Sweeter Than Sin

by Amelia Wilde

  “Because your father and I made a deal,” he intones. “You don’t want your daddy to lose his house, do you? You don’t want him on the street.”

  No. I don’t want my wide-eyed, stupid, grasping father on the street. Right now I want him dead. But a very old instinct won’t take its last breath and die. My mind conjures images of my dad with red eyes and hollows in his cheeks, struggling to navigate a homeless shelter. Someone would take advantage of him.

  Just the way he’s taken advantage of me.

  “Think of it,” my uncle goes on. “This time tomorrow, his accounts will be settled. No more debts. The house your mother loved so much will stay in the family. All because of you, Brigit. All because you’re going to be such a good girl.”

  What’s left of my stomach rockets through the floor.

  If Zeus said the words good girl I would be melting.

  Coming out of this man’s mouth, they make my skin crawl. I want to claw at it, just to get it to stop.

  My uncle leans down so that we’re face to face. The wretch is involuntary, though it’s not full-on sick, and he sniffs. “I’ll help you with that.”

  “Help me with—”

  Before I can finish one hand is clamped around my jaw, forcing my mouth open. Those thin fingers are stronger than they looked, horribly strong, crushing at my jaw. I suck in a spit-soaked breath on a whistle of air. Scream. Once my mother told me to scream fire if I was ever attacked in a public place. You scream fire because no one looks twice at a creepy old man. No one looks twice at a woman screaming.

  My mouth is full of silk before I get the chance.

  He shoves it in so far that it triggers my gag reflex but he covers my mouth, keeping it in place. I’m suffocating. I’m going to die. Hands around my neck lift me from the chair and I’m limp, useless, entirely focused on trying to cough up the handkerchief. I’m missing my one opportunity to fight. I can’t coordinate my feet and my hands at the same time.

  I can’t get his hand off my face.

  I can’t do anything but walk, like a puppet on strings, to where he takes me. The wide countertop in front of the mirror in the bridal suite. All the lights are still on. They’re just like natural light. That’s what the makeup artist said.

  So it’s in just-like-natural light that I get a close-up glimpse of myself choking on a silk handkerchief the color of dead lavender. One corner pokes out onto my bottom lip and the sight of it makes me want to vomit as much as the sight of him behind me.

  My uncle is barely visible above the tulle.

  But I can feel him.

  I can feel him pushing at the skirts and the petticoat and the slip.

  The makeup artist was the one to do all the buttons on a set of complicated lingerie meant to form a base layer for the dress.

  It’s the lingerie that’s his only stumbling block.

  I can’t get the handkerchief out of my mouth. I manage to inch one hand up toward it but he takes my wrist and pins it behind my back into a deadly cloud of tulle, wrapping the skirt around and around and around until I can’t move.

  This is an awful way to die.

  The alternative is to keep living. The future yawns up before me with glistening teeth, flexing long, thin fingers.

  My uncle’s fingers are tugging at my panties now. Does he think they’re a chastity belt? Is he looking for a fucking key? All the tracing at the edges of the fabric can’t be necessary except to hasten my death.

  Don’t. Don’t find the snaps.

  He finds them.

  The snaps are very clever. The snaps mean that you only have to contend with an enormous skirt and miles of slips and petticoats if you’re wearing a princess gown on your wedding day. You don’t then have to get out of your lingerie. These are manufactured for brides, made specially for convenience.

  My uncle is finding them very convenient.

  My vision blinks out, and I’m left with only the sensation of silk packed into my throat. The muscles there reject it, trying to create space, but it still won’t come all the way out.

  Maybe this is how I save my sanity.

  What sanity?

  My feet stay planted on the floor in the demure kitten heels my uncle picked out for me while he presses my thighs apart with rough hands and peels back the lingerie, and then that’s all very distant, too. The air between my legs. The fingers probing there. Shoving inside despite how dry I am, how resistant.

  Anne Boleyn did not die on the block. Did you know? Some movies and books portray it like that, but most accounts agree that she was only kneeling when she died. Only. Like a queen. Not tossed over some countertop.

