Chapter Text
She was old enough to be a bride. She should have been a bride. But it was not the will of the gods that she married her betrothed under yellow canopies, with flowers in their hair, drinking from the same cup in the sight of all the men of the city.
It was their will that she sit here, in the grand hall of her father’s palace, women and children huddled together in fear. The gates were shut tight against the enemy, but they would not hold forever. And then- and then-
Her mother’s women dragged the chairs forward, smashing delicately inlaid arms under their feet.
“More,” demanded the Queen. “More!”
Lamps broke as the women smashed them onto the pyre, olive oil spilling.
Melitta squeezed her eyes closed, and swayed just a little, as her mother’s voice rose higher and higher, demanding more still. More wood, more oil. Melitta was so tired.
“Daughter.”
She opened her eyes and met her mother’s fiery gaze. The Queen was still a true beauty, the way a fire in the dead of winter was. She made men long to be close to her, and yet flinch back in fear. Her hair was still the same darkest red it had been in her youth, almost black, until the light caught it. But her eyes were what made her so strange. If pressed to name their colour, a man would call them black. But they burned like embers in her face, smouldering with gold and red.
But her hands were ordinary hands. Oh, they were the soft, well kept hands of a royal woman, with long fingers and broad palms. But they were just that. The hands of a woman, not the hands of a goddess.
Those ordinary, comforting hands took Melitta’s face between them. “I should have sent you away,” her mother murmured.
All she could do was shake her head. “I would not leave you, I will not leave you.” It came out as plea, and her mother sighed.
“What they will do to you, my beautiful girl.” One of her fingers, soft from spinning wool and years of ointments, ran down Melissa’s cheek. “You do not deserve it.”
Melitta was very beautiful. Of course, anyone would tell a princess she was a beautiful, and a prince he was strong, but she had always had strangers patting her cheeks and smiling at her without prompting, and old women reaching out to stroke her hair and tell her to enjoy her beauty while she had it. To say nothing of the way men stared when they were received by her father in the hall, from the moment she was old enough to dress in the garb of a woman. It still made her blush and pull her veils lower, to cover her face. It was why her father had charged such a bride price for her, one that could only be matched by a wealthy prince or king. Nothing less for his pretty, only daughter.
That girl seemed a thousand years away.
Now Melitta was a child no longer. She knew what would happen to her now, that she would be seized like any other bauble or loot, and her maidenhead would be stolen, and she would be given over as a spoil, and live her life a slave on a distant shore.
Her mother’s eyes glimmered with all too mortal tears. “It is my selfish wish that you will live, else I would take you in my arms into the fire. Phaidros will find you, if you live. If you cannot bear it-”
What could she do but nod? “If I cannot bear it, I will see you sooner than you hope,” Melitta croaked out.
Crushed in her mother’s arms, the queen whispered to her daughter, “The veins in your wrists will give you a sure death. If you try for your throat, you may hesitate.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Remember. You are my daughter. There is nothing in this world that can stain you.” Somehow her mother’s arms found a way to become even tighter. “Remember your brother. Phaidros will free you.”
The Queen stepped back, her tears drying fast upon her cheeks. and her face a hard mask once again. “You must run,” she warned. “Or my wish will come to naught.”
Again, Melitta nodded.
The queen’s women helped her to climb the pyre, a lone table left intact for their mistress to stand upon. She had donned her full bridal regalia for this moment, her forehead graced by gleaming layers of gold, her neck heavy with filigree and onyx, her hands covered in rings of gold and silver. Even her dress was shot through with thread of silver and gold, shimmering under the sliver of moon that shone through the small slits high upon the walls.
Queen Pherenike looked like exactly what she was. A god’s daughter.
It was never spoken of, at least not to Melitta, but she knew the story. She had listened behind curtains and doorways to maids gossiping, the guards idly chattering. Her mother had been born one of a pair, fathered on a maiden princess, the dark-haired shadow of her radiant sister, the most beautiful woman in the world. Philoumene was dead, but her sister had lived, lived to marry, lived to bear two children for her kingly husband. Now she would die to snatch the last victory from her enemy.
