A God's Mercy (Apollo x OC)

Chapter 19

Aegeus was not a married man. He had a bride once, but she was stolen away by another man. It wasn't her fault.
That man, later, was found and promptly executed. But some laborers came and took all his wife's things. Her vanity table, her clothes, her loom. All trace of her, in one day, gone. And Aegeus just stood by, watching. Then they left, and the house was empty. He never saw his wife again.
Time had passed so quickly. Yesterday, he was nothing more than a youth, a trainee. Now he was a man who shaved regularly. Yes, he certainly wasn't young anymore, but he wasn't old either. Usually, when he walked the streets of Athens, the girls who peaked behind their curtains would look at him and think, "I could do worse than that one." He knew that.

However, this was obviously not one of those times.

She wasn't sure what to do. For a moment, she didn't feel any specific reaction, as if her brain was outright rejecting what was happening. His skin was rough and peppered with stubble, which scraped, course like wire against Melantriche's. His lips felt hot, bulbous... wet against her own, like 2 pupae smooshed together. Then the alarm hit her and she began to squirm, her hands reaching to push his own away. But his grip might as well have been reinforced with iron, that his fingers only tightened into her shoulder's skin when she scratched. What this what a kiss felt like?

Finally he pulled away, and Melantriche felt extremely sick—so sick that she feared for a moment that she wouldn't be able to hold down the bile starting to rise in her throat and therefore make a complete fool of both of them. She clamped a hand over her mouth, reeled forward, expecting the burning vomit to burst forth but something was immediately wrong. Her teeth were still clamped shut, but it was... sticky and rigid, like she couldn't pull them apart. Her tongue prodded the inside of her jaws and tasted bittersweet wax. For some reason it was hard, ridiculously hard, like concrete that had dried over her teeth and glued them together. Melantriche screamed inside her mouth. Again and again, she grunted as she began to try to pull her jaws apart, but no amount of force would pry them away from each other. Her jaw clenched at the excess of it and she stopped. If she kept going like this, she'd pull all her teeth out.
She could still part her lips though. Frantically, she started scraping at the wax covering with her fingernails, but that turned out to be a lost cause as well. A sharp stinging sensation. Her hand reeled away and Melantriche squinted at it. Immediately the chinks in the wax caught underneath her nails and split them. Dark blood was began to ooze out from her nail. Ow. She couldn't put it back in to suck the wound, and that made the situation all the more deplorable. As bubbly mix of terror and frustration churned rapidly in Melantriche's stomach, she felt hot tears starting to build. What was this?

"Is it so surprising? Revolting?" Aegeus sneered behind her. Melantriche's head whirled around, her lips pressed together. Did he think this was a reaction from the kiss? Didn't he see? Couldn't he taste it? There was a strange anger in his eyes. Well, what was he expecting in the first place?! Still, he stepped forward, and Melantriche stepped backwards.

"It's because of you that we work so hard to protect. Still, it's a lost cause. You'll always spit on men like me, like your damned slave girl in Brauron. Common blood like us, we could sacrifice our own souls for you but it wouldn't be worth shit. Isn't that so?"

That bubbling terror and frustration began to rise. She was crying now, silently. She wanted to ask him if he could really be so naive. If he truly believed that she wanted any of this, that she wouldn't rather march straight back to Athens than to endure this torture. But her mouth is not her own. Like everything else, the choice has been made for her. She couldn't help her trembling; his tone was loud and sharp—shocking, compared to his former stoicism—and what was worse, she was completely alone with him. Her eyes darted frantically along the angles of the alley. Not a person in sight, no one to cry for help from, and it was long and very dark. Melantriche wasn't at all athletically inclined; Aglaia yanking her along in the night had been proof enough of that. No doubt Aegeus would catch her before she was halfway down the alley.

He stalked forward the way a mountain lion would, eyes darting to and fro her shoulders and her breasts. She shivered, feeling the urge to run but she couldn't. Whether it was because she was paralyzed or too scared to even bother trying, she didn't know but... she just... stood there as his hand shot out and seized her straight by the neck.

She squealed, feeling as though someone had shoved a cushion down her windpipe. She clawed helplessly at his rough hands, parted her lips so that he could see the magically cursed wax that sealed her mouth shut, but he was too busy sweeping his gaze up and down her tiny body. Oh no.

"Well, you're ripe, that's for sure." He muttered to himself, a hand snaking from his side to catch her left breast, and she made a choked noise. "Beyond me why they didn't marry you off back in Athens." He continued to squeeze her cruelly, uttering a low, chilling chuckle. That gave Melantriche all the boost she needed to wrench herself out of Aegeus' grasp, only to trip backwards and fall on her behind. She scrambled backwards on the flat of her palms but Aegeus came down upon her with such ease it horrified her. He kneeled down and grabbed at her wrists, so skinny compared to his own thick sinewy ones and pinned her to the filth of the street. There was a cold glint in his eyes as he reached down and, as if it were made of paper, ripped away all the wool covering her chest. The cold air against her shamefully bared breasts snagged whatever breath Melantriche still had. Hot tears seared her already shame-red cheeks as she squirmed and bleated mutely underneath him, feeling so sick to her stomach she thought she might die.
Aegeus leaned back to admire the view, a hot breath sweeping out from beneath his lips.

"Never seen nips like these," he whispered. He stared at her, a pathetic crying mess wriggling in the dirt. He frowned.

"You won't scream for help?"

She would scream for help if she could, or plead him to have mercy on her. He had an obligation to her father, in the very least. How would Aegeus hold his head up high when word reached him that he'd raped his only daughter? They would find him for sure and then they'd execute him. It made no sense. This must be some sort of sick punishment from the gods. Because she was blasphemous. Because she was a coward. Because she ran away.
He started to laugh.

"Because you like this?" His grip tightened around her breast. He cruelly pinched her nipple, eliciting a whimper from the girl. "Or because you feel sorry? You slut."

Melantriche wasn't sure she could take anymore of this. For some reason, everything else seemed very dark and she felt nauseous, dizzy, like she might fall through the ground. She squeezed her wet lids shut. It would be painful, and humiliating, surely. No man would ever look her in the face again after this.

She felt his stomach suddenly stiffen.

"What?" His voice was suddenly sharp but raspy compared to what it was a moment ago. "Who's that?"

"No, she won't. Because I won't allow her."

—————
Ca-pow! Another update. Fantastico. Actually I didn't realize the update would be this long. Originally it was meant to be shorter but oh well. Teehee. Wonder who's gonna intervene, though y'all can guess.