe it would hurt less when he raised a hand to her cheek or wrapped his massive fingers around her throat.
“Please. Procyon, please. It won’t happen again.” The pleas spilled from her like water from a fractured glass. She would do anything, say anything, to reason with him. To cool the kindling, furious death now standing before her. “I love you, Proc. Please. I love you.”
He laced his fingers through her hair and ripped her head back, exposing the delicate flesh of her neck. Tethys fought the pained cries building in her throat as he pulled harder. Straightening the tendrils of golden hair that fell down her back. White, hot pain erupted across her scalp with each inch he took.
“You will never disobey me again. Can’t you see, little bird? I’m doing this for you. For us. Don’t you feel it, Tethys?” Procyon whispered, pressing his nose to hers. Hisbreath was too warm on her cheeks as he spoke. His scent, too overwhelming as she suppressed a choking exhale. “You and I are just as Eos and Astraeus were.”
He’d taken all of her air. All of her space. They were a mere hair’s width apart and his grip on her hair trapped her from fleeing. Only would her words navigate the raging seas set out before her. Only her body would be weapon enough to lead a counter-attack. So, with white flags waving, she shielded herself behind the mask that’d become all too familiar.
“You’re right, husband. We are just as the lovers were. I am your Eos, just as you are my Astraeus. Let me go now, please. You’re hurting me,” she whispered, resting a shaking palm across the back of his hand entangled in her hair.
His back stiffened as their skin touched, but he said nothing. Nor did he jerk away as she brushed her other thumb across his cheek. Taming Procyon felt just as volatile as taming a raging bull. The shallow rise and fall of her chest, like that of a cornered animal, was the only indication of just how utterly terrified she was.
“You’re hurting me,” she repeated.
His grip wavered as she brushed her thumb across his cheek. She’d never initiated the physical contact between them before, but now, witnessing him soften beneath her touch like melting candle wax, she knew it was her greatest weapon.
Her ultimate defense.
She stowed away the surge of protests her body sent through her veins and placed her lips on his. They were shards of glass across exposed flesh, healer’s salve over an open wound. His kiss felt like death upon her.
He was dusk incarnate, come to steal life and warmth and leave only withering rot. Regardless, she forced her lips to part. Procyon was so tightly sewn into this delusion of fate, if she pulled away now, he might very well kill her.
His fingers dropped from her hair and fell down herback, pulling her bodice lacing with them.
She forced herself still when his thumb trailed down her bare spine.
She feigned a shudder when her gown fell from her body and pooled at her ankles.
She quieted her frantic thoughts and closed the distance between them once more.
† † †
Procyon dressed quickly afterward. Tethys, still and silent beneath furs and soft flannel sheets, watched with vacant eyes. She’d slipped away, staring at the stag tapestry, counting each point of its antlers over and over again.
“You will not leave this room. Until Harvest’s conclusion, you will stay here. For your own safety,” he said. She was his prized possession. A precious gem, stowed far from thieves or prying eyes.
“Let me go home, Proc. My people need me,” she whispered, clutching the furs. It was one last attempt, but she knew he’d already won.
Procyon scoffed and turned his back to her. “Your people haven’t ever needed you, little bird. In fact, they’re probably thriving without you. You’re a waste of immortality, and you always will be. Father should have thrown you from the cliff-side the moment your magic didn’t manifest. Fortunately for you, I have business here for a while so I’ll allow your return to Venia, but I wouldn’t expect a warm welcome. Your people would find a better monarch in a breeding hound.” Although his fury extinguished, his words sank their claws into her chest. “At least they’d have an heir.”
Before Tethys could muster the strength to find the shattered piece of herself holding a reply, Procyon disappeared through the doorway and clicked it shut.
The fire, roaring beneath the grand mountain stonemantle, burned cold. He was right. About all of it.
Venia deserved a queen that didn’t crumble at even the slightest provocation. They needed a ruler who stood her ground when a dagger pointed toward her throat. She recited the Canissaen verses without even the slightest of pushback. Treason aside, hearing those words spill from her lips was the worst of betrayals. Under his threats and blazing eyes, she crumbled into a version of herself she refused to recognize.
She spent her entire damned life battling for Venia’s respect. Venia’s kindness. But did she ever truly deserve it?
She missed her home, her fish in their glittering riverbed, her best friend. Jaide would think her despicable. She hadn’t even sent a messenger to alert the lady-in-waiting of her departure, and the way everything ended between them—she couldn’t bear it. She’d been so cruel, so selfish in her self-preservation.
Tethys begged her body to move, to crawl to the door and leave this place before the collapsing walls turned her to dust, but it refused. Let them break her bones and flatten her lungs.
She wanted to scream. To demand the world pay attention. To take up space when there wasn’t any left.Here I am, she would tell it.Here’s all I have. No longer would she bend and break for those around her. No longer would she let them tear her apart limb by limb.
But the world already took everything. There was nothing left to give. Battling for one measly step forward meant taking ten thousand steps back. Now, standing in place felt easier than pressing on.
Worthless. Pathetic. Weak.