Searching the crowd of women, Melitta looked through the tear streaked faces to find that of her little cousin, Ismene. The girl was only thirteen, as flat as a boy, and with huge brown eyes. Her own mother had wrapped her arms around the girl, eyes fixed on the door. Mustering a smile, Melitta pet the girl’s hair.
“You must stay close to me, Ismene, do you understand?” Melitta looked up at her uncle’s wife as she said this, who nodded. “The both of you,” she added, unsure of what Lady Antikleia planned.
“Listen to the princess,” Ismene’s mother commanded her daughter, as she pulled the shawl from around her own shoulders, and bundled it around her daughter. “Melitta will look after you.” Antikleia cuddled her girl closer, the woman’s shawl swamping her. Ismene was her last living child, her sons already dead. But she was old, and her beauty had never been great, and Ismene was young and pretty, and would be taken from her. At least she would be thrown together with the other young maidens and wives, with Melitta.
She was just so little. Ismene had not even bled yet. There was bile in Melitta’s mouth as she thought about it.
How she wished Phaidros was here. How she wished he not quarreled with their father. There might not even be a war at all, if Phaidros had been allowed to play the diplomat. (Perhaps this was the real reason why her father had yet to marry Melitta off. He was waiting for Phaidros to return, to approve his new brother, to join in the celebrations. Oh Phaidros, where have you gone!)
Above them all, the queen stood motionless, her trusted handmaids holding torches at the edges of the great pyre. Her terribly beautiful eyes were closed.
The doors shuddered and all the women shuddered with them. One breath, two breaths, and then three and four and they came right off their hinges, falling down to the floor. A flood of men, their faces made inhuman by their faceless masks. Somewhere, a child began to cry. And the wailing began.
And there was him. She heard a whisper from behind her shoulder, “It must be true what they say about his mother, we were always doomed,” before another shushed her.
Kallinikos.
She believed it, for he was even more than her own mother, as if colored by another hand, while the rest of the hall stood as dull as common pottery. All Melitta could think of was that he filled the room the same way her aunt had, vivid and too much. Just there was the side passage she must take Ismene and Aunt Antikleia through. A small dark passageway that lead through to the courtyard gardens. She glanced back at her mother, with her dispassionate face and glowing eyes.
Queen Pherenike held a torch in each hand, raising them high above her head, all gold and silver and red-black hair.
Warriors covered in blood came to a skidding halt at the sight of her, unsure what was happening, what to do. There were no men here to kill, just crying women and children and her.
When she opened her eyes, they burned. They scorched even Melitta, and she had to check to be sure her skin was truly unharmed. Only he took a step forward, the son of a goddess, but even he was forced back when the Queen plunged the torches into her funeral pyre. The flame caught faster than any natural fire would, and it burst out like a lion into the hall, licking at warriors and women alike as its mistress laughed, and then began to scream. It was a scream of rage, not pain, as the flames rose higher and higher as she raised up her hands, her hair and dress one blaze as her skin turned molten and golden.
Melitta should have been running, should have darted down the endless passage the moment it had all begun, but she could not turn away, as her mother became a flame in the shape of a woman, her crown of fire reaching up to lick the ceiling.
Her aunt and cousin were grabbing at her, as the heat came so close her eyes began to water and her tears turned to steam on the stone floor.
She ran.
Lungs straining, she fled down the passageway. She stumbled into the gardens, falling down and scrapping her knees bloody as her aunt screamed at her to keep going, the palace was going to come down completely.
The fire behind them licked at the roofs, spreading along the columns, lighting up tree after tree planted by kings of old for their brides.
Like so many animals fleeing before a forest fire, people scattered down the city streets. Their small trio stumbled out of the palace gate, left battered and opened, falling into this river of people. Melitta could outrun them all, if she merely put speed to her heels. But she could not leave behind Ismene.
“Ismene!” She screamed, for she had lost her little cousin in the flood of people. Head whipping around, she realized in that moment, still running, she was in the midst of the enemy, strange soldiers. All of them were fleeing the great fire raining down on the city, and she pumped her legs harder, faster, her thighs burning with a fire of their own, to outrun these men.
This was no maiden race, no playful contest between her and her brother. She thought she might throw up her very heart if she dared to stop, so she didn’t.
