Persephone appeared particularly fetching today. Her hair was pulled back in a simple updo, the curls tumbling down her back while small wisps clung to her cheeks. She’d learned to materialize her own clothes, which was both a blessing and a curse. Today she wore a simple cotton frock of pink and white, and the innocence of the dress was more arousing than the velvet and silk and lace gowns he’d given her. Something barbaric in his brain liked the sham innocence covering that supple and inventive body.
Down, boy.
Every now and again he idly considered that maybe she was part of some larger illicit plot against him. Though more than one ruler might have been toppled through sex, he was too tired of constantly suspecting everyone and everything. For now, he was going to enjoy this simple lust between them. Everything else could be sorted later.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I need to check in around the realm. I usually go out often, but…” He trailed off, unwilling to offer her so much power.
But you’ve utterly distracted me.
“Can I come?”
He laughed before he realized she was serious. “You want to tour the Underworld?”
“Absolutely. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
No. For the most part, the Underworld was a dangerous place. And hell, though he was keen on abandoning all suspicions, he found he couldn’t quite turn off his reluctance to keep his world all to himself. “I don’t know…”
“Please?”
She should patent that pleading look. “Persephone…”
Her hand moved to Right’s head, and Hades tensed, ready to run to her rescue when the massive white beast mauled her. But as she petted it, the creature merely twisted around to lick her wrist. Then it turned to eye him.
Take her, fool,
it seemed to say. Still he hedged. “Well, I guess there are certain areas you could see. If you’re sure—”
With a squeal, she jumped to her feet. “Yes, yes, let’s
go.
”
“Okay then.”
She gave each of Cerberus’s heads a final pat and ran to grab his hand and tug him to his feet. Though he barely felt the pulls on his arm, he stood and allowed her to guide him from the room, aware that she received pleasure from any display of physical superiority to him.
Hades cleared his throat. “You should have said you were this bored. You aren’t a prisoner, you know.”
She was practically dancing as they neared the front door. “I know. And I wasn’t bored, exactly. I figured it probably wasn’t smart to go wandering around a realm I don’t know, and you’re already giving me so much of your time, training me…”
“And fucking you,” he added helpfully, giving a mock ouch when she pinched him. They stopped in front of the massive wooden door. “Seriously, you’re absolutely right. There are parts of the kingdom that are downright dangerous, and I’d rather you not go out without me taking you to the safer areas.”
“Will there be sunshine?”
The naked longing in her voice was unmistakable, and he kicked himself for not having thought of her needs sooner. Of course she missed sunshine—she was the goddess of plants, for fuck’s sake. He was just now noticing the paleness of her formerly nut-brown skin.
He placed his hand on the door and called up the Elysian Fields, the perfect place for her to visit. “Yes.” Opening the door, he watched the dawning joy on her face as the sunlight pierced his home. How had he not noticed how dark and cavernous his palace was?
They both had to squint as they stepped outside, so bright was the sunshine. The Elysian Fields was aptly named, resembling a huge park filled with green grass, large trees and the scent of sweet blooms. Persephone bent down to trace a rose, and the little flower stretched up toward her as if begging for her touch. She laughed, the sound tripping down his spine.
He cleared his throat. “Is this enough sunshine?”
She cast him a glowing smile and straightened. “Very much so. Are these the Elysian Fields?”
“Yes.”
She looked around, and he knew she was absorbing everything. Persephone could have easily been a goddess of knowledge. She soaked in new experiences like a hungry sponge. He’d tutored her very little in actually using her powers. She’d grown by leaps and bounds all on her own. “Then these people…are dead?”
He took his gaze off her and studied the souls packed on the greens. Their houses were some distance away, small cottages, large mega mansions and everything in between, since whatever they wanted, they received. They usually congregated here, however, for socializing and playing and simply soaking in the eternally perfect weather. “Yes. These are souls.”
“I want to be sad, but they look so happy.”
“They should be happy.” Refusing to think of how natural it felt, he picked up her hand and put it on his arm. “They deserve it. See that man over there? He sacrificed himself to save fourteen of his comrades during a war.” He pointed to the other men around him who were laughing and slapping his back. “Three of those fourteen are here as well. They did great things with the lives he gave them.”
