“I cannot wait to be officially yours either,” I said, and a rare smile spread on his lips. As I settled back down in his arms, that smile grew wider. The iPod switched albums, and Johnny Cash’s “I Won’t Back Down” began to play. With his chin on my shoulder and his arms around my waist, Styx began to sing to me.
And he sang each of the lyrics stutter free, his words clear and strong. Hidden tears built in my eyes as I listened to his deep, rough voice singing the hauntingly appropriate lyrics. My strong, hard fiancé, who could only communicate by song or sign, paralyzed by the spoken word, so perfect in my heart.
So as the tears fell silently into the bath water, I listened to him sing. For once in his life, his trapped voice was set free from its cage.
And, for a while, so was he.
Chapter Five
Styx
One week until the wedding . . .
The brothers were in the yard behind me. I could hear the Stones playing and my brothers laughing and fucking joking around. Phebe was back. AK was back to his usual self. Life was back to normal for a while.
I was sitting on the bench in front of Hades and Persephone’s mural. My Fender was in my hands, a smoke was in my mouth, and bourbon sat to my side.
As always, Waits came from my guitar strings as I inhaled deep breaths of tobacco. My fingers played my favorite song, the one that always reminded me of Mae. “Again,” she’d said that first night she’d awoken in the compound. I’d opened my eyes, as I’d played alone in the bar, to see her before me, my fucking dream come true, speaking in that weird accent she still had. “. . . please, play it again. I very much enjoyed hearing your voice,” she’d begged, nose twitching, her ice-blue eyes wide from nerves.
A smirk came to my lips thinking of those days. So fucking much had happened since then. Even more was happening now. The cartels and the Diablos were back on our radar. Garcia had raised his ugly head after all these fucking years. But all that shit was pushed aside for now, until after next weekend.
I hadn’t told her. Mae still didn’t know what was bothering me. She’d given me the space I needed. And being the perfect bitch she was, she hadn’t pushed. She’d fucking loved me, fucked me, been there for me, but said fuck-all since the night she’d tried to talk to me and my throat had closed so tight I’d had no fucking words.
I tipped my head back and looked at the stars above. I couldn’t fucking say my vows. I knew that now. Ky had tried. For the past several weeks, he’d tried shitty idea after shitty idea until, two nights ago, I’d turned around and told him to finally call it quits. He hadn’t wanted to, of course. But there was fucking no point. I was a motherfucking mute and that was that. I’d been this way my entire life. Nothing would change it.
“Suck my cock, asshole!” Vike called out, his voice cutting through the Stones’s “Paint it Black.” I shook my head and looked back at the mural.
Three Waits songs later, the clubhouse door opened and Mae stepped outside. She’d been gone all day with her sisters. Wedding planning and shit. I had no fucking clue. I left them to it.
Lilah, Grace, Phebe, Sapphira, Maddie, and Bella followed her outside. They were all laughing and joking . . . and they were all fucking free. Mae’s arm was linked through Bella’s. As if sensing me watching her in the dark, Mae turned my way and stilled.
When her sisters saw me, Mae told them something and headed toward me. The other cult bitches left, I assumed, to go find their men in the yard. Bella watched Mae come my way. She smiled at me, a huge fucking smile, then left for the yard too. I had no idea what that was about.
“Styx?” Mae said as she approached. She wore jeans and a tank with a leather jacket over the top. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, and she looked fucking stunning. Hades’s face was stretched over her stomach. She ran her hand through my hair. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
I put my guitar down and took Mae’s hand. I pulled her down on my knee and wrapped my arms around her. She laughed as I kissed her neck, then grew silent as she stared at the mural. Nudging my chest with her shoulder, she said, “I remember that night you showed me this mural. The night you told me about Persephone falling in love with the dark lord. How no one could understand how the goddess of spring loved him, wanted to be by his side.” She smiled and turned her face to me. I was instantly fucking trapped in her wolf stare. “But I could.” Mae laid her head back on my shoulder. “I could see how Persephone fell in love with him. Hades was strong and dark, scary and brutal to most.” Mae’s hand threaded through mine. “But to her, he was kind and strong and protective. He showed her a world she could never imagine. He showed her his heart and she, in turn, gave him hers.”