And then she passed him, that man made from a different hand. Kallinikos. He was not even fleeing in earnest, but waiting for his men, calling them forward.
Her eyes met his, and they widened, for just a moment in that fire-filled night. A hard darted forward to catch her.
But Melitta was faster, and she flew past him before he had even finished raising it.
Arms wheeling, she nearly tripped as she sprinted down the narrow wind down to the city walls, built to keep armies at bay. The gates were open here too, of course they were, an entire city cracked open and eaten whole. The fire behind her grew fiercer, smoke choking her as she tried to run faster. The clear blue-black night was in front of her, wide open, and she might have kept running into it forever had she not stumbled over the body of a man. One of her father’s men, she realized as the soldiers grabbed her, bruising her arms, tearing her dress.
“A fine little bitch,” she heard one of them say, as he threw her to his fellow. Another laughed, and left a bruise on her buttock where he manhandled her. There was no breath left in her, and she struggled to breathe past the smoke, past the humiliation, past the grief of it all.
More soldiers streamed through, covered in soot, dragging women and tapestries and cups and anything else they could grab.
“The fire, you fucking fools,” came a voice behind this crowd. “There is no time for this.” It was him. Of course it was, of course, of course.
He did not stop as he passed her by, even though their eyes met for a moment before she was forced to the ground. But one of his men, dressed in a scarlet cloak, the same they all seemed to wear, paused for a moment to haul her up, and drag her along by her arm. “Too fine a piece for the likes of you,” he said with a laugh, pulling Melitta into this wake of soldiers and plunder that bunched behind that man.
All she could do now was look back, look back at her home, shrouded in fire, an inferno of her mother’s making. She tried to stop, to keep looking, but her captor yanked her along, away, away. “Come on, lass,” he said, still laughing. “Nothing there for you anymore.”
If she could have killed him, she would have.
But there was nothing she could do. Nowhere she could run, and they shut her up with all the other women in a cramped little hut with no light, no windows, no lamp. Nothing at all but their own shaky breathing and stinking fear.
A lone voice in the dark whimpered, “they killed my baby,” before breaking into sobs. “My baby, my baby, my baby,” the woman kept saying, and Melitta shoved her hands over her ears and slumped into the side of the hut, pressed between the bodies of sweaty strangers.
She stayed that way, with her aching legs and back crying out in protest until a bit of dawn crept through the walls of this hut. Maybe she had slept for a few moments, for her eyes fluttered open under the sliver of sun.
Someone was opening the door, pulling women out.
The light was too bright, Melitta could not see a thing. “Ismene! Ismene!” She screamed, as hand reached out and pulled her. With one groping hand, she found the frame and hung onto until she heard a small child’s voice answer. “Melitta!”
She had to let go, splinters in her fingers and a man forcing her from the hut. But she knew where Ismene was for now. For now.
For now, for now, now now now. She chanted it to herself. There was just now. Nothing else.
Under the harsh sun, she was shoved into a line of other women. All young, all pretty. Some had their shawls and veils, others had only their dresses, and few only rags that they clung to try and preserve some last bit of modesty.
“First pick, Kallinikos,” said someone. “You always have to be the first one in. Cities, women. Might as well let you have it.” Laughter. Then the same voice, this time grave. “For your valour, man. I mean it. You always have earned it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him come down the line. His hands behind his back, his chest plate still on but his head bare and his face free.
Melitta wrapped her shawl and veil tightly around her self, pulling it low over her forehead.
That man stopped before her, a smile on his face, still laughing a bit.
He reached out and took her chin. It was a rough hand, callused and scarred, and she was sure he would bruise her face with his grip.
His smile was gone, as she flicked her eyes up and then down as quickly as she could, not really seeing much more above his mouth and chin.
“Look at me.” His command was firm. Perhaps even a little angry. She looked up.
She saw beautiful bronze eyes, shining like a well polished blade. As quickly as she could, she looked down again, and then from side to side, anywhere but at him. At her feet, at the sand, at the tears in her hem,
Anything but him.
“What eyes,” he said, so quietly, as if it was a secret between the two of them.
He let her go, and she did her best not to stumble back.
“That one.”
The great Kallinikos did not look back after he had made his choice, and somehow that was a humiliation too.
