Chapter XVII: Hades

CHAPTER XVII

HADES

They left the island of Lemnos, and as soon as they appeared in the Underworld, Hades took Persephone into his arms and kissed her. She tasted divine and she smelled so sweet, and the longer he kissed her, the more his chest tightened, and the more he wanted to part her perfect thighs and bury himself inside her perfect body. He would take his time and warm her body slowly, pleasing her to the beat of her heart, the sound of her breath, and when he slid inside her, her heat would set his entire body on fire.

Fuck, she would feel so good.

He pulled away to meet her gaze.

“What was that for?”

“You defended me to Aphrodite,” he said. “I am thankful.”

When she smiled, it warmed his chest, but he recalled her anger just before they’d entered Aphrodite’s house and frowned.

“I hurt your feelings.”

At his comment, it was like he stole her light. She looked away as if to gather her thoughts and then met his gaze again.

“Do you trust me?”

He was surprised by her question, having no idea that her thoughts had gone in quite that direction.

“Persephone—”

“Whatever you’re about to do, stop!” Hecate announced as she appeared in their room. She had one hand outstretched, her palm flat. Her other hand covered her eyes.

“Shall we undress before she opens her eyes?” Hades said, looking down at Persephone.

She smiled.

“The souls are waiting!” Hecate said, dropping her hand. “You two are late!”

“Late for what?” Persephone asked.

“Your engagement party!” Hecate exclaimed and reached for Persephone, pulling her from his side. “Come. We don’t have much time to get you ready.”

“And me?” Hades asked. “What shall I wear to this party?”

Hecate looked over her shoulder as they headed for the door.

“You only have two outfits, Hades. Choose one.”

---

Hades stared at his closet, which contained exactly what Hecate had said—several of the same two outfits, a black suit for everyday and black robes for special occasions—but even the robes did not seem distinct enough.

He sighed, gritted his teeth, and did the only thing he knew to do—summoned Hermes.

The God of Thieves appeared in a puff of white smoke, except this time, it was far too much. It filled the room in a great cloud, blinding and choking Hades.

“What the fuck, Hermes,” he growled between fits of coughing.

He had to close his eyes to keep them from burning as he made his way to the door and pushed it open. The smoke began to dissipate, and Hades came face-to-face with Hermes, who wore a bedazzled, light-blue leotard with the center cut out, exposing part of his chest and stomach. Perhaps the worst part was how it stuck to his privates, outlining his balls and semihard dick.

“Why are you like this?” Hades asked.

“What?” Hermes asked, looking down at his outfit. “You don’t like it?”

“I’m not even going to honor that question with a response,” Hades said. “I need help. The souls have arranged a surprise engagement party and I…want to look…”

“Less like a goth?” Hermes prompted.

“I want to surprise Persephone,” Hades said.

“We could swap outfits,” Hermes suggested. “That would really surprise her.”

Hades glared.

“Fine,” Hermes huffed and then stalked over to him. “Stand still!”

He placed a hand on his chin and then made a circle around Hades, assessing him from head to toe.

“What are you looking at?” Hades asked, growing impatient.

“Shh,” Hermes ordered, waving his hands back and forth. “You are interrupting my genius.”

Hades rolled his eyes.

“I saw that,” Hermes snapped. “Do you want my help or not?”

Hades crossed his arms over his chest.

“Put your arms down!”

Hades let out a frustrated breath and put his arms at his sides, fists clenched.

“Unclench your fists!”

“If you tell me what to do one more time, I—”

“Undress!” Hermes declared.

“What?”

“You asked me to dress you for your engagement party,” he said. “So undress.”

“I didn’t ask you to dress me,” Hades said. “I asked you to help me choose something to wear.”

“And the outfit I chose requires that I dress you.”

“Then pick another outfit.”

“No.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Hades gave a frustrated sigh. It was a common occurrence when he was around Hermes. He straightened and then shoved off his jacket.

“Oh, we’re doing it the mortal way,” Hermes said, grinning.

Hades paused as he started to unbutton his shirt. He thought using magic would make it seem like he was too eager, but Hermes was making him feel like he was performing a striptease.

“Fuck it,” Hades said and snapped his fingers, naked except for a pair of underwear.

“Hmm,” said Hermes, and a swath of dark fabric appeared in his hands. “Briefs. Who knew?”

Hades tensed as Hermes draped the fabric over his left shoulder and then proceeded to wrap it around him in the style of a traditional himation, keeping part of his chest exposed.

“I could have done this on my own,” Hades commented as Hermes smoothed his hands down the front and back of the garment.