“Wow.”
“That lady, in the blue, she discovered a cure for a previously incurable disease. Killed herself in the process by breathing in bad chemicals, but she considered that worth it.”
Persephone pointed to a couple sitting on a blanket. Two small children ran around them, kicking a ball, as the man and woman nuzzled each other and whispered. “What did they do?”
He cocked his head and studied them. “Ah. They fell in love, married, and had two children.”
“So you can get here even if you do nothing amazing with your life?”
“The majority of souls did nothing amazing to get here. They simply lived. Some of them slipped up now and then, but on the whole, they were good people.”
“Slips don’t get held against a soul?”
“I’m not the one who sorts the souls, but it doesn’t seem that way. To err is human, after all. Like that guy? Cheated on his taxes a couple of times. You have to admire anyone who sticks it to the man. You know some mortals consider the tax collector scarier than Thanatos? It’s damn insulting.”
She reached up on her tiptoes and bussed his cheek. “Poor Hades.”
He resisted the urge to place his hand against her kiss like a lovelorn calf. But when she looked away again, he stroked his fingers over his skin, savoring that casual sign of affection. “If you ever saw Death moping, you would pity me too.”
She snorted. One of the children kicked the ball too hard and it came close to Hades. As the boy ran over, Hades gave the ball a gentle push with his foot. The child picked it up, looked through the two of them, and ran back to his family when his mother called to him. “Can they not see us?”
“No.” He took a hold of her arm and led her farther down the path. “I carry my helm when I come here.” He held his palm up, and a miniature black helm, about the size of a pebble, swirled in his hand. “It keeps me invisible. I cloaked you as well. I frighten them too much.”
“Oh.” She didn’t say any more, but he could see the wheels in her awesome brain turning. “Does that…make you sad?”
Only in the beginning.
He gave her a derisive look as he tucked the helm into his pocket. “Yes. It has me crying in my porridge that the itty-bitty souls are scared of me.”
She rolled her eyes but thankfully shifted her attention to the beautiful scenery. The two of them took a turn about the park, just another couple strolling arm in arm. He wondered at the picture they would make if anyone could see him. She fit in here, small and lovely and modestly dressed. He, big and tattooed and scowling, did not. When they came back to where they’d started, he reluctantly released her. “I actually do have to check on the other parts of the realm and speak with some of my servants. I’ll drop you back off in the palace—”
“But I want to come.”
“Sephie, trust me, this is pretty much the only nice place in the kingdom.”
Her mouth set in that mulish line he recognized from when she badly wanted to get some task right and couldn’t quite manage it. “I want to come.”
“Persephone…”
“Hades.” She raised that stubborn little chin and gave him one of her regal looks. How the hell did she manage to look down her nose at him when he was a full head taller than her? “Cloak my presence if you want, but I’m not going back to the palace. I want to come with you.”
“But—”
“Unless…” She frowned. “Unless it’s because you don’t want another god to see your kingdom?”
“Not exactly,” he hedged, and then threw his hands up in the air at her hurt expression. When had he become someone who cared about someone else’s feelings? “Fine,” he snapped. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He grasped her hand and cast a portal to transport them. In a second, they were at the River Styx. “Keep this.” He pressed the helm into her hand. “You’re still invisible, but the thing also will cloak your powers, so yell if you need me,” he told her, as she stared wide-eyed at the desperate, moaning souls lingering on the banks. “Now stay here while I talk to Charon. Bastard’s been charging double for his lameass ferry ride.”
This had been an eye-opening day. Persephone stood on a cliff in Tartarus, still cloaked in protection by Hades’s invisibility spell. And thank the gods for it, as there were scary creatures and pain and fire everywhere she looked.
This was the true Underworld, the bowels of the realm that tainted the entire world with evil, that made others regard her Hades with fear.
Your Hades?
