Which was how he’d learned Atalanta once again roamed his realm.
He stared at the relief in front of him, carved from the purest marble in the human world. The image of him and his two brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, immortalized as they stood on the top of Mount Othrys, the home of the Elder Gods, after they’d defeated Krónos and the Titans and locked them deep within the bowels of Tartarus.
Their victory in the Titanomachy had been long fought and hard-won. And in that moment when he’d stood there with his kin, the strength of everything they’d accomplished had flowed as rich as wine through Hades’s veins. But it had been fleeting. For as soon as Zeus had locked their father, Krónos, in Tartarus, he’d taken command of the heavens, bestowed the oceans on Poseidon, and left the afterthought to Hades.
The same bitter resentment he’d held for thousands of years rushed through him, heated his blood, and burned his eyes. He’d wanted the human realm, had deserved it. But the Fates had fucked him there, hadn’t they? According to them, the human realm was subject to free will. No god could rule it. No god, that is, except the one who possessed the Orb of Krónos, the magical medallion that held the four chthonic elements—earth, air, water, and fire—and granted the owner powers never seen before, not by any god.
He’d waited long years to find the Orb. Had come so close to controlling the human realm when he’d held it in his hands, thanks to his power-hungry wife. The irony that the daemon hybrid Orpheus had been the one to find the Orb in the realm of the blessed heroes wasn’t lost on him. Orpheus was more than anyone knew. More than a daemon, more than a witch, more even than the Argonaut he’d recently been branded. Only one being truly knew what he was. One Fate he couldn’t wait to destroy when he finally had that Orb in his hands for good.
The air stirred at his back and without looking he knew his wife stood behind him, waiting for his attention.
“I take it you’ve returned with news.”
“Yes, my lord,” she said in a sickeningly sweet tone. A tone he knew was meant to placate and deceive. “You were right. She went after the Argonaut in Tartarus.”
He turned Persephone’s way. She stood five feet from him, her fall of silky black hair framing her powerful shoulders to hit near her narrow waist. As a god herself, she was near his height at close to seven feet, and her flawless skin and ruby red lips drew his attention as they always did. The daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility, Persephone was every god’s—and human’s—wet dream. His included. Even after all these long thousands of years, she was still the only female he desired day after long, miserable day. Not that he didn’t occasionally want—or take—others, but when it came down to it, she was his. In every sense of the word.
He narrowed his eyes on her smiling face, knew, as he always did, that she was scheming to get the Orb and rule the human realm herself.
Getting his hands on the Orb was turning into a clusterfuck of missed opportunities, but that’s what made this whole thing fun. And he’d gotten so bored with the torturing-souls thing. He was enjoying the chase as much as he would enjoy the moment he had the Orb and all four elements and could say fuck you to the Fates and every other god—including his two brothers. Every other god except his beloved wife. The wife who was as devoted to him as he was to her, and who would never stop scheming for a way to take charge as his master.
A wicked smile curled one side of his mouth as his gaze roamed her luscious body from head to toe. He had to love a woman who could match him in wickedness. Clasping his hands against his spine, he took a step down the three marble stairs. “So she’s found the Argonaut Gryphon within Tartarus. What does she plan to do with him?”
Persephone turned as he walked by her toward a window that looked out on his realm. Lava boiled and popped, jagged black mountains rose in the distance. And like a breath of air, the moaning of souls being tortured in the most horrendous ways floated like a song on the breeze. “She’s taken him to Sin City.”