“Probably, but would it have looked as good?” Hermes asked, pushing him toward the mirror, and when Hades saw his reflection, he couldn’t disagree. The fabric was the color of the night sky, and the edges were trimmed in silver, as if they’d been dipped in the brightness of the stars.

“Well?” Hermes demanded.

“I…suppose you are right,” Hades said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Hermes grinned. “Now, let’s do something about that hair.”

---

Hermes spent what felt like an entire hour brushing out his hair, then he tied half of it back, away from his face.

“Drop your glamour,” Hermes said.

Hades lifted a brow and met Hermes’s stare in the mirror. It wasn’t that he minded his true form. It was the order from Hermes that bothered him.

“It’s hotter,” Hermes added.

Hades rolled his eyes but let his magic fall away.

Mostly, he did not notice the difference in how it felt to carry around an illusion all day, but there were times when it felt particularly nice to shrug off the heaviness of his magic.

Tonight was one of those nights.

As he sat before the mirror in the bathroom in his natural form—tall horns spiraling from his head and eerie blue eyes flashing bright—he almost did not recognize himself. Or rather, he felt as though this form belonged to a god who no longer existed. It was the form he’d been given at birth, the one he’d used as he’d waged wars against the Titans, the one he’d used as he received thousands of colorless souls into the Underworld, the one he’d used when he and the other Olympians had come to earth during the Great War.

It was this visage that people had come to dread. He wondered if there were souls in Asphodel who would see him tonight and remember their fear.

He curled his hand into a fist on the counter.

“You need a crown,” Hermes said.

Hades focused on the god, who still loomed in the background, studying him like a painting in a museum. He didn’t argue and called on his magic. Shadows broke away from his body and slithered through the air, twining on his head to form a crown of iron spikes. Before it was finished forming, he rose to his feet and turned toward Hermes.

“Thank you,” Hades said and then looked the god up and down. “Have fun…doing whatever you’re doing.”

“It’s okay, Hades. You can say it. I look fine as fuck.”

The corners of his mouth lifted. “Sure, Hermes.”

With that, he teleported to Asphodel, arriving at the very edge of the village.

“Lord Hades!”

He grinned as several of the children broke into a run, colliding with his legs hard. He pretended to stumble, and they giggled at their strength.

“Play with us!” one said—his name was Dion. He pulled on Hades’s hand.

“Please, please, please,” a couple others chanted.

Hades chuckled and reached to pick up a smaller child who had pushed her way to the front of the crowd and buried her head against him. Her name was Lily.

“What shall we play?” he asked.

The children replied at the same time.

“Hide-and-seek!”

“Blindman’s bluff!”

“Ostrakinda!”

Their answers continued, some choosing games that had been played since the ancient times while others chose more modern versions. It reminded him just how long some of these souls had resided here and that, at some point, they would ascend to the Upperworld, to be born to new parents and birthed into new bodies, and they would forget everything they had learned here.

It was strange that the thought of life brought him more grief than death.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose it’s just a matter of which we shall play first.”

The children began to shout again, taking his comment to mean they should tell him which game they wished to begin with, but their voices only faded into the background when he looked up and met Persephone’s stunning gaze.

Her divine form inspired nothing but awe because she glowed. She was like a fucking star in the sky, burning away the darkness, setting fire to every horror he had ever known.

This, he thought, is her truest form. She was wild, free, and beautiful. Her hair was unbound, curls falling thick and heavy around her shoulders and down her back, crowned with white flora from which her horns seemed to rise. Her gown was pink and airy and gave the illusion that she was simply gliding over the earth.

He swallowed hard and gritted his teeth, hoping to oppress the heat stirring low in his belly. Some of the children seemed to notice Hades was distracted and turned, then bounded toward Persephone.

“Lady Persephone, please play!”

They collided with her and pulled at her hands, and a smile broke out across her face. Hades never really considered that beauty would be the weapon to stop his heart, but here he was, barely breathing. She made it so easy to forget every weight he carried—the ophiotaurus, the attacks on Adonis and Harmonia, the dangerous relics and weapons, the anxiety of Demeter’s storm.

“Of course,” she said, lifting her eyes to his again and then glancing over her shoulder. “Hecate? Yuri?”

“No,” Hecate declined quickly. “But I shall watch and drink wine from the sidelines.”

The children were already pulling them to the field, and as they did, Hades came to stand close to Persephone. She turned her head and met his gaze.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he replied, grinning.

He wanted to lean into her and kiss her but refrained, turning his attention instead to the crowd of children who had gathered.

