The Eighth House_Hades & Persephone Page 6

  Despite the chilly façade, Hades stood with a casual smirk, inviting her continued scrutiny. One muscled forearm rested between the prongs of his infamous bident; the rest of his weight centered on the adjacent leg. The phrase ‘body of a god’ was not lost on Persephone.

  He might have said something then, but whatever part of her heard him was subordinate to the part of her that was staring.

  That Hades was the color of a thing grown underground only made sense when she considered the realm he called home. What she couldn’t explain away, however, were his extremities. They looked as though he’d dipped them in ink and his limbs had absorbed it like a sponge. Hands and sandaled feet were the deep grey of doused coal, and the dark coloring crept up to forearms and knees until it faded away to match the rest of him. The stained flesh had a lustrous quality about it that brought to mind the skin of a snake. Persephone slapped away an urge to reach out and sample its texture for herself.

  You embarrass yourself. You don’t need to touch everything.

  He arched a midnight brow in her direction. “Do you wish for darkness again, Green One?”

  No, there would be no mistaking Hades for any of the others. Not even the slightest chance.

  “Lord Hades,” she said without breath, “I don’t—that is, I’ve never seen—”

  You’re stammering now? Are you a mortal spying their patron at a temple? Fates!

  “Stilled that salty tongue of yours, have I? Come, now, you’ve nothing to say?”

  Persephone snatched up her wits like a fumbled weapon. “You intended to shock with your theatrics, yet now you’re cross when you achieve your end?” This earned her a smirk and a subtle dip of his head, which only served to further irritate her. “Why, then,” she said. “Why me? Because I’m the one daughter of Olympos forbidden to any of the other gods?”

  “You know, I’d never thought about it from that angle before, little flower.” Hades flashed white teeth. “Forbidden fruit is sweeter than all the rest, isn’t it?”

  “Be careful you don’t bite into the apple of discord,” she said, folding her arms in front of her breasts.

  Did his grin widen at that? Was he enjoying her rude mouth?

  “I shall attempt to look before I bite, goddess,” he said, “but no. You can thank Aphrodite or perhaps even Hermes for your ‘invitation’ to my realm.”

  “Vague is not a color that suits you, Rich One.”

  “I suppose not,” he said, “but I do enjoy watching your lovely face twist around.”

  She blinked at him, unimpressed, and congratulated herself on not turning a violent red at such a comment. Hades continued.

  “It’s all one big vicious circle, you see.” As if to illustrate, he hefted his bident mid-handle, cutting a practiced swath through the air, like the arc of a scythe. It condensed at the end of the stroke into a bulky iron ring, which he popped onto a finger.

  “Hermes tried to court you,” he said, beginning a leisurely pace around the room, “and Demeter wouldn’t allow it so she hid you away. I’m sure you’re more than familiar with that part of the story, yes?”

  She eyed him in silence as he moved off to her right.

  “Once your mother denied him,” Hades went on, hands clasped behind his back, “our fleet-footed friend has been pining for you ever since. You’ll have to give him credit—the Messenger normally has the attention span of a gnat. Well. You can imagine Aphrodite was none too pleased with her lover’s wandering eyes. Rather glorious a concern, when you think about it.”

  Persephone refused to turn and watch him as he walked behind her, but she imagined those eyes glittering in dark mirth at this notion.

  “What does any of this have to do with me?” she said to the cushioned platform.

  “Ah, this is where the Goddess of Lust asked me to ‘remove’ you from the equation. And now, here you are.” He arrived in front of her again and spread his hands. “The beauty of it is, if Demeter hadn’t bothered to make an unobtainable prize of you, Hermes’s favor would have wandered back to Aphrodite by now on its own. Your mother thought to save you from the gods of Olympos, but delivered you to the most hated of us instead. Poetic, don’t you think?”

  She might have thought so, were it happening to someone else. And would that smile have been … handsome, if she weren’t so unnerved?

