The metallic fragrance of blood assaulted her nostrils with its putrid stench. Most women smelled exotic spices and fragrances on their wedding day, Helen had no such luck. Why does it continue to haunt me? Deiphobus stood beside her, erect with a giant smile on his face. How can he be smiling when his brothers are dead and his armies lay about on the battlefield with their corpses decorating the beach?
Helen found him disgusting. A man, so quick to take his brother's wife, when he was not yet cold in the grave was not a man at all. He glanced in her direction with leering eyes that sent fear through her being. Marriage felt like chains upon her swan-like neck, just as it had when she was married to Menelaus.
She cursed her beauty; it was as disdainful as the war that carried on outside the walls, staining them scarlet. She cursed the poisonous lips that sealed her fate, the priest was solemn and mumbled his words halfheartedly. It was unlike her and Paris's wedding, a joyous and a spiteful gesture to the Greeks. Now, there was silence and hateful glances toward her person. Priam did not look at her.
His eyes were shut as if he was blocking out the world around him. His beard was gray and the dreaded lines of age were vengeful upon his face. Guilt stabbed her like the ridged blade of a dagger. Paris, how could our love, so innocent and pure in its intentions cause so much strife, Helen thought tearfully. She turned on her heel back to Deiphobus. He was suddenly a much more pleasant sight.
"Come my bride," Deiphobus's voice was gruff with desire. Color drained itself from Helen's face. She followed him dutifully to his chambers wishing the sounds of war on the outside could drown her thoughts.
He undressed quickly and enthusiastically while Helen undid her garments slowly. Her icy blue eyes were not on him, but the floor below her.
"Look at me." He asked her.
She could not. His face screwed up in anger and he grabbed her by her chin roughly. His lustful, cloudy grey gaze seared itself into her.
"Even if you do not give yourself to me willingly, I will take what is rightfully mine."
She shivered with fear but held eye contact defiantly.
"What is yours has already belonged to Paris." She whispered.
He roared with indignation and grabbed at her creamy, white neck, throwing her on the silk sheets. Everything about his body was hard unlike Paris, whose soft skin rivaled her own. As he spread her legs, she braved herself and let out a blood-curdling scream as he finally entered her. With each thrust, she was ripped at the seams. She cried into the mattress, her sobs muffled. No one came to her aid, no matter how loud she screamed. A pox on the city of Troy, she thought through her tears.
---
The days passed on as a blur of nothingness. After the first night, she did not try to fight him and have him what he wished, spitefully laying limp as she did so. Deiphobus would curse and smack her, but to no avail. He eventually realized his actions were futile and used other women for his animalistic urges. He forced Helen to watch and she watched them, with half lidded eyes of hatred.
Only when her husband was on the battlefield did she finally obtain peace. All that resided in Priam's palace avoided her as if she was plagued, with the occasional servant indulging her whims with blank faces and eyes alight with loathing. She was more than content to do such menial tasks herself than to look into the eyes of the wives whose husbands she had involuntarily killed.
This left her to her thoughts and memories of the tender Paris and, unfortunately, of the day she last saw him.
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YOU ARE READING
Abaddon (BoyxBoy)
Historical Fiction"His mother has named him Abaddon." "What mother would be cruel enough to name him such a thing?" "Helen of Troy." Helen of Troy, viciously taken by Deiphobus, brother of Paris, to be his wife, births a babe of the Trojan lineage and sends him away...