“We have a lot of games to play,” Hades said. “Which shall we play first?”

He called out the name of each game and let the children decide. They began with hide-and-seek, which excited him at first. Perhaps he could manage to get Persephone alone, but that turned out to be impossible, as each time he went in search of her, she had a child in tow, clinging to her skirts or cradled in her arms.

He was again hopeful when they moved on to blindman’s bluff. He would gladly grope at her blindly, but before they even began, she dashed his dream.

“Lord Hades is not allowed to be it,” she said.

He tilted his head. “And why is that, Lady Persephone?”

She cocked a brow. “Because you cheat.”

“What a wild accusation,” he replied, affronted.

“Do you deny it, Lord Hades? That you cheated during hide-and-seek, vanishing from sight just when you were about to be found?”

“It’s called using your resources,” he replied.

She was not amused.

The last game was ostrakinda, which was played in Ancient Greece; it was basically the most chaotic game of tag to ever exist, but Hades was looking forward to it. They formed two teams, the night led by him and the day led by Persephone, each represented by a shell, which was painted white on one side and black on the other.

Their teams stood opposite one another, and Hades never took his eyes off Persephone, even as one of the children tossed the shell between them.

It landed white side up, meaning night would chase day.

Screaming ensued as the children immediately scattered, but Persephone had yet to move, her eyes riveted to Hades. He wondered what she was thinking because he was wrestling with what he would do when he caught her. He would like to tackle her and teleport them to bed before she even hit the ground, but he had a feeling Hecate would arrive and drag them back to Asphodel.

He’d have to be content with a kiss, even if it just made the evening far more tedious.

He smiled, and something within his gaze must have told Persephone to run because she spun on her heels. He reached for her, barely catching her arm as she whirled out of his grasp and bolted across the field. He wasn’t wrong when he’d observed how she seemed to glide over the ground because she did so now, bounding ahead of him like some graceful gazelle, leaving flowers in her wake with every press of her foot to the ground.

He wasn’t even sure she realized it, because she never once looked back at him, but he didn’t take his eyes off her, which was how he witnessed the sudden change in her. The flowers that had bloomed in her wake vanished as her steps faltered, and she came to a sudden, shocking halt.

Hades slowed to a walk and came up beside her, his hand brushing hers at her side. She didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed somewhere on the horizon.

“Are you well?”

She took a shuddering breath.

“I just remembered that Lexa was not here,” she said, and when she looked at him, tears welled in her eyes. It hurt his chest to see her like this, so…broken, and in the aftermath of a moment of complete bliss. “How could I have forgotten?”

“Oh, darling,” he said and pulled her to him, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He held her close for a moment, uncertain of what to say because he knew there were no words that would bring comfort. This was her grief and her guilt, and the only thing either could do was wait until the feelings ebbed.

He only let her go when she seemed ready to move, and then he took her hand and led her to the picnic area where the souls were gathering to feast. Yuri led them to their blanket at the very front of the field, beneath the eaves of Persephone’s grove. He helped her sit, and he fed her and filled her cup with wine, unable or unwilling to take his eyes off her as he watched joy creep back into her expression, and it all seemed to come from watching the souls—his people.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, curious.

She was sitting with her legs crossed and picking apart a roll in her lap. At his question, she seemed to realize what she was doing and set it aside, brushing the crumbs into the grass.

“I was just thinking about becoming queen.”

“And are you happy?”

She seemed to be, but he remembered a time when she would have resisted that title.

“Yes, of course,” she said and paused. “I was just thinking of how it will be. What we will do together. If, that is, Zeus approves.”

Hades stiffened at her final comment, frustrated that she was even thinking about Zeus at all. He supposed it was more that she obviously doubted his promise, that they would marry even if his brother did not approve.

“Just keep planning, darling.”

A small smile ghosted across her lips, and she looked away, her gaze trailing over the vast field, to Asphodel and to the castle that loomed in the distance like a dreadful shadow.

“I would like to speak about earlier,” he said. “Before we were interrupted, you asked if I trusted you.”

She stiffened at his comment, and he noted how she hesitated before she spoke.

“You did not think I’d come to you when Hermes summoned me to Lemnos,” she said. “Tell me, truthfully.”

He swallowed something thick in his throat, and a feeling of shame washed over him. He let his eyes fall to his hands.

“I did not,” he admitted and then quickly met her hurt gaze. “But I was more concerned about Aphrodite. I know what she wants from you. I worry you will try to investigate and identify Adonis and Harmonia’s attackers on your own. It isn’t because I don’t trust you but because I know you. You want to make the world safe again, fix what is broken.”

