He wasn’t made for the shadows. Adonis was the sort of man who deserved to bask underneath the sunlight. He ought to have shined as it shined, radiating with confidence and beauty that made others gape as he walked by. The goddess of love was supposed to collapse at his feet and worship him, her knees getting bruised and her perfect tongue sliding up and down the shaft. It was destiny.

But destiny was sometimes ignored in favor of whims.

And so, Adonis confined himself to the darkness – watching, watching, always watching. He learned to creep and skulk and strike like an adder from behind. Death hung on his shoulders instead of beauty, but that made him all the more perfect. All of this he could accept, all of this he could endure if only the goddess of love had ever looked his way. Instead, she entertained herself with filth, forsaking his golden glow for a man who bathed in blood with hair like a sword-blade.

Fingers longing for her thighs curled in and dug into his palms. How he yearned for her body and attention, and how spurned he felt when ignored. She should have felt his presence as he watched her from corners. She should have felt the heat of his desire and turned to engulf it. She should have wanted him this much, and he had no business pursuing her for it.

But there he was, watching. Watching, watching, always watching.

He’d seen the waltz she’d danced before her bed. He’d seen the pearls and diamonds she’d hung on her ears. He’d seen the braid she’d wound down her back. He’d seen the dress held up to her form. He’d seen the way she stopped she caught sight of something that didn’t quite belong.

And then he saw her open the note left upon her pillow.

What’s mine and gold and red all over?

He crept behind her with stealth he’d never been meant for but performed without flaw. He inched nearer and nearer as her hands began to shake. He couldn’t see her impeccable face, but he imagined how her blue-gold eyes widened, how the crimson in her lips shone out against her paling face, how they opened in a curved ‘o’ for the gasp that he would never allow to pass.

The piano wire wound ‘round her neck.

The letter fluttered to the ground, a feather fallen from a wing. Her arms moved and jerked in a death-dance, and they moved together, a pair of them on the edge of life and whatever else there was. She sang through a constricted throat, her back arching and head tilted back. He pushed against her and moaned with ecstasy only meant for sex and vengeance.

He died when she died, but he kept on breathing.

The wire came back bloody; it had gone through her skin. He let her fall upon the bed and saw her violent life-blood coating her breasts and the front of her dress. His eyes ran over curves he was so familiar with, although they looked smaller close up. He searched for moles that were suddenly gone, finding one on her chest he hadn’t seen before. He sought out her eyes, desperate to know what it was like to have her finally see him.

And then he realized.

It wasn’t her.