They threw her onto his bed. There was no other place to put her. Not really. That was where she belonged now. She curled in on herself on it, a plush pallet on a thin wooden bed frame, stacked high with lush blankets.
When Melitta closed her eyes, all she could see was the dead man she had accidentally trod upon, the fire growing ever closer. So she drew her knees close to her chest and rested her forehead atop them, her eyes wide open as she tried not to think of nothing at all. She did her best to imagine all her thoughts pouring out of her head, as if she stood over a well and was emptying jar after jar back into it as someone pulled up more and more water, faster than she could dump it back.
“Princess.”
Her head shot up in surprise, for she had not even heard him approach. He was watching her, as he poured cold water over his hair, running his hands through the wild mass of bronze curls.
“You are the king’s daughter, are you not?” And then he said, in all serious politeness, her name. “Melitta.”
What game was he playing at?
Somehow she managed to answer, “I- that is me.” Belatedly, she wondered if she should address him as “my lord,” for he was now that, and as he continued to look at her in silence, she wondered if he would punish her for not saying it.
“You know who I am.” A statement, not a question.
She nodded. Of course she did. Everyone does.
“Well, then.” He holds both his arms out. “Ask.”
Ask what? Her confusion must show on her face, for he grinned, a terrible nasty smile that nearly made her shudder.
“If I am truly the son of a goddess. Go on, ask.”
“Why would I ask a question I already know the answer to,” she said softly, without much thinking.
Again he laughed, but this time it was a bright and wonderful thing, the laugh of a young boy more than man. And his smile was just as boyish.
“And you would know, Princess.” He tossed his head back, his hair still damp. It clung to his cheeks and his neck in dark curls
She clamped her lips shut, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
He undressed right there in front of her, and she turned her eyes away as soon as she realized what he was doing. In spite of it all, in spite was about to happen, her cheeks burned, embarrassed for him and herself both.
But Melitta had seen some of him, his bare torso, the trail of golden hair that led from his stomach…. Down. She was not entirely ignorant of men, though women were banned from spectating the games where the athletes competed in the nude. There were statues and she had seen babies and small children with their little piddles when their mothers bathed them. But she knew that this was not the same, and she forced the sick back down her throat when it threatened to rise up.
Perhaps he took pity on her, or perhaps he did not like to stand around talking naked, for he pulled on a clean tunic, and sank down into the small gilt chair across the tent. He rested his chin on his propped up arm, another boyish gesture, his legs spread wide.
“You were not married.” It was not a question, but a statement. “How old are you?” He looks up and down her, at her woman’s body. “Why aren’t you married?”
She did her best to respond as if they were mere acquaintances at a feast, and not captor and captive.
“I have not had that happy fortune yet, no,” she said graciously. She does not answer his question.
That made him look at her again, not at her body, but at her, peering up at her face.
“I think there are many widows out there today who would disagree with you.” He sipped idly from a goblet, and she recognized it as belonging to her father.
She looked up at the canvas ceiling of the tent. It has seen better days, but it had been finely made once. She wondered if some other captured woman had made it.
“Surely you have had offers. Rich kings and princes,” he bit out, anger leaking into his voice for the very first time. “Were none of them good enough for you, Princess?”
She blinked at him. As if she had a choice in which matters? “My father kept such things to himself,” she said slowly. “He did not want to- to disappoint me when he turned down offers.” Or have her sway him with her girlish heart towards someone unworthy. “But that will make no difference soon,” she told him.
Melitta realized all at once she cannot do it. She cannot endure it. The words make it all too real, spilling from her own mouth.
She hoped her mother will forgive her. She felt dizzy from it, the weight taken from her, as she makes her choice.
“Since you all share the same fate,” he concluded, his tone philosophical rather than pitying.
Nodding, her eyes drifted aimlessly across the tent. He’s left his clothes in a heap on the floor. Melitta supposed that she would soon be the one cleaning up after him, though she doesn’t have the faintest idea about how it’s done. His armor, though, that was carefully hung up on its own stand, his sword and dagger laid neatly on the table.
Again he asked, “How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Eighteen,” she answered softly.
“Eighteen,” he muttered. “You should have been wed long before this.”
