Member-only story
The Captive and the Forbidden Fruit
There are few worse things than a toxic love.
Every morning, she tries to poison the man holding her captive.
But he is too sly, easily cunning in the way of gods who outmaneuver all the poor mortals underneath them. He takes each goblet of wine and smiles before bringing it to his lips. And she always comes away disappointed that he does not fall over from his throne-like chair soon after.
“Nice try,” he says today, wiping away the red stain on his lips. “But you’ll need a lot more than that to kill me.”
She tries to remain expressionless, even frustration makes her bunch her hands in the fabric of her skirt.
That was the original bargain, you see: she needed to kill him to be free again. No other god would stand against her if she managed to do the deed. Until then, however, she was the plaything to whomever he chose.
Thirty mornings, just like this. Thirty nights, always trying to break her before she can see the sun again.
But the game had started long before that. He had courted her as a mortal — his favorite barista in the coffee shop he had frequented on rainy days — and she had been all too charmed by the tall, dark, and handsome stranger who seemed as if he could have undressed her with just a…