  Not tossed over a block, I mean, not laying on it, not offering herself up as a sacrifice, just kneeling there.

  They say the swordsman distracted her so she didn’t know it was coming. She did know. She knew with every fiber of her being what was coming, what was already happening, what was whispering in the air. There was no running from it. Anne was surrounded by people who would not save her, who in fact would make it happen.

  It was May.

  My legs shake and it’s not from pleasure, it’s the farthest thing from pleasure. The opposite. It’s hell. It’s happening to someone else, someone else, not me, not me, not me, not me.

  The hurt between my legs doesn’t belong to me. It’s the same as this gown, or this makeup. It’s not really mine. I don’t lay claim to it. Honestly all I lay claim to is air. Is that so much to ask? A breath or two. I would like a breath that’s not filtered through a silk handkerchief. My head knocks against the mirror.

  Once. Again. Again. How strong is that mirror, do you think? Would it break given enough force? Most mirrors would. I doubt the mirror here in the bridal suite is made of bulletproof glass. My head is getting sore from all the contact. My head, against the mirror.

  Skin against skin lower down.

  “Once every day,” he rasps. “Once every day for me, and your father won’t be on the street.”

  Maybe I’ll just swallow it.

  The handkerchief, not the mirror.

  Maybe I’ll just let it fill my throat until there’s no more room for air. There’s not enough air already. I’m sure that’s why I can’t see.

  Except.

  He’s—

  Fumbling.

  Distracted.

  I feel it before my vision comes back, the uncoordinated pushing against me, like he’s had too much to drink. He’s taking so much pleasure in this act that it’s making it hard to stand up. My uncle has to have assistance.

  Both hands in the dress to keep himself upright. Both hands. That means I have one hand free. My cheek is pressed against the countertop but I can move my head if I try.

  The dress is helping him stand but it’s also helping me.

  For fucking once.

  I get a hand to my mouth and yank out the handkerchief, drop it with a wet slap to the floor, stand up, stand up, stand up. Backward. If I can get him off balance then I can get him away from me and I shove hard at the mirror.

  It’s enough. It’s enough for the moment.

  I’m wheezing, desperate for air. Once every day. It won’t be once every day. There are ways to keep people in their place. If I go into that house I won’t come back out.

  Turn around.

  I turn around and put one hand on the countertop to brace myself. He won’t get me over it again. “No,” I rasp. “We’re not married yet.”

  He advances, pants still undone. His face says I’ll teach you a lesson.

  I put up both hands. Turning around was the difficult part. He knocks my hands out of the way, crushing the dress against me, and gets those fingers around my face. The kiss makes my stomach turn. He tastes like cigarette smoke and disinfectant, somehow, and it’s a lick more of a kiss. Right. This is the lesson. This is once every day. This is the rest of my life.

  There’s a bold, insistent knock at the door, and I push with both hands against the front of his suit, throwing him o
ff balance. My face throbs. He’s been holding me too tight. He got his claws into me.

  The door opens. My uncle scrambles for his pants. I don’t have to scramble for anything. The weight of the skirt has pulled it down.

  A woman at the door.

  Petite. A skirt suit. I have no idea who she is, but she takes in the scene and instead of shrinking away she strides into the room on sharp heels. “Mr. Lowell, you’re wanted upstairs. I have tea for you.”

  She does. A china teacup is cradled in her palms. Steam rises from the rim. How did she get it here without spilling it?

  My uncle finishes zipping his pants. “Tea,” he scoffs. “We’ll need a minute.”

  “Tea,” she repeats, going so far as to put the cup in his hands. He just had his hands up my skirts, but my uncle takes the tea. Who is she? The suit is too nice for her to be some freelance wedding planner. Her hair is so perfect, swept back and pinned, and she looks fresh. That’s the first thing that comes to mind. Fresh, like a newly bloomed flower.