  Handsome in the way of a tiger, before it leaps at your throat.

  “How would Aphrodite convince you to do such a thing, if the idea wasn’t yours in the first place? You don’t strike me as the sort of immortal whom others lead about by the nose.”

  “Yes. Well,” he said, smoothing a hand over the top of his head. “I owed her a favor.” The curtain of his hair shifted under the idle motion to fall back over his shoulders. Like his oddly colored arms, it grew silver from the roots, but was inky black by the time it reached its end. Her fingers might run through it after a—

  Stop it! Fates!

  The rational voice in her head brought the thought to heel, but the dangerous, unpredictable part of her only unleashed new ones in its stead. The part that sent her in heat down to the cities of men had begun walking a curious circle. A lion discovering a wounded antelope.

  The Lord of the Dead was not the only immortal in the presence of someone forbidden. Who was in the Underworld to enforce her mother’s edict? No one. And here was a god who claimed an interest in courtship, however unlikely. Persephone took in fine limbs, an arrogant smile. Shoulders and chest, deep from … from what? Wielding that bident?

  What would he be like?

  No! Enough!

  “And how did you come to be in the goddess’s debt?” she said through a tight jaw, trying to steer her questions back on course.

  Another low chuckle, but his eyes were on something distant. “I think that will remain a story for another day.” He focused again and Persephone did her best to hold her ground as he stepped toward her.

  “Why would my father allow this?” she said, bold notions fleeing where her body refused. “My mother will be a tempest when she finds out.”

  “There was no reason for him not to allow it,” Hades said. His hand rose to separate a sable lock from the bulk of her hair and examine its texture between a thumb and forefinger. Persephone swallowed. “Zeus is more familiar with my nature than most. He sees that I would not be an unfitting husband, despite the exaggerations the others spread about me. It isn’t for Demeter to decide, really. You’ve long been of age. She cannot keep you sequestered against your will, indefinitely.”

  “Oh? Because it’s your turn to bind me away now, is that it?”

  This earned her a throaty noise of amusement; a joke to which she wasn’t privy. His steps took him slowly around her while Persephone stood stiff and still. The question loomed large, as it had since his arrival.

  “What is it you expect me to do?” she said.

  Hades completed his circuit. Eyes as black as the night of a new moon looked down into hers and infinity spun away into their depths. She saw there possibilities both sublime and terrible.

  “I expect you to obey, Persephone.”

  Her breath caught, suspended at a lungful. The silence stretched. An unblinking stare worked to remake her world, and in it she read volumes. Realities to which she did not want to give name.

  “And why,” she said, “would I do that?”

  “Because you wish to leave one day.”

  To leave? He intends to …

  The furious labor of her heart began to drown out all else.

  “You don’t recall me visiting Olympos much, do you?” he said, closing the short distance between them. “That’s because I am not a god who wastes time in gilded palaces, drinking and feasting. Gossiping. No. I am a listener. I observe. I plan.”

  Much like the lords of the other two realms, Hades stood at least a head taller than Persephone. She had to tilt her head back to meet his eye, and swore a silent oath over the obvious imbalance of power this mirrored.


  He drew the knuckle of his first finger over her collarbone. Something akin to panic rose in her chest, but it did not make her want to run.

  “Because I observe,” he went on, “I can see that once Demeter discovers your whereabouts, and how you’ve come to be here, she will petition your father to have the matter ‘remedied’. He will deny her at first, but your mother holds more power than he would like to believe. Zeus might be king among us, but he will relent, I know him.”

  The ghost of a touch had made its way to her shoulder now, drawing her eye as it went. Onyx nails extended just past the tips of dark fingers, serpentine, claw-like. He ran one down the side of her arm and she hurtled toward a precipice.

  “You’ll be sent for, Persephone. Probably that imp, Hermes, will come with demands from Olympos—he knows his way in and out of my realm better than any of the others. Whether I release you to him is another matter entirely.”

