Hekate’s Bride

I’m somewhere else today. It is cold. It is dark. I don’t like it here. There is a familiar darkness lurking nearby and I do not need to see to know it is Him.

Hekate.

I turn around, squinting. I can’t make out anything in the darkness, but I can feel an eerie presence around me.

“Where is this?” I say into the darkness and it flickers. A little. Light shimmers from somewhere casting a shadow onto the land beyond. I can make out the shape of a castle, but that’s about it. I’m curious. Very curious. I want to see more.

His voice washes over me, bringing a strange warmth to me in this place that is freezing. I shiver slightly, suffering the sensation of wanting to snuggle something. Someone. “I have visited you. I thought I might show you my… home.”

Home, I ponder. “Why do you keep visiting me? Why bring me here? You wish to kill me like the rest?”

He scoffs and it is the most human sound I have heard him make. “If I wanted to, you’d be long dead and rotten.”

The honesty in his voice has shivers running down my spine and I clench and unclench my fists, rubbing my clammy palms against my clothes–

I peer down. I’m in a black dress I have never seen before. The first thing I do notice is the neckline that is dangerously low and wide. I resist the urge to pull the sides together to cover my very stunning cleavage. I’ve never tried anything this bold but… staring at it right now, I think I just might.

The lacing of the floor length dress is a complicated design and I marvel at the cuts and the stones and… there are too many details to explain what it looks like, so we’ll stick with… I look regal. Regal enough to be mistaken for a Queen.

“You sure love to play dress up, don’t you?” I whisper, half turning in the dress.

“Lorna never got to put it on. She would have loved it as much as you do.”

The words hit me only a moment later and I freeze in place. Lorna? My ancestor? The woman he killed in a cold blooded rage? “This dress was hers?” I choke out.

He holds out his hand… or at least, that’s what I can make out in the darkness. I stare at it and I stare at him. I don’t take it. Goddess knows what he’ll do to me. Where he’ll take me.

“I would never hurt you, Astrid.”

“Yeah. Tell that to the priestesses you killed. Oh. And your father. Maybe your mother. Lorna and her children. Let’s not also forget my friends!” Tears prick my eyes at the memory and even if I cannot see his face clearly, I can tell he is staring at me coolly.

He crosses the space between us and cold fingers wrap around my wrist. It is so cold, it burns. I wince, wrestling with him to get my hand back. “Let go. I don’t want to be here. I want to go back. Send me back!”

It would seem it’ll be my constant fate to be taken to places I do not wish to be around. He yanks me forward, ignoring my screams and outburst of rage. He doesn’t even have to try. I’m a ragged doll being pulled forward by a mindless beast.

I am suddenly shunned when I feel the sensation of being watched. It is everywhere. However, when I look around, I don’t see anyone. The light from the moon is all I can rely on to see around me. I can’t make out sounds. Or people.

“There are people here,” I say and it is more of a statement than it is a question.

“My subjects.”

“Your stupid men, you mean,” I say, struggling to keep up steps with him.

His grip on my wrist tightens, but not enough to hurt me. I do not miss the way he touches me. Like I might shatter. It is completely different from how he was when he visited the first time. Way, way different. “They are not… stupid, as you call it. You will be queen someday. You must learn to speak the proper way.”

“Fuck off. Don’t tell me what to do or how to behave.”

“I shall adhere to that the moment you stop behaving like an infant.”

I blink. He’s calling me a child? My eyes narrow and… thoughts begin to form in my head… the familiarity… it is stark. Yet…

The thoughts leave me quickly. One moment, I’m considering it, the next moment, I have no idea what I was thinking about.

He leads me up a set of steps and we reach the tallest doors I have seen. They are ajar, with two stone-faced, pale looking men standing on either sides of it. Light from torches flicker on their faces and I notice that though they are pale in color, they do not look like I would have imagined the people in the void would look.

They look… just fine.

They incline their heads in greeting toward the Hekate, but when their eyes turn to me, there is brimming hate. The bigger one on the right bares his teeth at me and the Hekate growls softly, causing the man to look away from me sharply.

I am so confused. I’m not sure what I expected to be in the void but the stories that have been told to us since we were children pushed the narrative that there was darkness and suffering. A place of punishment for the Hekate and his men.

But… this place looks relatively normal.

He doesn’t stop walking and pulling me along with him. There are people on the way. A couple of men… and surprisingly women. They stare at me, frowning and I can feel their hate for me. Though, I do not know why. He passes by so many doors, I lose count, and he doesn’t stop until we are alone, in a vast chamber.

I yank my hand from his grip. “Okay. What is going on?”

He turns and the darkness that shrouds him comes off a little.

I see white hair spilling down broad, bare shoulders and–the wall is up again. I hide my frustration behind a cool stare. Why exactly is he hiding behind that? Why am I even curious?

It’s just… he reminds me of Rune. Too much. Sure, his voice is distorted and there’s darkness around him that prevents me from really seeing him… but I know Rune. Even if my eyes were closed and I were unconscious, I’d know when he’s near. It feels like that with the Hekate.

But I know he isn’t Rune. I’ve know the idiot since before I could talk. I’ve known him since he was just a boy. I saw him grow up. Watched and saw the change every year at solstice.

He isn’t Rune. Rune isn’t him.

I feel his stare and I stare right back. For a couple of seconds, we just stand there, staring. It’s kinda freaky. I’m in the same breathing space with the two-thousand year old enemy.

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“How do you find my home?”

The question is unexpected, and his tone is almost friendly. It makes me wary and more scared of what he has planned for me here.

“I don’t care about here, and don’t even try. Just… tell me why you have brought me here, and if this is some scheme to kill–”

“I meant it when I said I would never hurt you.”

I bare my teeth at him. “But you did. You have. You have hurt me and mine. Orion. Tara. My pack. How do I find your home? What do I think of you? I despise you!”

“It is not I who claims them. It is the darkness and it will continue until there is none left. Until my rage is satisfied. It is my curse and it will carry on until my revenge is finished!” He barks at me and my knees wobble with the weight of his rage bearing down on me.

Years of rage and bitterness and hate. Two thousand years of it.

I shouldn’t be able to withstand it. I shouldn’t be on my feet at all.

I snarl viciously. “What curse? Revenge? For what? You were a menace. You killed us and would have continued to do so until there wasn’t anyone left. You deserved your punishment. You were a scourge to be removed and thank the Goddess she removed you!”

The earth shakes as he storms over to where I stand. He stops only when he bearing down on me and his face is inches away from mine. The darkness gives and… I see stormy green eyes that glow and smoulder me like a burning furnace.

“I was born mad. I was a menace. A scourge. Scum. Poison. Pure evil. But she loved me. She cured me.” His voice breaks and I feel the splinter all the way to my soul when he adds, “And they killed her.”