She nodded. “My mother would-,” she swallowed the words down hard. He does not deserve to hear of her mother, to know anything about her.
When he stood, there was nothing she could do to stop the flinch.
He had the gall to look offended at this. He blinked once, then twice, frowning at her.
“I don’t aim to be cruel.” He paused, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “Not to you at least.” He looked over at her, his mouth set in a grim line. “Obey me and you will be protected.”
What could Melitta say to that? She picked at the edge of her shawl, unraveling the threads that had already begun to fray.
“You are a maiden?”
The absurdity of the question made her laugh. It came out high and reedy, giving away all her nerves. “Yes,” she said, her voice cracking.
When she stood, she raised her chin high, and draped her shawl over her head the way her mother used to do. She shocked herself with her own boldness, as she strode towards him, and then past him, downing the rest of the wine in one pained gulp.
Her eyes closed and she could see her father sitting on his throne, his hands raising aloft this very cup. Her fingers dug into the engravings as she forced the wine through her tight throat.
Breathing deeply through her nose, she passed her hands over her face, her palms pressing down on her eyes and then her cheeks, as if she could squeeze the ache out of her head.
When she finally let her hands fall to her sides, he pinched the back of her veil, pulling it away from her head. Melitta kept her eyes fixed forward as he took the veil from her shoulders as if she was a princess still and he a servant. But no serving maid would have run her thumb down the nape of her mistress’ neck as he did.
His hand followed down her neck, knuckles caressing the bones of her spine, following down to the top of her dress.
She did her best to repress her shiver.
Then he traced from the tender spot just behind her ear down the side of her neck. His hand trespassed into the collar of her dress then, but only touch the skin of her shoulder and then her upper arm.
When he turned her and unpinned the brooches that held up her dress, he let her cross her arms across the front of her chest, holding her clothes up still.
Her lip trembled and she found herself forced to bite it to try and keep it still.
And then he was watching her mouth, watching where the small pearls of her teeth shown against the pink of her lips. He bit her too, teeth digging into her bottom lip, gentle enough but she pulled back with a gasp of- surprise? Anger? Fear? His mouth chased after hers, and there was no escape as his arms held her tight, one hand snaking up to cradle the back of her skull. Pins fell from her dark curls and disappeared into the carpet.
She was breathing harder than she would have liked, since she’d never, of course she’d never- she had never kissed a man before. Her face burned with shame, both her arms crossed protectively over her chest, holding up her slipping dress.
The hand that held her head moved to gather up her hair, twisting it around his fingers, before he let it go.
When he stepped away to shrug his tunic over his head, Melitta darted forward.
She had the knife in her hands before he was able to grab her, and because he had been expecting her to lunge at him, he failed to grasp her as she fell back to turn on it herself.
Unfortunately, all she managed was to nick her collarbone and chest as he wrestled the knife away from her, the eating tool flying into the sand at the far end of the tent.
She sank to her knees, not quite reaching them as he held her up by her wrists. She could not bear to look at him, for fear that she would cry and she could not have endured that. Her dress had slipped down to tangle around her legs, and she was naked and ashamed of it.
I will not cry, she chanted in her head, over and over, the words blurring together. I will not cry I willnotcry IwillnotcryIwillnotcry.
Her wrists began to ache from his iron grip. There was nothing gentle in his hands, and Melitta knew he was going to break her.
For a moment, she considered trying to bite her tongue to see if she could choke on her own blood like that, but she knew she could not do it.
Instead she chewed the inside of her cheek.
He spoke first. A flare of pride went through her, that the Kallinikos had broken the silence first.
“Is this your thanks for my kindness?” He snarled. “I pledge you my protection, and you make a mockery of it in the same instant.” He shook her like a child with a rag doll, making her joints shriek with pain.
Rage flushed his face, and his eyes glowed, and she could have sworn they turned red.
Maybe he would kill her and end this all now.
He dropped her wrists and stepped back, letting her fall painfully to the floor. Breathing deeply in through his nose and out his mouth, he turned away from Melitta.
With aching hands, she pulled her dress back up, to hide her breasts. She wished hopelessly for the brooches to hold it up, but they lay miles away under the table. Drops of blood stained her dress, dribbling out of the angry line she’d left on her chest. It was no mortal wound.
