Midnight Kingdom

by Amelia Wilde

  6

  Hades

  The storm breaks over the mountain at some point after midnight. Persephone doesn’t hear a fucking thing. She’s asleep in my bed, the covers pulled tight around her and clutched in her fists. She was a babbling mess when I carried her out of the lookout, and completely speechless by the time I was done with her. The shower was another story entirely. She kept laughing while I tried to wash her hair, her head rolling back and forth on the tiled wall, and it was a mess of shampoo and suds.

  Which I’ll gladly pay for.

  Which I am currently paying for.

  Should I be out of bed? Fuck no. But when Eleanor told me how long it had been, there was nothing for it. Leaving the mountain to Oliver for days on end isn’t an option for the future. I’ll have to figure something out with Demeter. Making a deal with her now is unlikely, but it’s not going to happen in the middle of the night.

  One of my healing bruises calls attention to itself and I put a hand over it. Right below my ribs. That fucker kicked me when I was already falling, and I was stupid enough not to anticipate it. Just like the old days. Could be broken, but who has time to lay around while it heals? I don’t.

  A text message from Oliver lights up my phone.

  All clear.

  There are more than sixty other texts on my phone from when I wasn’t looking at it.

  Lightning leaves a shattered-glass pattern in the sky outside. Eleanor told me that Oliver has taken to stalking the halls of the mountain at all hours. He moved the workers back down into their usual living spaces and hired more men to stand guard. She also tells me that they’re nervous. That everybody’s nervous.

  They should be.

  I vaguely remember Zeus saying that he would blow up the trains, which seems like overkill. After all, he needs those trains as much as I do, and as much as Demeter does. At least he will need them when he gets over himself. He will, one day. He had his fun with me, and now...

  Now what?

  Supply lines are fucked for the time being.

  I shift in my chair and am reminded that he also fucked up one of my knees. My soft grunt doesn’t appear to have woken up Persephone. I doubt anything would, other than me. My cock stirs at the possibility. But no—three times is enough for her today.

  An ache in the middle of my chest seems like it might be a heart attack, at first. Something dire. A side effect of that many fists meeting that much bone. But here, in the dark, in this chair that I’ve pulled from the corner so I can look out the window, I can admit—slowly—that it’s not.

  It’s an emotion.

  An emotion other than unbridled lust for Persephone.

  It’s...caring, I suppose.

  Ever since the foster home, I’ve done my best not to care about anything. Fondness is a trap, and one that would chew your leg off rather than set you free. But she’s broken me wide open.

  I...care.

  A hiss escapes me at the thought, but there it is, knocking itself against my brain and, more disturbingly, my heart. Conor huffs from his spot in the corner of the rug.

  “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.” He puts his head back down on his paws. He spent all three days next to my bed, refusing to eat. It’s given him a wolf-like look in his eyes.

  I care about Persephone. Deeply. Obsessively. If anything were to happen to her—

  It hurts when I tense up like that. She’ll never know about it. I’ll leave her to her guesses. As far as she is concerned, everything that happened today was effortless.

  Anyway.

  I also care about the rest of my people in the mountain. All of them, even the workers. And there aren’t just workers. There are families. Children. Some of them were born down in the mines and this is the only life they’ve ever known. They’ve never been shipped off to a foster home with a cruel dictator for a father, for example. The biggest threat here is me, and that’s only if their parents find it impossible to follow the rules.

  Persephone shifts and rustles. I’d freeze if I weren’t already sitting down, but she just says something about poppies and turns over.

  If I sit here much longer, I’ll regret it in the morning. There are few wounds that heal from retreating into a chair. I’ve already done enough of that to last a lifetime.

  So I go out of the bedroom and through the rest of my private space, past the guards in the hall. It’s dark out here. I ordered all the lights off before I came back in. It’s a matter of delay, now that I’m out of pills, which chafes. I installed the lights in the first place so that there would be some normalcy. Now, fuck it. This is about staying alive. That doesn’t make the added exposure less irritating. It’s been that obnoxious since I was seventeen, when indoor lights started piggybacking on the sun and layering on pain and pain and pain.