Well, for however long she would have him, yes. She glanced over at his powerful profile. She hadn’t realized how relaxed he was with her until she saw him slip into that cold, merciless mask to deal with his minions. It wasn’t an easy job he had, to keep the scales of good and evil from tipping too much in one direction or another. A lesser god might have relaxed in his luxurious palace and delegated, but Hades appeared to be fully cognizant of his responsibilities as overseer of this realm.
Her gaze slipped to the red-skinned, horned creature he was currently viciously, verbally gutting. He raised his hand in a slicing gesture, and the devil cowered. She’d flinched once when he raised his hand like that, but now she savored a burst of smug superiority. He’d never inflict pain on her, even went so far during their training sessions to make sure she didn’t somehow hurt herself, though he was perfectly capable of dishing it out.
A sudden movement caught her eye. Another devil, almost as large as Hades, crept up behind him. She’d watched Hades dressing the thing down earlier, noting the crazed fury in its eyes. It carried a pitchfork now, and like a time-lapse photo, she could see every frame of its body as it prepared to throw it. The lift of the sharp tip, the retraction of its shoulder, the fighting stance of its legs…
“Hades!” she yelled, but she was too far away, and the noise of other screams and yells drowned her out. In her panic, she tried to either still the thing’s arm or deflect the spear somehow, but nothing happened, and she realized Hades’s helm was blocking her powers. She started to run, stretching out a hand as if she could stop it, as the sharp object went airborne heading straight toward her guy.
No, no, no, no.
A second later, Hades pivoted and held up his hands. What looked like a black rope thrust out of the ground and knocked the spear aside so it fell to the floor harmlessly, and then wrapped around the now-struggling devil. The creature was smashed against the hard rock wall, leaving a smear of black blood, and then flung off the cliff into the fiery pit.
When the black rope rolled up into a neat ball and disappeared, Persephone realized it hadn’t been a rope at all.
It had been a vine.
Everyone had stopped what they were doing, and Hades seemed to grow larger before roaring, “Does anyone else wish to challenge me?”
Silence.
“Then get your asses back to work.”
The din of screams and painful moans returned. Hades turned back to the devil he’d originally been speaking to. It nodded multiple times and scurried off. Had she not been watching Hades, she wouldn’t have seen the slight bow to his shoulders and the sigh he gave before he straightened and walked toward her. “Walk,” he muttered between his teeth.
When they turned a corner and were relatively isolated, he stopped them. “What did you do?”
“I…I have no idea. I couldn’t get to you in time, and I was worried.”
“A spear wouldn’t have hurt me.”
Of course it wouldn’t have. She’d panicked. “I know. I’m not even sure how I… Have you been able to command plants before?”
“No.” His mouth was grim. “You gave me your powers.”
“I—” Panic bloomed. “I’m powerless now?”
“No. You gave me a shard of them.”
“How? I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“What did I say? You make your power your bitch. Anything is possible. Doesn’t mean I’ve ever heard of any gods actually doing it.”
“Why not?”
His lips quirked. “Because we’re all suspicious, selfish pricks, bit. We don’t like to share anything.”
“Oh.” She thought about it. “I guess it doesn’t really matter to me if you have some of my power. I mean, as long as I get to keep mine.”
He studied her as if she were an odd species. “Yes. Even if you gave bits of your power out to every god, you’d still have an immeasurable amount.”
“Okay then. Do you…feel any different?”
With a part of me inside of you?
The thought wasn’t unpleasant.
“I feel…lighter? No, that’s not the right word. I don’t know if I can describe it.” He stroked his hand over the stone wall of the cliff. Black tendrils sprouted from the harsh rock. Hades made a rough sound of surprise as the plant quickly covered the wall and started slithering to the ground.
“Controlling it isn’t as easy as it looks, is it?”
He shot her a mock-dirty look. “I can control it fine.” In a blink, the creeping plant had turned to ash.
A gasp escaped her lips, and she placed her hands on her hips. “That wasn’t nice. You can’t burn the plants.”
“Sorry.” He looked anything but repentant, though he finally sighed at her glare. “Okay, I won’t do it again.” A fierce look of concentration crossed his face, and he lifted his hand to the cliff again. This time, a single stalk grew, uncurling into a black rose. He plucked the flower once it was grown and handed it to her.