Mae’s eyes were glittering when she looked back at me, and I took her lips. When I pulled back, I lifted my hand. “She’s still you to me,” I signed and pointed to the mural, to Persephone with her jet-black hair and her ice-blue eyes.
“And Hades is still you to me,” she said and shifted on my lap. She faced me. Her eyes searched mine then, taking my hands, she whispered, “I know what it is.” I tensed and watched her eyes fill with sympathy. Her thumbs ran over my hands, the only tools I had to communicate. Mae brought them to her mouth and kissed the tattooed skin. She pressed them against her cheeks. “I know the war you have been battling in silence.” She let out a laugh that held fuck-all humor. “I worried for a time that you no longer wanted to marry me.” I was sitting up, ready to pull back my hands and tell her she was fucking wrong, when she tightened her grip. “But then I watched you. I watched you struggle to speak. Speak even to me, to Ky.” A fucking fat tear spilled from Mae’s eye and dropped to my arm.
“And then I knew that it was about the wedding.” Mae dropped my hands and straddled my thighs, her face right before mine. In seconds, her hands were on my cheeks. The python was back, squeezing my throat. And my heart was beating too fucking fast. “There is no need for pride between us, River. There is no sin nor any perceived weakness that will make me love you less. In fact, helping you with your burdens welcomes you into my heart even more.”
I looked away, but her hands on my face brought me back to her. “When you learned of my past . . .” Her breathing hitched. “When you learned of the scars between my legs, you did not shame me. You did not blame me for what I now understand was not my fault. But instead, you held me. You held me and loved me and made me feel safe.”
Mae leaned forward, kissed my fucking Adam’s apple, and reared back. “In a week we shall marry in front of our friends and family. And I want you to be the man you are now.” Mae took my hands again, and she fucking smiled, destroying me where I sat. “I want you to promise yourself to me, but I will not see your pride and dignity jeopardized simply for the unnecessary sacrifice of words.” Mae dropped my hands and I put them on her waist. “I will see you sign your promises to me, and I will accept them just as readily as if you had shouted them from the gates of heaven itself.” Her head tipped to the side. “You are my River, my Styx, and next week you will be my husband. However that is declared is no issue to me.”
I dropped my head and worked real fucking hard on not being a weeping pussy. I took a deep breath and swallowed back the tightness from my throat. “I . . .” I gritted my teeth and tried again. “I j-just wanted t-t-to f-f-fuckin’ t-talk.”
Mae sighed and shook her head. “It matters not, baby. As long as you are there and we walk away married and forever joined, that is all I could ever dream.”
My shoulders sagged, and when I saw the truth in her eyes, a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. “Y-you don’t c-care?”
Mae shook her head and pressed her forehead against mine. “Not at all.” She moved back, kissed my mouth, and whispered, “You talk with both your hands and your mouth. I know that and accept that, and so do your brothers. It is only you that wants this so badly.”
I nodded and sat up straight, putting my hand on the back of Mae’
s head. “Fuckin’ love you,” I said, and fuck me, but I said it without a stutter.
Mae wiped a tear from her face. “I love you too.”
I kissed her. I fucking took her mouth and made her mine again. When we pulled back, Mae handed me the Fender. “Play for me,” she said and moved to sit on the bench beside me. I held the guitar and Mae laid her head on my shoulder and her hand on her stomach.
My lips twitched, and I played the song she kept singing around the house. A perfect fucking song for my wolf-eyed bitch: Johnny Cash’s “First Time Ever I saw Your Face.”
My fingers strummed the strings and the words poured from my mouth. Mae’s free hand touched my thigh as I sang the whole fucking thing. As the final lyrics left my mouth and the silence became thick, Mae fucking blew my world apart. “We are having a boy.”