  I don’t know where I’m going until I end up at the lookout, a space I designed as a joke more than anything else. It’s a pointless room, for someone like me. I’ll never sit there to enjoy the view, not with all that natural light.

  But Persephone looked wonderful here. There’s that.

  I drop into one of the window seats with a sigh. She’s the one who made me such a bleeding heart, and the worst part is, there’s no going back. I can’t shut it out, which means I have to do something other than close down the mountain and let us all die.

  The storm outside is nothing but a dark cloud, lightning cutting through at intervals, but the rush and crash of the sea is louder. Too loud to ignore, just like someone else I knew.

  Or know.

  The water’s white noise covers the approaching footsteps so that Persephone appears as a silhouette, illuminated by a lightning strike. I catch the outline of her lips—pursed—and the sleepy set of her eyes. She’s dragged the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around herself.

  I stretch out a hand and she comes to me, folding herself on top of me, a warm crush of blankets and skin. Her hair tickles the bottom of my jaw. “Am I awake?”

  “Yes.”

  She turns her head, settling down with her face turned toward the window. “Are you awake?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Thinking about what?” Persephone twists herself so that she’s up on her elbows, up on my chest, and despite the fact that we’re sprawled in a window seat, she looks like a queen. “Tell me.”

  I take her jaw in my hands and pull her in for a kiss. “You’re very demanding. I thought I trained that out of you.”

  “You haven’t yet.” She traces a fingertip over a sore spot near my collarbone and I catch her hand in mind. “You’ll have to stay here longer.”

  “Where else would I go?” As soon as I say it out loud, I know there is somewhere else I might go. I’ve made deals before. The one with Demeter comes to mind. Those kinds of deals involve hands-on work. “I’m not surrendering the mountain.”

  That’s the last option—to let Zeus take it.

  Fuck that.

  “What do we do instead?” Persephone frowns, the movement evident in my fingertips. “If Zeus stops the trains—”

  “He’s already stopped the trains. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t destroy them completely.”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  “He would.”

  “Then...” She lays her head back down, the planning apparently too exhausting. It makes my heart ache, the way she does it so softly, with a little sigh. “I don’t know. But I trust you. Everybody does. They’ve been waiting for you to say what’s going to happen.”

  What’s going to happen is that I have to deal with the essentials first. Food. Water. Supplies. If that’s not taken care of, then people will starve to death. The kingdom would be worthless without its subjects. My business would be gutted.

  The storm rattles the windows and I wait for another question. I’m sure she has another question. A hundred questions. Enough questions to guarantee that I’ll have to put a stop to it.

  Fine. Force my hand.

  But her breathing has gone so
ft and even, her head heavy on my chest. She doesn’t care about the rain. Persephone trusts implicitly that I wouldn’t let it get to her. How she can think that, I have no idea. I very nearly let Zeus overrun the entire mountain.

  It can’t happen again.

  Which means I’ll have to request outside help.

  I would never have done it before. Not ever. But the woman dreaming in my arms right now has made me strong enough to break an old promise I made, a long time ago at my foster father’s house.

  Back then, I promised I would never ask our brother for help.

  I can almost hear him out there now, in the waves. It’s too dangerous to be at sea right now, with the swells the way they are and the storm the way it is. It’s barely safe here, with the mountain on edge and Zeus on a rampage. He’s a hurricane all to himself.

  Luckily, Poseidon has never been afraid of hurricanes.

  7

  Hades

  Moving us both back to the bedroom takes the rest of my strength for the night. I’m a dull ache in human form. It doesn’t help that I don’t want to have to make this call in the morning, but then it turns out that the call doesn’t fucking matter. Sleep wraps long fingers around my ankles and pulls me under the surface faster than I can pull up the blankets. The last thing I hear is Conor, shifting positions to come closer to the bed.