Without warning, he whipped around and dragged her towards the bed. She couldn’t help the small squeak that popped out of her when he threw her on it. There was no time to grab the top of her dress to stop him from pulling it off her this time. He simply yanked it off her, down her legs, and threw it to the side.
He moved over her like a wave coming in over the sand, all liquid grace. Hands slid up her heaving sides, thumbs brushing up her ribs, fingers caressing her as she did her best to still her panicked breathing.
“You are beautiful, Princess.” His eyes were liquid too, and she realized that his eyelashes were long, and as bronze as the hair on his head. “But you don’t need to be told that. Beautiful women always know what they are.” His hands had run their way up to her throat, and he grasped it now with one hand. She could feel the rough callouses made from years of swordplay on his hand. The blood vessel in her throat fluttered as he squeezed, gently enough, but with plenty of warning in his strong hands.
She had thought him made from some uncommon clay, by some uncommon hand. But she had been wrong. This warrior was all bronze, all metal molded and beaten into the guise of a man. He could kill her without a second thought, and there was not a thing she could do.
Melitta wished desperately that she had her mother’s divine spark, to make herself into a pyre for her enemy.
He bit her lip again, hard, and he drew blood. She could taste it as he used one hand to grasp her jaw and force her mouth open. Melitta did not resist as his tongue dove between her lips, tasting of metal.
His rough hands palmed her breasts, gliding over her nipples, then he cupped each one in a hand. He gave a gentle squeeze, a delicacy she did not expect from him, as if he was handling fresh fruit he was careful not to bruise. All she could do was clutch at the bedcovers beneath her. Then he licked the bloody line she had inflicted on herself, and she gasped. Melitta tried to push him away, but he only gathered up her wrists in one of his hands, and pinned it to her belly. Her bosom was squeezed between her arms in this position, and she was redfaced with both anger and shame. On and on he went, kissing at her throat, lapping and nipping at her. Meanwhile, one of his hands began to pluck at her nipples, while the other held her wrists in his iron grip.
She did not understand why he did not simply pierce her with his weapon and get it all over with. She had heard whispers of such things, that men only wanted to rut like dogs in heat, quick and painfully, and yet he would not stop. His tongue laved over her collarbone, and he bit her yet again where her shoulder met her neck. When she flinched, he kissed the spot he marred, as if- as if- to make it better?
“Stop. Stop!” Panic flared through her as he let go of her arms and moved his head down to her breasts. Then he- he- began to suckle at them, and she batted helplessly at shoulders. “What are you doing,” she cried out as he rolled one of her nipples between his teeth, tugging on it. Did he mean to tear it off? She yanked at his long hair, trying to pull him off before he bit something off of her.
This was answered with a hand choking her and the other pinning her wrists above her hand. Kallinikos stared down at her as he tightened his grip on her throat and she thrashed as she tried to force air into her lungs.
Black spots swam in her vision.
All of a sudden, he let go, and she gasped.
As her breathing did its best to even out, they watched each other, faces inches apart.
I hope you die, she said with her eyes. I hope it is painful and dishonorable and ignoble.
The man drew back, as if startled. Kallinikos actually cocked his head, like some sort of confused dog, trying to puzzle out why it had been kicked. Then he sighed and rested his head on her stomach, nose touching just above her navel. Up and down, her whole body still heaved as she caught her breath.
“The gods like to play their tricks on us,” he said aloud with bitterness. “Prayers answered in the most unwished for of ways.” He took her wrists and began to rub them, as if to sooth the marks he’d left there. “Lie still, Princess,” he commanded, as he reached for something beside the bed.
Flopping over on her stomach, she tried to crawl over the far end of the pallet. What she meant to do once she pulled herself out of the bed, she’d never find out, as Kallinikos caught her by her ankle and dragged her back down.
“What part of ‘lie still’ did you not understand?” he snapped.
Fists clenched at her sides, Melitta refused to answer. Her eyes said how much she hated him.
When he reached down between her legs, she flinched again. With one hand, he drew her knees apart, and stared so intently that Melitta threw an arm up to cover her face. Never, never ever in her entire life had a man dared to-
To strip her of every dignity and secret she could hold.
