Hades

II

The guards aren't allowed to touch me, which made getting me away from Zeus hard. Eventually the guards from outside were pulling Zeus from me, and suddenly I was alone in the office. It wasn't meant to happen this quickly. Apollo was meant to get married first, then I would be married off a month later. Not tonight. Tonight. I ran to the windows, but they were sealed shut. Zeus knew how I would react to the news, right down to the detail of the knife strapped to my thigh. It was no longer there, in fact anything in the room that could be used to harm was missing.

My knuckles pulsed from where I had slammed them into his face, but it wasn't enough. It never was. When I was in the ring, when I was out. When I was fighting strangers, when I was fighting my blood. It was never enough as long as they had a pulse. I breathed in deeply, my lungs expanding to a point where I thought they would burst. Then I screamed. It wasn't a high pitched girlie scream that I had heard in movies, the sound resembled a broken howl, a wild dog separated from its pack. I threw jabs at the wall, slamming my fists into the wall until they were bloody and I was out of breath. I tore my dress off, deliberately wiping my bloody knuckles on it. I couldn't get married if I didn't have a dress.

I wanted to tear it apart, spit on it, and cake it in mud. But I didn't get to do any of that because the door was wrenched open and one of the guards ran inside. He took one look at my body and stopped. I knew he wasn't expecting what he saw, but it was almost hilarious watching him take in the tattoos, scars and bruises that marred my skin. The dress had covered nearly every inch of my skin stopping only an inch below my chin. But now he could see the tattoos that overed my arms and the side of my neck. Time slowly slid by like sand in an hourglass as he stared at all the markings marring my body, eyeing the one on my sternum the longest.

"You were screaming?" He asked, his eyes finally reaching my face. He had a faint accent, English? Maybe Irish? I took in all the details of his face as I stared at him. He had eyes that resembled the dark clouds that built up when a storm was brewing, with lashes that made the night sky look like a sunset they were so dark. His cheekbones and jawline looked sharper than my throwing knife, covered in a pale, slightly freckled skin. Deep thunder grumbled from his chest as he took a few steps forward, "Are you okay?" His gaze dropped from my face, to my bloodied hands, to the wall behind me that was covered in dents.

The man strode back to the door and muttered something to the other guard before shutting the door behind him. I watched him curiously as he walked over to me, so close that all he would have to do is to take a heaving breath and his chest would scrape mine. But he didn't. He stood extremely still, a hurricane staring down at me. I knew he saw the lightning storm that was taking place in my eyes, the rain almost overflowing from my eyes.

Gently, almost as if it wasn't there, he scraped his calloused thumb over the back of my left hand, spreading the blood over my tan skin. He was touching me. He was touching me and there was no one here to stop him. To stop me. But I didn't do anything other than stare at him, entranced with his boldness. No one had touched me for longer than a few seconds for over five years. And I didn't want him to stop, but the sound of a hard fist hitting the door broke the trance.

I slumped against the wall as he strode to the door, thinking that he was going to leave me trapped in this hell, but he returned with white material draped across his arms. It was another white dress, this one different to the bloodstained ruins that surrounded my feet. "They want you to put this on." The thunder grumbled, unzipping the dress for me to step into. I breathed deeply before placing a hand on his shoulder for balance as I stepped into the pool of material, feeling defeated already. The man slid it up my body slowly, his hands grazing my legs, my hips, my waist. He helped me slide one of my arms through the spaghetti strap, then the other. Slowly, he zipped it up, sealing my fate with it.