“No,” she said. “I love you.”
Those words flooded him with a sense of relief. He had said before that words held no meaning, but that was before Persephone had uttered those three.
“I wasn’t sure I would hear those words again,” he admitted, unprepared for the shock those words would have on Persephone, who immediately began to cry.
“I never stopped,” she whispered.
“Shh, my darling,” Hades comforted. “I never lost faith.”
But his words did nothing to quell her tears. Her body shook with them.
Maybe she needed this—another form of release. He lifted her into his arms and carried her inside, where he laid her on their soft bed and kissed her until she was calm.
“I love you,” he said, because he had yet to say it back, and then, “I am sorry.”
She shook her head. “Things have been hard.”
It was true for both of them in very different ways.
He bent to press his lips to her forehead and settled between her thighs.
Despite the fact that they had just come together outside, he wanted to make love to her, and he wanted it to be both delicate and desperate. At the end of it, he didn’t want to know where he ended and she began.
She widened her legs as he guided himself to her entrance but froze as a knock sounded at the door. He met Persephone’s gaze, then grinned.
“Enter,” he said, and Persephone’s eyes widened.
“Hades!”
He chuckled as he rolled off her into a sitting position, and she rose too, pulling the blankets to her chest right as Hermes entered.
The god gave a lopsided smirk.
“Hey, Sephy,” he said, a note of warmth in his voice.
“Hermes,” Hades said, and his gaze shifted to him.
“Oh yeah.” For a moment, Hermes’s smile widened, then he took on a more serious expression. “I found the nymph, Leuce.”
“Bring her,” Hades ordered, and the nymph appeared before their bed, looking stricken and pale.
“Please—” she began, already sobbing.
“Silence!” Hades’s voice was like a lashing, and Leuce immediately quieted, tears tracking down her face. “You will tell Persephone the truth.
Did you send her to the Forest of Despair?”
At his question, more tears spilled down her cheeks and she nodded.
There was a very small part of him that felt remorse for Leuce—not for what she had done to Persephone but for how sorry she truly seemed.
“Why?” Persephone asked. The betrayal in her voice made him feel terrible for bringing this to her, but she needed to know.
“To tear you both apart,” Leuce answered in a whisper, her eyes on the floor.
Hades could not tell what Persephone was thinking, but he thought she might be in shock, because all she could ask was “Why?”
Leuce pressed her lips tight and shook her head, body shaking with renewed sobs.
“You will answer,” Hades commanded.
She collapsed in a heap on the floor. “She will kill me.”
“Who?” Persephone asked, looking from Leuce to Hades.
“Your mother,” Hades said. “She’s talking about your mother.”
Persephone’s eyes widened and she looked at Leuce. “Is this true?”
Hades didn’t like the shock in her voice. This was a woman who had taken Leuce in. Not only had she invited her into her home, but she had
offered to mentor her. Even if Leuce hadn’t wanted to, she still deceived Persephone.
“I lied when I said I didn’t remember who gave me life,” Leuce said. “But I was afraid. Demeter reminded me over and over that she would take it all away if I didn’t obey. I’m so sorry, Persephone. You were so kind to me, and I betrayed you.”
There was a moment when no one spoke—not even Hermes, who still stood by, watching this interrogation take place. But then Persephone shifted, wrapping the sheets around her as she left the bed, exposing his nakedness, though he did not care as he watched her approach Leuce and kneel before her.
He wanted to protest. The only person he would ever kneel to was her, but Persephone was not like him, nor did she need to be.
“I don’t blame you for fearing my mother. I feared her for a long time too.
I won’t let her hurt you, Leuce.”
Persephone spoke with a note of understanding in her voice that Hades did not share, but her kindness comforted Leuce, and the nymph fell into her, sobbing. Hades watched the strange display, his feelings mixed. On the one hand, it was what he had expected of Persephone, but he was angry with Leuce and frustrated that she had received such an easy pardon, though he supposed she had been punished enough by him.
“Hermes,” Persephone said once Leuce had collected herself. “Will you take Leuce to my suite? I think she deserves some rest.”
He smirked, bowing as he accepted her instruction.
“Yes, my lady.”
Persephone rose with Leuce, and they shared an embrace before Hermes led her from their room. Once they were gone, Persephone’s gaze returned to Hades, her eyes dipping to his exposed flesh, as if she’d just realized he’d been sitting there naked.
Then her eyes darted to his face.
“What?” she asked, likely because he was staring and smiling at her.
“I am just admiring you.”
She raised a brow, her eyes momentarily darkening, but then she sighed.
“I suppose we should summon my mother to the Underworld.”
“Shall we call on her now?” Then he suggested, “Perhaps we should make love so that she has no reason to suspect her plan worked.”
“Hades!” she scolded playfully as he reached for her, pulling her between his thighs. She dropped the sheets and pressed against him skin to skin, and they fell back onto the bed, descending into their madness once more.
Part III
“What we were once and we are today, we shall not be tomorrow.”
—Ovid, Metamorphoses
Chapter XXVI
Survival of the Fittest
Later, they dressed, and Hades sent Hermes to summon Demeter.
“I think you just want her to disfigure my face,” Hermes said. “She will bite my head off when I tell her you’ve commanded her appearance in the Underworld.”
“Then don’t tell her Hades sent for her,” Persephone replied. “Tell her I command it.”
Hermes smiled at that. “Will do, Sephy,” he said and left the Underworld.
“Are you nervous?” Hades asked as they walked, hands linked, to the throne room, where they would receive her mother. Hades thought it was the second-best option, the first being their bedchamber, though Persephone had shot that idea down. And to be honest, he looked forward to witnessing this—Persephone looking radiant in her Divine form, wrapped in a white peplos, being who she was meant to be, a goddess and queen.
“No,” she said and looked at him, and as their eyes met, a warm smile spread across her face. It felt like a long time since she had looked at him that way, and it made his throat feel tight. “Not with you by my side.”
His lips curled, and he squeezed her hand. It was all he could manage for the moment. Anything else and he would pull her to him, kiss her, and he wouldn’t stop.
“Remember what I taught you in the meadow,” he said.
“With your hands or your mouth?” she countered, breathless.
“Both,” he said. “If it helps you with your magic. Plus, I will take great pleasure in knowing you are thinking of my mouth while you put your mother in her place.”
They entered the throne room, which while dark was not cast in the red light that had made Persephone’s wounds look so much worse. Instead, his halls were brightened by the glow of Hecate’s lampades.
Leuce already waited at the base of the steps to the dais where Hades once sat alone, where two thrones now stood—his a jagged obsidian and Persephone’s a smooth ivory embellished with gold and florals. When Persephone saw it, she looked at him.
“You missed an opportunity, Lord Hades.”
He quirked a brow in question.
“I could have sat on your lap.”
He grinned as he helped her up the steps, and as Persephone turned, he asked, “Is that a suggestion or a request, my queen?”