❛THEY WOULD TELL YOU OF A KING WHO STOLE ME HELPLESS FROM MY SUNSHINE GARDEN.❜
They won't tell you about the woman who came to him sublime, lily eyes and lily lips. A king does not ask permission from his prize, but she, oh she, she knelt, kissing m...
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[TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER MAY BE UPSETTING TO SOME READERS. IT'S ALRIGHT IF YOU PREFER TO SKIP, THE LAST PARAGRAPH SUMMARIZES THE CHAPTER :( ]
ROYAL CHAMBERS, THE UNDERWORLD.
PERSEPHONE
EVERYTHING HURT.
Everything that touched me was pain.
It was unyielding, restless, fitful - the blanket of sleep haunting what I was, where I was. It ached all over. It hurt all over. It simply refused to leave.
My body was a thing not of this world.
I could feel them - feel the spasms rocking it. Feel it shake and writhe and twist and contort, feel it stretching, stretching, stretching... trying to accommodate. Trying to be more. Trying to adjust even as whatever it was that brought him back was much, much more than anything I had to give - and that the cost of it was being wrecked all over my body - hurting it, punishing it, twisting it. As if demanding it to give back what it took - took when I grasped at his palms and pulled him over from that brink of death. As if him being a god had cost me - had cost us.... our baby.
Another spasm.
And then, my stomach roiled - toes curling even as my skin threatened to stretch, to tear, to turn completely inside out. The weary, bone deep ache was settling in fast, leaving me unable to even move, or open my eyes, or speak.
My throat felt like sandpaper. Even swallowing - just once, was a mistake - it felt like a thousand needles were lodged in there, prickling and prodding and probing even with the slightest of moments.
There were people around me, I realised. Movement in the room. Something cool on my head. And - hands. Hands clawing on the sheet beneath me. Silk sheets that felt like a bed of sand.
The baby - the baby the baby the baby.
Some sort of sound left my lips.
Someone moved to place a hand on my brow, touch oddly familiar. A moment later, the wet, cool thing moved. I cried out, back arching. Please. Please. It was replaced by something soft, colder than before... the scrape of metal somewhere in the room rang into my ears as hands busied themselves at the strings of my petticoat.
No. No. Please no.
I tried to clutch at those hands, those familiar hands - begging. No.
There was something warm, something slippery pooling between my legs, even as I gripped those fingers harder. No, no, no.
"Gods. Gods - she's lost too much blood already," a female murmured somewhere above me, regret lining her words like a coat of heavy velvet. "Get some more cloths, do it quickly-"