  But there are pointed edges, too. Her makeup is professional, almost airbrushed, like she has recently stepped out of a magazine shoot. She can’t be tall enough for that, can she?

  “The priest wants to meet with you now,” she says, and her smile is so indestructible that it reminds me of Zeus. Only her eyes are the opposite of his. Silver instead of gold. “He’s in the lounge upstairs. An impatient man, if you ask me.”

  I don’t know why my uncle backs down. Why he takes the tea and goes to the door with a scowl.

  “Excellent,” she says. This woman. This wedding planner, or wedding planner’s assistant. I didn’t know there was a wedding planner. She lifts her wrists, shaking the sleeve of her suit jacket to check the time. “If you hurry, the ceremony can begin on time. All your guests are waiting.”

  My uncle glares back at me one last time.

  Then he’s gone.

  The model turned wedding planner sticks her head out into the hall, her eyes tracking him. His footsteps retreat, then echo up the stairs, and then those are gone, too.

  My hand cramps. I’ve been holding the countertop top too long.

  “All right.” Her heels click on the floor, all the way back to me, and then she reaches around to where my bouquet waits on the countertop in a stand meant to support its weight. She lifts the flowers easily and pushes them into my hands. “There. That’s good. Are you ready?”

  “If you’re taking me to the wedding I’d rather die.” The words don’t sound right, garbled somehow, but they must be, because her eyes go wide.

  “No. We’re getting the hell out of here.” She shakes her wrist again, and her wrist is empty. There was never a watch. “But only if you hurry.”

  5

  Brigit

  My head is no longer attached to my body. I’m floating above it. It’s a miracle I’m walking, a miracle that I’m following her out of the room and to the left. No one let me roam around the cathedral when we arrived early this morning.

  I’m at her mercy.

  And the tea—

  I know about tea.

  I’d be laughing if I could let it happen but my skin is on fire and it’s also freezing and I wish I’d thrown up on the gown, honestly, it was over yet.

  “Who are you?” The woman who is me says to the wedding planner.

  “Persephone,” she answers. She’s brisk, professional, and every other step she takes makes me believe she really is a wedding planner. A smile like a new spring day lights up her face. “I’m surprised Zeus didn’t mention it.”

  “He did,” I say woodenly. “Once over dinner.”

  A sharp look in my direction. “Just dinner?”

  This time, the laugh that escapes me is wild, bouncing off the ceiling and running ahead of us around the next turn. “Not just dinner.”

  What did he say? I can’t remember. It’s the name of his brother’s—girlfriend? Wife? Conquest? It wasn’t clear at the time, only that he was jealous. His jealousy was a thundercloud in golden eyes. He hid it right away.

  The odds are very, very slim that this is a different Persephone.

  Which makes no sense.

  I can’t fathom why she would be here and he is not until I can fathom it. Another deal. Another trade. He would do that. He would trade me from my father to his brother and wash his hands of me.

  Wouldn’t he?

  I don’t know that I’ve stopped until Persephone takes my elbow and pulls. I don’t resist her. My heart is its own runaway bride, trying to get free, and if this is a trap—if she’s a trap—then I’m screwed. I’ve never been more screwed in my life. I’ve only ever seen the bridal suite here, because my father hustled me in through the front doors before the sun rose.

  “Where is he?”

  She falls into step beside me, still guiding as if she really is a wedding planner. Maybe she is. Maybe she’s spent her life shuttling distraught brides around various wedding venues. But she looks too young for that until I really look, until I take in the dark, subtle sweep of her makeup. No one hires queens to be wedding planners. I’m losing it now, surely, as we pass by a stained glass window that’s spilled colors onto the carpet. A louder voice—my father’s—cuts into the space behind us. I can’t make out the words but some part of me, some small, stupid part of me, freezes.

  Persephone hauls me forward with such force that I almost trip over my tulle prison. We round a corner and a droplet of sweat runs down my spine. If they all come after us, there’s no getting out. This woman, this girl, is not going to be my heroine if all the wedding guests form a mob looking for the bride. I have a vision of being dragged to the altar kicking and screaming. “Behind us,” she says simply. “We’ll have to walk faster.”

