A Touch of Darkness (Hades & Persephone #1)

by Scarlett St. Clair

  He drew back, and Persephone opened her eyes. She thought she caught his surprise, just before it melted into an unreadable mask.

  “You must wish to return home,” he said, and started down the stacks. If she wasn’t talking to the God of the Dead, she would have thought he was embarrassed. “You may borrow those books, if you wish.”

  She gathered them into her arms and quickly followed after him.

  “How?” she asked. “You withdrew my favor.”

  He turned to her, his eyes dark and emotionless. “Trust me, Lady Persephone. If I stripped you of my favor, you would know.”

  “So, I’m Lady Persephone again?”

  “You have always been Lady Persephone whether you choose to embrace your blood or not.”

  “What is there to embrace?” she asked. “I’m an unknown god at best—and a minor one at that.”

  She hated the look of disappointment that shadowed his face.

  “If that is how you think of yourself then you will never know power.”

  She was surprised by his comment and met his gaze. Then she saw his hand move—he was about to send her away without warning again.

  “Don’t,” she commanded, and Hades paused. “You asked that I not leave when I’m angry and I’m asking you not to send me away when you are angry.”

  “I am not angry,” he said, dropping his hand.

  “Then why did you drop me in the Underworld earlier?” she asked. “Why send me away at all?”

  “I needed to speak with Hermes,” he said.

  “And you couldn’t say that?”

  He hesitated.

  “Don’t request things of me you cannot deliver yourself, Hades.”

  He stared at her. She wasn’t sure what she expected of him—that her demands would make him angry? That he would argue that this was different? That he was a powerful god and he could do what he willed?

  Instead, he nodded. “I will grant you that courtesy.”

  She took a breath, relieved.

  “Thank you.”

  He extended his hand. “Come, we can return to Nevernight together. I have…unfinished business there.”

  She took him up on the offer, and they teleported back to his office. They appeared right in front of the mirror she and Hermes had hidden inside. Persephone tilted her head back so she could meet his eyes.

  “How did you know we were in there? Hermes said we couldn’t be seen.”

  “I knew you were here because I could feel you.”

  His words made her shiver, and she withdrew from his warmth. She picked up her backpack where she’d left it on the couch and heaved it on her shoulders. On the way out the door, she paused.

  “You said the map is only visible to those you trust. What does it take to gain the trust of the God of the Dead?”

  He responded simply, “Time.”

  CHAPTER XII – GOD OF THE GAME

  “Persephone!”

  Someone was calling her name. She rolled over and covered her head with her blanket to muffle the sound. She left the Underworld late last night, and having been too keyed up to sleep, stayed up to work on her article.

  She had a hard time choosing how she should proceed after watching Hades’ help the mother. In the end she decided she had to focus on the bargains Hades made with mortals—the ones where he chose to offer an impossible bargain. As she had worked on the article, she found she was still frustrated, though she couldn’t tell if it was over her bargain with Hades or their time in the stacks—the way he’d asked her what she wanted and refused to kiss her.

  Her skin pricked with anticipation, though she wasn’t anywhere near him.

  Persephone pressed save on her article at four in the morning and decided to rest a few hours before rereading it.

  As she started to drift off, Lexa burst through her bedroom door.

  “Persephone! Wake up!”

  She groaned. “Go away!”

  “Oh no, you’re going to want to see this. Guess what’s in the news today!”

  Suddenly she was wide awake. Persephone shoved off her blankets and sat up. Her imagination took hold—had someone snapped a picture of her in her goddess form outside Nevernight? Had someone caught her inside the club with Hades? Lexa shoved her tablet into Persephone’s face, and her eyes focused on something much worse.

  “It’s all over social media today,” Lexa explained.

  “No, no, no,” she gripped the tablet with both hands. The title across the top of the page was black and bold and familiar:

  Hades, God of the Game by Persephone Rosi.

  She read the first line, “Nevernight, an elite gambling club owned by Hades, God of the Dead, can be seen from anywhere in New Athens. The sleek pinnacle expertly mimics the imposing nature of the god himself and is a reminder to mortals that life is short—even shorter if you agree to gamble with the Lord of the Underworld.”

  This was her draft. Her real article remained safely on her computer.

  “How did this get published?”

  Lexa looked confused. “What do you mean? Didn’t you submit it?”

  “No.” She scrolled through the article, her stomach in knots. She noticed some additions, like a description of Hades she would have never written. Hades’ eyes were described as colorless chasms, his face callous, his manner, cold and boorish.

  Boorish?

  She would have never described Hades in such a manner. His eyes were inky, but expressive and every time she met his gaze, she felt like she could see the threads of his lifetimes there. In truth, his face could be callous, but when he looked at her, she saw something different—a softness to his jaw, an amusement alight in his face. A curiosity that burned, and his manner was anything but cold and boorish—he was passionate and charming and refined.

  There was only one person who had gone with her and saw Hades in the flesh, and that was Adonis. He’d also invaded her workspace and read her article without permission. Guess he’d been doing more than just reading it. Persephone’s anxiety was now only as strong as her fury. She tossed the tablet aside and jumped out of bed. The words running through her head were angry and vengeful and felt more like her mother’s than her own.