“I told you I wouldn’t do anything without your knowledge, and I meant it.”

Her eyes and tone were fierce. He had often sworn oaths to her, and this felt like one now.

He believed her.

“I am sorry,” he said. He felt so wrong for doubting her, worse for letting her think he did not trust her.

She did not say it was okay or even that she accepted his apology. Instead, she used his words against him.

“You once said words had no meaning. Let our actions speak next time.”

He nodded once.

For a moment, a strange tension lingered between them. Hades almost felt as though he needed to say something else, to apologize again, but he also knew those words wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t long before they fell into an easier silence, and Hades shifted onto his back, resting his head in Persephone’s lap.

She laughed as he did it but seemed content to thread her fingers through his hair. He liked the feel of it, and it lulled him into a sense of calm.

“Hades.” She said his name in a hushed tone, as if she feared he might be sleeping.

“Hmm?” He opened his eyes and met her gaze, not quite prepared for what she said next.

“What did you trade for your ability to have children?”

He wondered what had brought on her curiosity. Had it been their time with the children in Asphodel? The question gave way to more. Was she having second thoughts about their marriage? Had she decided she truly wished to become a mother?

“I gave a mortal woman divinity,” he said.

At the time, it had felt powerful, but it was also why Dionysus owed him a favor and had little choice but to bend to his will. The God of Wine had come to him after his mother, Semele, was killed by Zeus, her death ultimately the result of Hera’s jealousy. He begged Hades to set her free. Hades wished he could say he had been motivated to go to the Fates purely out of sympathy for the god, but he was more interested in binding Dionysus to do his bidding.

The Fates agreed to grant Semele divinity, but in exchange, Hades had to give up his ability to have children.

He hadn’t even had to think about the trade then. It was the easiest decision he had ever made. He had no great love, only lovers. This, he thought, was a true blessing.

But the Fates had known better.

He should have known better.

Now his head rested in the lap of his truest love, and he couldn’t make her a mother.

“Did you love her?” Persephone asked, misunderstanding his reasons completely.

“No. I wish I could claim it was out of love or even compassion, but…I wanted to claim a favor from a god, so I bargained with the Fates.”

“And they asked for your…our…children?”

There was something about the word our that hurt in ways he could not even express. What future had he sacrificed for them in exchange for the favor of a god who hated him?

He sat up and faced her. “What are you thinking?”

He needed to know if that was something she wanted, because if it was, he would find a way.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just…am trying to understand Fate.”

“Fate does not make sense. That is why it is so easy to blame.”

She held his gaze a moment and then looked away, and he could not help feeling like she was actually trying to decide if she could really do this.

He reached for her, letting his fingers linger on her skin as he spoke.

“If I had known—if I’d been given any inkling—I would have never—”

“It’s all right, Hades,” she said. “I did not ask to cause you grief.”

“You did not cause me grief,” he said. “I think back on that moment often, reflecting on the ease with which I gave up something I would come to wish for, but that is the consequence of bargaining with the Fates. Inevitably, you will always desire what they take. One day, I think, you will come to resent me for my actions.”

“I do not, and I will not,” she said, as if she were insulted he suggested it. “Can you not forgive yourself as easily as you have forgiven me? We have all made mistakes, Hades.”

He searched her gaze, uncertain of what he was looking for, but only felt her love and kindness peering back. Despite how hard it had been to handle her trusting view of the world, it was also something he admired about her. She reminded him of the good that existed, no matter how little.

He brought his mouth to hers and guided her to the soft ground. She felt so good beneath him, and his body filled with a delicious heat as her eager hands sought an opening in his robes. He drew in a ragged breath when she found his length, already throbbing with need, and jerked him up and down. Each time her palm smoothed over the head of his cock, he felt light-headed, but he kissed her harder and moved his hips, thrusting into her grasp until she released him and gathered the ridiculous cloud of tulle around her waist and guided him to her heat. Once he was inside, he lowered himself onto his elbows, his face only inches from hers, and began to move.

She shuddered on his first thrust and then moaned on the second. By the third, her head was pressed into the ground, and his mouth was on her neck, scouring her skin.

Fuck, she felt so good, and it took everything in him to set a steady pace, to not drive into her as he had last night.

He had been a different person then, someone far more primal and possessive, but this…this felt like a claim of its own, a promise of something far greater than what had already been taken away.

“I will give you the world,” he whispered, his mouth hovering over hers.

“I don’t need the world,” she said. “I just need you.”

He kissed her, made love to her, and brought her to release under his sky.