Page 74 of Where Darkness Bloomed
He hauled her to the bed, moving with mechanical purpose. No guiseof tenderness or affection, just an empty ritual of ownership fueled by rage and possession. He didn’t bother undressing her, jerking her skirts aside. And then he was on her, moving hard and fast, fury and lust tangling like snakes.
Her body endured, but her spirit drifted away.
She slipped free of herself, leaving him and the stifling room, the heat of his panting breath at her neck. Away from the ache in her body, the burn of hatred inside.
She drifted far—far enough to hear Andromache’s soul screaming from her chambers, to feel the weight of Hector’s broken body as it fell to the earth. Far enough to see the sunlight catching the shorn hair of Achilles’s scalp. Far enough to feel the grief that had bent him low over Patroclus’s corpse.
When it was over, Paris rose and adjusted his tunic briskly. Helen lay still, fingers tangled in the wrinkled bedclothes, her cheek against the fabric. Even her hatred, hot and thick in her gut, felt too tired to rouse.
The silence was oppressive, until Paris’s voice broke it, low and dark—
“He watches you.”
Her breath hitched softly against the blanket. She didn’t need to ask who.
Schooling her expression into calm indifference, Helen pushed herself upright on the bed. “He watches everyone,” she replied mildly.
Paris’s face twisted, darkening with suspicion. “Not like he watches you,” he spat accusingly. “He wants to take you from me. He wants you for himself.”
Helen said nothing, not trusting her voice.
. . . take you from me.
. . . wants you for himself.
She was a possession, spoils of war. A body to be claimed, fought over and desecrated—not a soul to be seen. Only flesh to covet.
Paris stepped closer, menace bleeding from his every movement. “He thinks you’ll warm his bed once he’s dragged my corpse through the dust. He stares like he owns you already.”
His eyes glittered, fever-bright.
“They say he fucks men and women alike. Did you know that?”
She didn’t flinch, keeping her face blank, calm. Stillness was her shield, silence her weapon.
Paris’s expression turned lupine, vicious, and the words flung like spears. “They say he wept like a widow for his dead companion, refusing the pyre.Achilles, the mighty son of Thetis, lying beside a bloated corpse like a mongrel beside a carcass.”
Something quietly broke inside her. A thorn of pain, sharp and clean, piercing deep into her chest.
Her voice emerged suddenly, before she could bite it back.
“Then he must have loved fiercely.”
The words dropped between them like a stone into deep water— heavy, swallowed by the stillness.
Paris’s eyes widened, surprise flaring, then curdling into something darker. His hand lashed out, fingers iron-strong as they gripped her arm, bruising deep.
A wild gleam lit his eyes. “You aremine,” he hissed.
She said nothing. Hatred simmered under her skin, searing her insides. But her survival instinct was stronger, carefully honed. As it had been since her earliest brush with men.
So she let the fury sink beneath the surface. Let it drown in ice. She smoothed her face into gentle lines, softened her lips into a bland smile—a mask of docility worn like armor. And she nodded, a practiced motion. A lie, beautifully told.
The black ire in Paris’s gaze didn’t fade, it transformed. It sank inward, malevolence coiling around itself like a creature of scales and venom. His mouth curved like a serpent’s, a smile that hid fangs.
She stood still as he lifted a hand, dragging a finger along her jaw—slow, too gently. There was a tremble of something unstable beneath his touch. A blade pressed flat to skin, but ready to turn.
“You will be there when I kill him.”