My hands froze on the neck of my Fender, stilled on the strings, and I snapped my head to Mae. My heart was a fucking cannon in my chest as Mae lifted her head and, with tears running down her pale cheeks, smiled and fucking laughed with happiness. “I had a sonogram today. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“A-A . . .” I closed my eyes and fucking pulled my shit together. “A b-boy?”
“Yes.”
The minute she said the word, I put my guitar down and pulled her into my arms. Her hands gripped my neck, and I pressed my hands on her stomach. “A f-f-fuckin’ boy,” I breathed and couldn’t stop the fucking smile that pulled on my lips.
“A son,” Mae whispered, and she put her hands over mine on her stomach. “We are having a baby boy, River.” I looked up, not knowing what the hell to do next, and she said, “A boy just like his father.” Her fingers brushed past my eyes. “Just like you. My River, my Styx.”
“Fuck,” I whispered and Mae laughed out loud.
“He will be strong like you and brave and kind.”
“Ch-Charon,” I said and watched Mae’s eyes cloud in confusion. “The n-name. Charon. Th-the b-boatman of the R-r-river Styx.”
“Charon,” Mae said and nodded. “It is perfect. Just like his daddy. Like this club. His heritage . . . his home.”
So kissed her again, my kid—my fucking son—in her stomach between us. And as she settled back into my arms, both of us staring at the mural, I prayed to Hades that my boy wouldn’t have this fucking speech shit to deal with.
Mae wanted him to be just like me. But I wanted him to be like her. Strong. Perfect. My whole fucking world.
Styx, Mae, and Charon.
The python left me momentarily, my fucking throat felt free, and I didn’t stutter to Mae that night.
Not fucking once.
Chapter Six
Mae
The wedding day . . .
“There.” Beauty moved back to inspect her work. “Well, shit, darlin’. I never thought you could be more beautiful than you already were. But I was wrong.”
I took a deep breath when all my sisters gathered around me. They all looked stunning. Beauty had done their hair and makeup too. They wore their hair down, and their makeup was soft and delicate, just like my own. “You all look so beautiful,” I whispered, working hard on not allowing any tears to fall from my eyes.
Bella bent down and kissed my head. “It is almost time.”
I inhaled deeply then nodded. I rose to my feet, and Beauty came around me with the veil. She stood on tiptoes and pushed it into my hair. Bella, Maddie, and Lilah fanned it around my dress, and they all moved back. A large mirror stood before me, and I stared at the woman looking back at me.
I could not believe this day was finally here.
Beauty laid her hands on my shoulders and smiled. “I’ll go and take my seat now, Mae.”
Sudden nerves accosted me when I realized that the ceremony was just around the corner. Beauty left the room, but I still could not tear my attention away from my reflection. We were in one of the rooms in the clubhouse—Ky’s. The ceremony was happening in the yard. We had spent the past few days decorating the area with whites and blues. Pastor Ellis from Lilah’s church was conducting the ceremony. I adored her. Delayed the wedding a month just so I could have her conduct this day.
“You ready, Mae?” Lilah came to stand beside me. I looked at my friend and nodded my head.
“It feels strange,” I whispered and shook my head. “Like I have waited my entire life for this moment. Like everything I went through, all of it, the trials and tribulations, the joy and the pain, was all worth it because it brought me here to this exact moment.” I laughed. “To marry the boy I met behind the fence all those years ago. On the worst day of my life, he appeared like a dark angel. My dark angel.”
Lilah smiled, and I knew it was because she felt the same way about Ky.
Maddie handed me my bouquet of flowers. They were white to match my dress. Blue flowers were sporadically placed amongst the white to complement the bridesmaids’ dresses and, of course, my eyes.
“He will not be able to believe his eyes when he sees you,” Maddie said. Bella stood beside Maddie. My two blood sisters, one green-eyed, one with ice-blue eyes like mine. I stared at Bella for a moment. She was my miracle. Risen from the dead and here to witness this day.