  The window says it’s still morning when I wake up, and so does Conor’s soft breathing on the floor next to my side. Persephone sleeps curled on her side, away from me, and the urge to touch her is so strong that I almost give in. But I’m not about to become a man who can’t control his fucking urges. Not right now. There are things to do.

  Like leave a slim bracelet of diamonds shaped like tiny leaves on the pillow next to her. I had Oliver bring it to me before. It will always be like that, won’t it? Before Zeus came to the mountain, and after. That’s a joke. There was nothing before I saw Persephone. After is the only thing that exists.

  Like let the hot water in the shower loosen the knots in my legs from the constant tension. If I could control that while the sun is destroying my brain then the sun would still destroy my fucking brain and all this would have happened regardless. It just hurts more now.

  Like pull on clothes that drag rough edges over my bruises and cuts. If Eleanor had her way, I’d have my medical staff up here every morning. But those people always insist on keeping records. I’m not taking the chance on records right now, with Zeus the way he is.

  When out of the closet, still buttoning my shirt, Persephone is sitting up against the pillows, watching me. She’s tangled up in the blankets, diamonds on her wrist. She turns them back and forth, letting the dim light from the window catch in the stones.

  “Come back to bed.” A mischievous glint in her eyes very nearly does me in. But if I get back into bed with her, I won’t get back out again. I settle for crawling over her—fuck, my knee, my ribs—and kissing the inside of her wrist, just above the bracelet. I add a bite for good measure. She makes a noise in the back of her throat and lets her head fall back on the pillow.

  “We have other plans.”

  She opens her eyes and glares at me. It’s fucking cute. So harmless. “How can we have other plans?”

  “You have other plans.”

  Fear flashes in her eyes, gone in a blink. “I’m not leaving the mountain.”

  I kiss the line of her jaw, letting my fingertips play over her throat. “You’re not ever leaving the mountain. Not unless I want you to.”

  “Then what?” Her pulse flutters just underneath her skin.

  “I need you to go visit the workers in the mines.”

  “You mean Oliver.”

  This time, I’m forced to take her mouth, kissing her with only a fraction of the need I have for her. Her whimper sends a heated desire searing down my veins. If she keeps this up, then I’ll end up here all day with her and people will die. That’s not a dramatic assessment. There are enough people on the mountain that hours could make a difference. “You.” You’re going to be the end of me, and I won’t mind. “I need you. It’s not Oliver’s strong suit.”

  “He’s good at lurking around. Why wouldn’t he be good at visiting?”

  I give her one last kiss and stand up—Zeus got a kick to the spine in, too, the vicious asshole. I can only hope I did equal damage. “Don’t provoke me,” I warn her. “I can tell you’re doing it. Be good.”

  Her cheeks redden and she sinks down into the blankets. “Fine. The workers—what do you want me to do, exactly?”

  My throat goes tight, an unfamiliar feeling. Caring—fuck. I hate it more than a little. “Tell them that things will be all right. See if anyone needs food or medical attention. Quite a few of them came to the valley, and I—” Almost died. “Someone should make sure that Zeus’s people didn’t do any damage that’s been unaccounted for.”

  Persephone sits up tall, brushing her hair back from her face and gathering the blankets to her chest. “I’d rather stay with you.”

  “But I need you to go.”

  Her eyes widen, and then she looks down and away. She’s been terrified—I know that. And I also know that last time I sent her away, she came back to a living nightmare. I tip her face up so she has to meet my eyes. “Do I look like I’m in dire straits to you?”

  Persephone studies my eyes, her lips a flat line and a quiver in her chin. “No. But you’re good at hiding it.”

  “Take Conor with you.”