  Her eyes jumped back to meet his. Creation take me, he can’t be serious.

  “Those are your choices, Daughter of Zeus.” His face was very close to hers now; his words painted her skin. “Abide by my wishes for a time and return to the upper realms. Or”—he shrugged with a dangerous elegance—“do neither.”

  Arms snaked around her shoulders. There were palms gliding down her back to catch her at the waist, to crush her to his chest. Persephone angled her head back to read in the lines of his face a single hungry purpose.

  Possession.

  She saw the edge of the cliff in her mind, in his eyes. Fates, this is it. It’s happening. Now.

  Hades brought his mouth to brush over hers and it was not cold, as she’d expected from the Lord of the Dead.

  It was fire.

  He spoke his damning words against her lips: “Will you obey?”

  Without waiting for a response, Hades seized her in a kiss.

  Liquid heat surged through every extremity, welled in every junction, lit every nerve aflame. Her upper lip felt the sliding invitation of a tongue and, consequences scattered to the abyss, she opened to him. He growled at this and pressed his advantage, exploring, savoring. Persephone had a taste for him now: warm and faintly metallic.

  … a darker, more wicked partner …

  The thought she’d dismissed at Smyrna came bubbling up to confront her. A small noise of recognition rose in her throat and, pressed close as they were, she felt Hades’s body respond. He sealed off the kiss with a nip of his teeth before pulling back to take in the turmoil he’d wrought. There was no hiding her flush, her parted lips.

  Persephone stood reeling. He’d already begun to take from her without permission: his mouth on hers, his hands still at the small of her back. His very kisses seemed to know her every humiliating, unrecognized need. Why bother seeking her assent at this point?

  But to speak the words aloud? There would be no turning back.

  When he’d caught her against him, her hands had come up in a gesture of defense and there they’d remained: palms against his chest, fingers curling against the black of his chiton. It was a posture of resistance and submission both, and she raced in her mind toward the leap from one blind height or the other.

  Resist.

  Or submit.

  Two possibilities, each terrifying. One stood defiant, a noble exercise in futility, chin up, but at what cost? The other beckoned with a crooked finger, whispering dark promises, for the mere price of surrender.

  Eyes that turned on seasons of destruction and resurrection bound her to the spot, and Hades asked her again.

  “Will you obey?”

  No no no No No NO NO! This is madness! You can’t!

  “Yes,” said Persephone, turning the key in a fateful lock, “I will.”

  *

  III Obedience

  Thunder rumbled beneath slate-bottomed clouds as Aphrodite mounted the steps to join Zeus on one of the absurdly grandiose balconies of his palace. The god snapped his wrist forward again and a finger of lightning ripped the air from sky to rain-dark soil.

  “Hah!” Mighty hands went to his hips as he barked a laugh. “Look at him!”

  “I’m afraid even to ask,” she said, tone conversational at her approach.

  “Mm?” He turned to see who joined him, orange chiton rippling in a breeze of his own making. “Ah. Goddess. Not much that’s more entertaining than a startled mortal, eh? That last one almost fell off his horse.”

  “You’re terrible.” She shook her head, suppressing a grin.

  “And wondrous,” he said, surveying the landscape. “And powerful, and generous, and rude. Wise. Unfaithful. So many things besides ‘terrible’, if we’re being honest.”

  “Oh, now stop, or I won’t have any names left to call you.” Aphrodite placed her hands on the white marble of the balustrade, enjoying the smell of damp and the subdued blue and green vista spread out to the south of Olympos.

  Zeus squinted at something distant and let loose another bolt, grunting in dissatisfaction after a moment. Perhaps no one had been startled enough.

  “I gave permission for him to court her, you know.” He turned to Aphrodite. “Not nab her from a field like an exotic pet.”

  She waved a graceful wrist and made a noise of dismissal. “How else would he have had his chance with her? Her mother had her chaperoned at nearly every moment, and his powers are nothing more than a laugh in our realm.”

  “My realm.”