  Or else he might catch us.

  But then I wouldn’t kick and scream, would I? I didn’t fight Zeus.

  I barely fought my uncle.

  “This way.” Persephone pushes open a door, her face serene, the hint of a smile on her lips. I want to take her beautiful, perfect face in my hands and shake her until she tells me what’s really going on. Tells me the secret of how she can be so calm while she’s boosting me from my own wedding. The bouquet slips in my hands and I catch it. A dropped bouquet would be a clue, a way to find me—

  The gasp that comes out of my mouth is otherworldly. “The petals. They’ll follow us with the petals.”

  Persephone hooks her arm around my waist and yanks me out the door into golden afternoon sun. A group of young men across the street cheer for me, and she waves brightly, blowing a kiss. They don’t know. Nobody knows what horrifying thing happened in there. Persephone turns me to face her. “This isn’t Hansel and Gretel. And no petals fell out of your bouquet. Now get in the car.”

  “What—”

  She points over her shoulder.

  How does a person miss a black SUV of that size?

  It’s thirty feet down the block.

  I’m never going to make it.

  My legs are pinned to the ground even while my ankles wobble. “The car seems pretty far.” Another whistle from across the street. Any moment now, the door behind us will burst open to reveal my father and his grasping hands. Or worse yet, my uncle and his long, thin fingers, the pinch of his face, the lecherous smile. Both of them at once. They’ll make me pay for Persephone’s interruption. “I don’t think I can walk that far.”

  “It’s walk or die.” Persephone cracks a smile and I can see why Zeus’s brother would fall in love with her. I can see why anyone would fall in love with her. “Not really. It’s walk or this gets even more awkward than it already is.”

  “Where did you send my uncle?”

  The smile transforms into something else—something with a harder edge. “To meet with the priest, like I said. Walk.” It takes her arm in mine to get me to move, my knees giving out with every step.

  “Ten more feet,” she says.

  The door of the SUV opens and a man gets out.

  My hear
t stops.

  The only person I’ve ever seen who is this tall and this beautiful is Zeus. They look nothing alike, not really, but the way he stands reminds me of his brother. It’s the man from the painting, and just like that painting, his eyes are a deep black, like night has overtaken the blue. The animal part of my brain shrieks a warning—danger, danger, danger. It’s danger dressed in more black, black on black, the fabric as fine as what Persephone is wearing. Better, even. A suit made for him like a second skin. It accentuates all the hard lines of him. He’s indestructible. The SUV looks fragile in comparison.

  And his face.

  His eyes don’t travel over mine. They’re watching something behind us with such deadly concentration that it steals the air from my lungs. “Too late,” he says as we come level with the SUV. “So slow. He won’t even see us leave.”

  Hades. I’ve heard about him, but there is nothing so shocking as seeing him in person, out here in the sunlight. He looks like he belongs in a dark shadow. He looks like he would be at ease killing my uncle, or my father, or any number of the people in the cathedral.

  Persephone goes to him and puts her hand in his. He’s so tall, and she’s so delicate, and I can’t see how they can be together. It must be like that with—

  With me and Zeus. But there is no me and Zeus. He made that perfectly clear.

  Hades helps Persephone into the SUV and then offers me his hand, his eyes coming to rest on me for the first time. I wish I could say the shudder was pure fear, but it’s more complicated than that. It’s standing in the presence of a dangerous god. If Zeus is the sun, Hades is the night, and all the dark things that come with it.

  It’s a mistake, this thinking. It’s a mistake to think that Zeus is any less lethal because he’s so golden, with that heartbreaker of a smile. The things Zeus does happen in the daylight.

  I’m staring, and with an impatient hiss Hades helps me into the SUV.

  There’s a dog in here.

  A huge dog, black as night. I wasn’t expecting a dog. Now I have to deal with this monstrosity of a dress and I can’t move. What if it bites me?