His hand remained on her knee, but he did not touch her more, even as she could hear him move, hear the uncorking of a bottle. Tentatively, she raised her arm to peek, and wished an instant she had not.
He’d spilled oil onto his hands, onto his manhood, a huge terrible thing waiting to spear her beneath him with its fat purple head, and the wet, slopping noises that echoed through the tent as he worked his hand up and down on herself made panic shoot through her chest.
Melitta tried to roll off the bed, kicking out as she did so, but he wrestled her back down. She tried to explain that he was too big, that he would kill her, but then he slapped her across the face, sending her head flying back onto the bed, cracking against the frame. With a howl of pain, she brought up both her hands to her head, and he threw her legs back open and thrust into her in one smooth movement.
She screamed. It made no difference, not to the searing pain inside her or to the man inflicting it. His hand was wrapped around her throat as he rutted into her, tearing into her womanhood. It felt like he was trying to spear her through to her chest, cleave her in half up to her collarbone.
Back arching from the pain, she felt every inch of him stretch her, burn her. He set a punishing pace, as if he truly did mean to ride Melitta down to the underworld.
She closed her eyes tight, so tight that she saw bursts of stars against the black of her eyelids. I am not here, I am not here, she told herself.
His voice dragged her out of her mind, telling her to open her eyes.
“Open your eyes, princess,” he hissed, and she managed to flutter them open to be met with his bronze stare, his eyes dark and growing darker. Sweat dripped down his brow, his nose, his chin, flowing down in channels across the muscles of his chest, as he conquered her entirely. His grasp tightened around her throat, and her hands flew to grasp his wrist, to try and pry him off of her. No use, none at all, he was immovable as a stone wall, as unyielding as a shield.
Somehow, he thrust even faster, churning her tender insides, and she dug her nails into his arm and bit her lip so hard it was bleeding all over again.
Faster and faster, he plunged, bringing tears to her eyes each time he hit the very back of her, bottoming out while he still tried to drive further, as if he might conquer more depth. He let go of her throat to yank her hips up, rough fingers digging into her soft flesh.
Head thrown back, the lines of his body arching like a god in ecstasy, he finished in her with a final thrust, his seed burning at her very core, a core she did not even know she had until he’d broken in.
The phallus throbbed within her, as the warrior’s shoulders lost their tension. Kallinikos laid down atop her, nuzzling between her breasts like a lover, as his member softened. “Melitta,” he said once, and she pretended she did not hear it.
Body stormed, Melitta stared up at the ceiling. Who made it, she wondered again, everything inside her aching and bruised.
He laid a kiss to her bloody lips and stood, stretching his arms behind him, the muscles of his back flexing. A young man in all his glory, in his prime and strength, utterly contented with himself. A satisfied expression spread across his face as he glanced back between her legs. She was too tired to close them, and he had made the mess there, so let him look. Let him look at the virgin blood he’d spilled there.
Lying limply on the bed, she watched distantly as he cleaned himself off, blood and seed tinting the water pink.
There was still some measure of strength in her, for when he began to refresh himself with the wine, she turned over into her side, her sticky thighs rubbing together as she closed them and drew her knees up into chest.
Some tears had leaked from her eyes when he’d hurt her, but she refused to cry in front of him. She refused. Again and again, she bit her broken and battered lip.
A shudder ran through her when that hand that had held her down only moments earlier brushed the back of her shoulder. The man ran his fingers through her hair as she tried to curl up even tighter, to shield her fragile body in the shell of her own arms.
It did not take much for him to pry her open all over again, roll her over and pull her knees apart. She was just so tired.
Numbly, she realized it wasn’t over, as he stroked himself to hardness at the sight of her battered cunt.
That’s what he called it. “A lovely little cunt,” he murmured, more to himself than her, one hand on her knee, the other moving up and down to make his weapon ready again. “My cunt,” he said under his breath, his eyes dark and his mouth slightly parted.
He took her again. And again, before he finally let her sleep, with red blood and white seed drying on the insides of her legs. Kallinikos murmured her name in her hair each time he finished.
Wracked and ruined, she wanted to die.