  “No. He can’t be away from you. That’s too—”

  I give her face a shake, cutting her off. Fuck. It only ever has the opposite effect with her. Wide eyes, pupils huge like she’s taken some sort of drug. As if I could ever be a good drug.

  “Take him with you. No more arguments.”

  Persephone waits until I let her go before she gets out of bed, stretching her arms above her head and letting the blanket fall away.

  She’s naked underneath.

  Temptress.

  She must want to turn around so badly on her way to the shower, but she doesn’t. Good for her.

  Less good that she takes fucking forever. With every passing moment, it’s harder and harder to resist her. Finally she reappears with a swish of fabric and the scent of flowers in springtime. Conor goes to her side like I told him to, and then she lifts her chin, regal in her cream-colored dress, and blows me a kiss.

  And I sit down hard in the chair by the window. Watching her walk away is another series of small cuts on the inside of my chest, blades in my lungs.

  “Fuck,” I tell the room at large, and then I pick up my phone and dial the last number I had for Poseidon. I never thought I’d use it. And I’m half-hoping that he won’t answer, and then I won’t have to make a deal with a wilder devil than Zeus. Than me. Then again, people starving isn’t a sustainable business plan.

  Someone answers in Arabic, and when I give my name and tell him I need to speak to my brother Poseidon there’s an abrupt silence, followed by a clattering like they dropped the fucking phone. The wait stretches out for five minutes then ten, listening to the sound of wind and shouting. Either he still owns this oil tanker or he doesn’t. I rub the back of my hand over my eyes. So many nagging issues. I could kill Demeter if it wouldn’t seriously wound her daughter to do it.

  On the other end of the line, there’s a loud bang. I put the phone back to my ear in time to hear Poseidon’s rough voice say, “You’re garbage, you know that? You only ever call when you want something.”

  “And you only ever answer when you’re not busy being a war criminal. Last I heard, you were still sinking other ships for fun off the Persian Gulf.”

  “Sinking other ships.” Poseidon has a big, echoing laugh that sounds like sea salt and pirate treasure. “Is that what they call it these days? You know, you big fuck, there are rumors about you in the Persian Gulf, too.”

  “All good things, I hope.”

  He laughs again and it wouldn’t surprise me if he revealed he was o
n the deck of some slimline historical reproduction with heavy cannons and a death wish. “What do you want, hellraiser?”

  “Supplies.” I give him an abridged version of what happened in the valley.

  Poseidon whistles. “He’d be a damn fool to blow up the trains. What about Demeter? Did you kill her yet? I’m pretty sure you’re the one who drew that straw.”

  The distant urge to defend her doesn’t get close enough to have an effect. “No.” I wish I’d kept Conor here. Persephone, too. “The more pressing issue is that I have people who are going to starve. Or die of various other causes that can be prevented if you take some of my money.”

  “I’ll take your woman instead. Even trade. Sins of the mother.” The plastic on the outer edges of the phone snaps in my grip. The whole fucking thing is about to bend in half when Poseidon hisses another laugh. “I’m fucking with you. But I want an addendum.”

  “Name it.”

  “One favor.”

  “Money’s a favor, jackass.”

  “Money’s an agreement. A favor is a favor. Take it or leave it. I’ve got some other ships coming up on the port side.” Poseidon’s voice rises with excitement. “Never know what might happen.”

  I know what might happen.

  “It’s a deal.” Never mind the bruised ribs and the fucked knee. “As long as it’s at night.”

  “We’ll protect those pretty eyes of yours. I’ll be there in a week. Try not to die before then, or I’ll collect my favor from your corpse.”

  8

  Persephone

  The factory floor seems like a giant minefield. I stick close to the side walls, Conor between me and the work tables, but all the noise does nothing to block out the memory of what happened here. What almost happened here. It was close—I knew it then, and my heart knows it now. Adrenaline doesn’t know anything except how to make my breath short and my pulse race. “There’s nothing happening,” I tell Conor, fingers resting on his collar.