Maddie had married Flame in private, and Bella had married Rider at New Zion. I hadn’t gotten the chance to witness their weddings. But then I looked to Lilah and prayed that my ceremony was as perfect as hers.
“It will be,” she said, reading my mind. “You are marrying Styx. Even if hell itself ascended and fiery storms tore this compound apart, you would still feel this day was perfect. Because on this day, your heart forever melds with his. Your River.”
“It was always him, you know?” I whispered and lowered my eyes to stare at the bouquet. “I found my soul mate at age eight. And here we are, about to be joined all these years later.”
“With baby Charon watching from his seat in heaven until he joins you in this world,” Maddie said and a lump blocked my throat. I nodded, unable to speak.
“Mama? When do I get to throw the flowers?” Grace asked from the back of the room.
Lilah turned to her daughter. “Soon, Grace.” She waved her hand. “Come here, baby.”
Grace went to Lilah and held her hand. As I looked at the reflection before us, I saw a picture. A family picture of love and loss, but mostly endurance and survival. “I am honored that I have you all standing here with me.”
“Mae,” Bella murmured and I saw her flick a tear from her eye.
“It is true. All of us were deemed evil, seductresses of men. All of us were hurt because of our faces.” I shook my head. “But as I look at us now, I see no cursed women of Eve. I see four women who are blessed, who are loved and love in return. Enriching the lives of their sisters, friends, and husbands.” I smiled at Grace, who was watching, wide eyed. “And children.”
“And it is because of you,” Maddie said softly. I turned to face her. Her cheeks flushed and she shrugged. “It is true. You were the one to find the courage to flee the only world we had ever known. And you returned for us, pulling us from the pits of darkness too.”
“No matter how unwillingly,” Lilah joked and I laughed. “But it was a blessing I did not expect.” She hugged Grace closer to her side as she ran her hand over her wedding band. “I did not know that life could be this beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I said, remembering the day I fled, the day of my wedding to the prophet. Hounds and disciple guards chased me to the fence. And then I broke through, hitched a ride and found myself at the Hades Hangmen compound . . . and back to the boy who had stolen both my first kiss and my heart.
River.
“I love you all,” I said, and heard my voice break. My eyes shimmered and blinked as I tried desperately to rid them of tears. I did not want to ruin Beauty’s hard work.
A knock came on the door, and the knob turned. Elysia, Ky’s sister, stuck her head through, all curly
blond hair and blue eyes. “I’ve been told to come and get y’all,” she said then stopped dead in the doorway. “Hell, Mae, you look beautiful.” She smiled and waggled her brows. “Styx is gonna lose his shit when he sees you.” I laughed at Sia. She was funny, like Ky, and just as gorgeous.
“Y’all make stunning bridesmaids too, ladies,” she said and winked at Lilah.
“What about me, Aunt Sia?” Grace said and held out her arms to show off her dress.
Sia gasped. “Well you’re the most beautiful of all, Gracie Bell,” she said dramatically. “Hell, I thought that just went without saying.” Grace smiled smugly, and Sia looked at me. “Stephen’s out here ready to walk you down the aisle. And Styx is already waiting at the altar.”
“He is?” I asked, feeling butterflies swarm in my stomach.
Sia nodded excitedly. “And I gotta tell ya, girl. Styx is like another brother to me, but jeez, he looks as handsome as all hell out there, all spiffed up and fancy. You’re gonna be all over that shit when you see him.”
“Sia!” Lilah scolded, but fought hard to hold back her laugh.
“What? It’s true!” She tapped the edge of the door. “I’ll be waiting by the main doors.” She met my eyes. “Good luck, doll.” She left and I held my bouquet more tightly.
Bella’s arm linked through mine. “Are you ready, sister?”
“Yes,” I said and felt the strength of that answer all the way to my bones.
Lilah and Grace led the way out toward the yard. Maddie went next, then Bella, then me.
When I hit the hallway, I saw Stephen, my father, turn as he waited by the closed doors to the yard. He was dressed in a tux—the only attendee that would be. He had told me he had wanted to do this right.