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To everyone who loves MESS. This one’s for you.
I prefer it that way. My beauty makes people uncomfortable. Wary. My new husband won’t know what hit him.
From the moment I saw her, I’ve hated her and wanted her in equal measures.
“Cold feet, Husband,” she murmurs. “No colder than your heart,” I snap.
No. Damn it, no. I am not some weak princess, married off against her will. This wedding is by my design. If this were a story, I’d be the cunning queen, or even the evil witch. I am not helpless and I am not innocent.
He was so panicked at the thought of me having Pandora, he didn’t even stop to wonder how he was able to get past my doorman and my door. Foolish man. He’s playing in the deep end now, and he obviously doesn’t know how to swim.
HEPHAESTUS: DISAPPOINTING OLYMPUS AND HIS NEW WIFE. “Fuck,” I breathe. It doesn’t get better as I read the actual text of the article. Hephaestus and Aphrodite might have left their reception together, but they didn’t stay there. After what we can only assume was an underwhelming performance, Aphrodite was seen slipping into a certain club in the lower city. If you know, you know! Then this morning she posted a sultry pic with a mystery lover in the background who’s most assuredly not her husband. Can anyone blame her?
Ariadne is lounging on the couch with her head in her brother’s lap. She’s about my size with light-brown skin and long dark hair. Truly, we look enough alike to almost be real sisters, or at least that’s what everyone says. She’s in her home clothing—leggings and an oversized hoodie that must belong to the Minotaur.
Icarus is the opposite of Theseus and the Minotaur in every way. He shares his sister’s coloring and is lean to the point of being skinny, with delicate features and dark curly hair that somehow always seems to misbehave. It must be intentional, if only because it irritates Minos to have even a thread out of place, but Icarus is a study in underachieving. While it’s entirely possible that keeping his hair regularly trimmed and styled is merely too much effort, I suspect it’s one of a long string of rebellions against his father.
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Honey, no one is allowed on that throne except them. It sits empty on the nights they aren’t down here.” From the rumors I hear, it sits empty more and more often lately. It’s enough to make one wonder if their honeymoon period has worn off so quickly.
Everything about her is a nightmare in how perfect it is. A harpy in the body of a nymph. She was sent to destroy me, but I’m going to destroy her first.
Hephaestus: Meet me at my place. I stare at the text for a long moment. Agreeing to help him was a mistake. I knew it going in, and what I found this morning only confirms it. I can’t take this man’s word for anything. Continuing this charade where I give him advice to help him undermine Eris’s—no, Aphrodite’s—plan to thwart the enemy? It skirts the line of making me a traitor.
“That’s just it, Husband.” She smiles sweetly, only the tiniest edge present. “I’m the only one who gets to kill you. I’ll bury anyone else who tries.”
I knew I didn’t want her dead, but it’s not until she passes out in my arms that I realize exactly how much I want her alive and with me.