  He will be punished, she thought. Because I will be punished.

  She took a few deep breaths to cool her anger and consciously worked to uncurl her fingers. If she weren’t careful, her glamour would melt away. It always seemed to react to her emotions—maybe that was because her magic was borrowed.

  In reality, Persephone didn’t want Adonis to be punished, at least not by Hades. The God of the Dead did not like the mortal. Bringing him to Nevernight had been a mistake for several reasons, which was clear now. Perhaps this was part of the reason Hades had wanted her to stay away from him.

  A third emotion rose inside her—fear—and she tamped it down. She wouldn’t allow Hades to get the best of her. Besides, she’d planned on writing about the god despite his threat.

  “Where are you going?” Lexa asked.

  “Work.” Persephone disappeared into her closet, trading her nightshirt for a simple green dress. Maybe she could get the article taken out of publication before Hades saw it.

  “But...you don’t work today,” Lexa pointed out. She still sat on Persephone’s bed.

  “I have to see if I can get ahead of this.” Persephone reappeared, hobbling on one foot to buckle her sandals.

  “Ahead of what?”

  “The article. Hades can’t see it.”

  Lexa’s laugh escaped before she could control it. “Persephone, I hate to break it to you, but Hades has already seen the article. He has people who look for this kind of stuff.”

  Persephone met Lexa’s gaze.

  “Whoa,” she said.

  “What?” Persephone felt hysteria rise inside her.

  “You’re eyes...they’re...freaky.”

  Persephone looked away quickly. Her emotions were all over the place. She avoided Lexa’s gaze as she reached for her
purse.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly. “I’ll be back later.”

  Persephone left her room and slammed the door to her apartment closed as Lexa called her name.

  The bus wouldn’t run for anther fifteen minutes, so she decided she’d go on foot. She dug her compact out of her purse and applied more magic as she walked. Her eyes had lost all of their glamour and glowed bottle-green. No wonder Lexa had been freaked out. Her hair was brighter, her face sharper. She looked more Divine than she ever had in public.

  By the time Persephone arrived at the Acropolis, her mortal appearance was restored. When she walked off the elevator, Valerie stood.

  “Persephone,” she said nervously. “I didn’t think you were in today.”

  “Hey, Valerie,” she said, trying to remain cheerful and act like nothing was out of the ordinary—that Adonis hadn’t stolen her article and that Lexa hadn’t woken her up to shove the angry article in her face. “Just coming in to take care of a few things.”

  “Oh, well, you have several messages. I, uh, transferred them to your voicemail.”

  “Thanks.”

  But Persephone wasn’t interested in her voicemails. She was here for Adonis. She dropped her purse at her desk and stalked across the workroom. Adonis sat with his earbuds in, focused intently on his computer. At first, she thought he was working on something—probably editing one he stole, she thought angrily, but as she came up behind him, she discovered he was watching some sort of television show—Titans After Dark.

  She rolled her eyes. It was a popular soap opera about how the Olympians had defeated the Titans. Though she’d only watched parts of it, she’d started to imagine most of the gods as they were portrayed on the show.

  Hades was all wrong—a pale, lithe creature with a hollow face. If Hades were going to seek revenge for anything, it should be how they depicted him on that show.

  She tapped his shoulder and the mortal jumped.

  “Persephone,” he said, taking out an earbud. “Congr—”

  “You stole my article,” she cut him off.

  “Stealing is a harsh term for what I did, Persephone,” he said, pushing away from his desk. “I gave you all the credit.”

  “You think that matters?” she seethed. “It was my article, Adonis. Not only did you take it from me, but you added to it. Why? I told you I would send it to you once I finished.”

  In all honesty, she wasn't sure what she expected him to say, but it wasn't the answer he gave.

  He looked away from her. “I thought you would change your mind.”

  She stared at him a moment. “I told you I wanted to write about Hades.”

  “Not about that,” he said. “I thought he might convince you he was justified in his contracts with mortals.”

  “Let me get this straight. You decided that I couldn't think for myself, so you stole my work, altered it, and published it?”

  “It's not like that. Hades is a god, Persephone—”

  I'm a goddess, she wanted to yell.

  “Hades is a god, and for that very reason, you didn't want to write about him. You feared him, Adonis. Not me.”

  He cringed. “I didn't mean—”

  “What you meant doesn't matter,” she snapped.

  “Persephone?” Demetri called from his office. She and Adonis looked in the direction of their supervisor’s office. “A moment?”

  Her gaze slid back to Adonis, and she pinned him with a final glare before heading into Demetri’s office.

  “Yes, Demetri?” She stood in the doorway. He was sitting behind his desk, a fresh edition of the paper in hand.

  “Take a seat,” he said.

  She did—on the edge, because she wasn’t sure what Demetri would think of the article—she had a hard time calling it hers. Would his next words be ‘you’re fired?’ It was one thing to say you wanted the truth, another to actually publish it.