  “Your realm, my Lord.”

  “Demeter will not be patient,” he said, flicking several electric streamers into the sea to the east in rapid succession. “She will dig, and she will discover. And then we’ll all have to hear about it.”

  “Then let us hope, Basileus, that by such time, it shall be too late.”

  Silver brows descended in doubt. “If he can convince her.”

  “Have you no faith in lust?” The goddess’s face warmed as her smile spread. “Persephone has been denied any thought of romantic ‘company’ for ages, and now here she is, free to test the waters, as it were. And Lord Hades is, well … Hades. He will persuade.”

  “Provided he wishes to do so.”

  “Oh, he will wish,” she said, “I assure you.”

  “Who will wish?”

  Like a shadow upon the lighting of a lamp, Hermes had appeared on the balcony.

  Aphrodite gave an undignified yelp. The base elements of her body all seemed to fly apart and snap back together in a startled instant.

  Zeus chuckled, holding a hand over his midsection. “Immortals might be even more fun to watch jump in the air!”

  “Sorry,” Hermes said, “just popped in. Who’s wishing what now?”

  Her fingers rose to the emerald she wore around her neck, their touch gentle, renewing her focus. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You came all the way up here?”

  “Oh!” Hermes raced an excited and instantaneous path around the balcony, returning to his spot in an eyeblink. “Have you heard? Either of you? The Lord of the Dead has abducted Persephone!”

  Zeus cut a glare at the goddess, and she returned it in kind, sure he shared her thoughts. The greatest gossip among them was aware now.

  Hades had better use every trick at his immortal disposal, and fast.

  “Have you heard?” she said, recovering at an impressive speed. “The Lord of Lightnings has given his brother permission to court. He’s down there wooing her right now.”

  “Wooing her? Hades?” The Messenger’s eyebrows leapt. “After all I offered, you approved a marriage to that pale Lord of—”

  “Your tongue,” said Zeus. “Control it.” Thunder rolled in ready irritation. “Or I’ll start to think you’re losing respect for rulers of realms.”

  “Ugh!” Hermes rolled an exasperated eye and turned in a futile circle, throwing up his hands. “I’d just come upon the perfect argument to convince Demeter. Now she’s down there with that”—he flicked blue-grey eyes at Zeus—“Lord of the Dead, having the-Fates-know-what done to her.”


  And isn’t he tempting when he’s frustrated? She let the emerald be, choosing instead to admire the way his nimble fingers raked back through pale gold hair. Aphrodite would ease out that little crease of displeasure between his brows, oh yes she would.

  “It’s all a bit of a disaster for you, isn’t it?” she said.

  Hermes blinked at her, thrown from his parade of misfortune. The goddess continued before he could sidestep her momentum.

  “I know the very thing we must do in situations like these.”

  “What’s that?” Zeus and Hermes both said at once.

  “Drink.”

  The Messenger’s features arced upward in interest and Aphrodite’s smile grew teeth. The Lord of Lightnings only shook his head, moving his attention back to the amusement of his storm.

  “Drink?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, slipping an arm through his to link them at the elbow. “I have wine. And my palace is only just there.”

  “Who am I, Dionysos?”

  Now there was a thought. The three of them one day?

  Perhaps.

  “Of course not,” she said. “You’re not nearly mad enough.” Her steps guided them away from Zeus and toward the ends she’d so carefully orchestrated. “Come. You can either drown your troubles or share them. Or both.”

  “Have I told you about the last time I was in the Underworld?” Hermes said. “You’ll never believe it …” The god’s attention skipped to another subject as fast as his winged heels moved him across the skies.

  Aphrodite tossed an unrepentant wink over her shoulder, to which Zeus merely rolled blue eyes and turned back to his entertainments. Her challenge now was to keep all the virulent rumors Hermes was sure to spread away from Demeter, at least for long enough.

  She glanced at her recaptured lover and smiled. There were ways of keeping his tongue busy.

  *