  She considered what she would do when she lost her internship. She now had less than six months until graduation. It was unlikely another paper would hire the girl who dared call the God of the Underworld the worst god. She knew many people shared Adonis’s fear of Tartarus.

  Just as Demetri started to speak, Persephone said, “I can explain.”

  “What is there to explain?” he asked. “It’s clear by your article what you were trying to do here.”

  “I was angry,” she explained.

  “You wanted to expose an injustice,” he said.

  “Yes, but there’s more. It’s not the whole story,” she said. She’d really only shown Hades in one light—and that was really in no light at all, just darkness.

  “I hope it’s not,” Demetri said.

  “What?” Persephone was confused.

  “I’m asking you to write more,” Demetri said.

  The Goddess of Spring was quiet, and Demetri continued. “I want more. How soon can you have another article out?”

  “About Hades?”

  “Oh yes. You have only scratched the surface of this god.”

  “But I thought…aren’t you…afraid of him?”

  Demetri laid the paper down and leveled his gaze with hers. “Persephone, I told you from the beginning. We seek truth here at New Athens News and no one knows the truth of the King of the Underworld—you can help the world understand him.”

  Demetri made it all sound so innocent, but Persephone knew that what she would bring upon Hades from the article published today was only hatred.

  “Those who fear Hades are also curious. They will want more and you’re going to deliver.”

  Persephone straightened at his direct order. Demetri stood and walked to the wall of windows, his hands behind his back. “How about a bi-weekly feature?”

  “That’s a lot, Demetri. I’m still in school,” she reminded him.

  “Monthly, then,” he said. “What do you say to…five, six articles?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she muttered, but Demetri still heard. The corner of his mouth quirked. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Persephone. Just think—if this is as successful as I think it will be, there will be a line of people waiting to hire you when you graduate.”

  Except it wouldn’t matter because she’d be a prisoner—not just of the Underworld, but of Tartarus. She wondered how Hades would choose to torture her?

  He’ll probably refuse to kiss you, she thought and rolled her eyes at herself.

  “Your next article is due on the first,” he said. “Let’s have some variety—don’t just talk about his bargains—what else does he do? What are his hobbies? What does the Underworld really look like?”

  Persephone felt uncomfortable at Demetri’s questions, and she wondered if these questions were for him rather than the public.

  With that, she was dismissed. Persephone walked out of Demetri’s office and sat down at her desk feeling dazed. A monthly feature following the God of the Dead?

  What have you gotten yourself into, Persephone? She groaned. Hades was never going to agree.

  He doesn’t have to agree, she reminded herself.

  Perhaps this would give her a chance to bargain with Hades. Could she leverage the threat of more articles to convince him to let her out of the contract?

  And would his promise of punishment turn out to be true?

  ***

  Persephone went to class after leaving the Acropolis. It seemed like everyone had a copy of New Athens News today. That bold, black headline glared back at her on the bus, on her walk across campus, even in class.

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she twisted to find two girls. She wasn’t sure of their names, but they’d sat behind her since the beginning of the semester and said nothing until today. The girl on the right held a copy of the paper.

  “You’re Persephone, right?” one of them asked. “Is everything you wrote true?”

  That question made her cringe. Her instinct was to say no. She hadn’t written the story, not in its entirety, but she cou
ldn’t. She settled on saying, “The story is evolving.”

  What she didn’t anticipate was the excitement in the girls’ eyes. “So, there will be more?”

  Persephone cleared her throat. “Yeah…yes.”

  The girl on the left leaned farther over the table. “So, you’ve met Hades?”

  “That’s a stupid question,” the other girl chided. “What she wants to know is what’s Hades like? Do you have pictures?”

  A strange feeling erupted in Persephone’s stomach—a metallic twist that made her feel both jealous and protective of Hades—ironic, because she had promised to write about him. Still, now that she was posed with these questions, she wasn’t sure she wanted to share her intimate knowledge of the god. Did she want to talk about how she’d caught him playing fetch with his dogs in a grove in the Underworld? Or how he’d amused her by playing rock-paper-scissors?

  These were…human aspects of the god, and all of a sudden, she felt possessive of them. They were hers.

  She offered a small, unamused smile and said, “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

  Demetri had been right—the world was just as curious about the god as they were afraid of him.

  The girls in her class weren’t the only people who stopped her to ask about her article. On her way across campus, several other strangers called out to her. She guessed they were testing her name, and once they discovered she was Persephone, they ran up to her to ask the same questions—Did you really meet Hades? What does he look like? Do you have a picture?

  She made excuses to get away quickly. If there was one thing she hadn’t anticipated, it was this—the attention she would receive. She couldn’t decide if she liked it or not.

  Persephone passed through the Garden of the Gods, when her phone rang.

  She answered, “Hello?”

  “Adonis told me the good news! A series on Hades! Congrats! When do you interview him next and can I come?” Lexa laughed.

  “Th-thanks, Lex,” Persephone managed. After stealing her article, it didn’t surprise her that Adonis had also taken the opportunity to text her friend about her new work assignment before she even got a chance to tell her.