by Kitty Thomas
His voice wasn’t his own. He sounded more monster than man when he spoke.
“H-how many souls did you destroy?”
“A nice even one hundred. And I will destroy more if I have to.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, half anger, half defensive posture. Defiant tears slid down her cheeks. “I will never forgive you for this.”
He laughed. “See, that’s the thing, Persephone. I don’t care. I don’t require your approval or your love. I just want you to scream pretty for me again.”
Before he could unlock the cage and drag her out of it, there was a thundering sound on the stairs. Both Persephone and Hades turned in the direction of the doorway to see a man… no, one of the under beings, race downstairs.
“Nick!” Hades said, jovially. “Did you come to watch me play with my sad little prisoner?”
Nick’s eyes widened. He spared a brief worried glance to Persephone then turned his attention back to Hades. “I can’t believe you really did it.”
“Now, now. Where’s the respect? Is this how you speak to me now?”
Nick bowed. “Forgive me, My Lord Hades.”
“That’s better. Now what has you racing down here like the flames of hell are after you?”
“Zeus knows.”
Hades laughed, a deep thundering sound that caused Persephone’s cage to rattle. “Well, of course he knows. You can’t destroy a hundred souls without word getting around.”
“I’ve just come from seeing him.”
“And why would you do that?” Hades asked as if he wasn’t truly concerned with the answer.
“He’s ended winter and returned the balance. He wants to call a truce. He says he’s willing to meet with you to make a deal regarding Persephone’s release.”
This only made Hades laugh louder. “Oh, he’s willing to meet with me, is he? How gracious. Well I’m not willing to meet with him. I have everything I want. I don’t need any deals. And Persephone isn’t going anywhere. Ever.”
“But My Lord...”
“Tell him it’s done. He lost. I won. She is mine. And tell him not to test me again. If he restarts winter or does anything else to flood us with too many souls, I will start destroying them again, and the next time I won’t stop at a mere hundred. He knows the more I destroy the less reasonable I become. And Persephone has to live with me. He needs to remember that.”
Nick looked as though he might argue, but instead he sighed. “Yes, My Lord. I’ll tell him.”
“Good. Go now.” Hades smiled at Persephone. “I have things to do.”
Nick spared her one last worried glance. “Please, My Lord… don’t hurt her. You’ll regret it.”
Hades moved in closer to Nick, and the under being took several steps back, losing his courage as soon as he’d found it.
“That might be true if the old me was coming back, but he isn’t. We both knew there was no coming back from taking this many souls. This is the god of the underworld you’re all stuck with now. You can thank Zeus for that. Now go!”
“Y-yes, My Lord.” Nick scrambled out of the dungeon and up the stairs. His panicked footsteps quickly receded, leaving Persephone alone with the monster.
Hades walked in a slow circle around the cage. “I’m so excited. I can’t decide what to do with you first.”
Persephone huddled as far from him as she could get, tears streaming down her face. “Please, Master. You don’t want to do this.”
He sighed and stopped circling the cage. “Everyone seems to think they know what I want. What I want is to fuck you and hurt you. What I want is for you to be terrified of your lord and master. I want you to cower and beg and cry and scream for me. I want to watch you suffer and bleed. And I want to do it forever. It might even amuse me to send you down to Melos in the lower realms and let him show you what his real punishments are like.”
She wanted to believe there was something of the Hades she’d known that she could still reach. There was the smallest similarity in the sound of his voice. There were a few facial features that if she looked very hard, she could still find him, but the person she’d known was gone. She’d been a little idiot to think he was scary when he’d first brought her down here. It was nothing to what he was now.
There was nothing to reach. She knew it. Her tears and pleading and pain wouldn’t affect him as they had before. She’d lost him. Her sobs came out in earnest now.
“That won’t help you. It doesn’t affect me,” he said.
She wouldn’t tell him that her crying was for the man she lost, the one she’d loved. He would only laugh at her.
His voice was so cold, so dead when he spoke. His face didn’t light up when he looked at her now. All she saw in his face was the triumph of winning and claiming a prize. That’s all she was to him.
Suddenly Persephone felt something like cold clammy death in the pit of her stomach. Hades’ touch and nearness was the only thing that had made the underworld bearable. And now she had to withstand this place and the monster who had replaced him? It was too much.
All she wanted now was freedom and escape. If the man she loved was lost, and all that remained was this terrible place, she just wanted to get out of it at any cost. But death wouldn’t release her, and she knew Hades wouldn’t.
Before she’d had the smallest hope he might find it within himself to let her return to the surface, that he would understand she couldn’t live down here and take pity on her. Even if he didn’t love her like she loved him, maybe he would feel something and let her go. Now that hope was gone because this creature wasn’t letting her go anywhere.
The weight of the underworld pushed in on her again, the hopeless endless death of night. She felt like she was drowning in it, and that was just the place itself. She was so lost inside herself in this dreaded feeling that she didn’t notice when the cage door creaked open and Hades stepped inside.
It wasn’t until he gripped her arm and dragged her out that she realized what was happening.
But when he touched her… somehow against all reason, she felt the smallest balm of comfort. The underworld’s power to hurt her fled in the face of his hands on her because he remained the master of this place no matter what form he took. Somehow, he could still give her peace even when he was the bigger threat—even when giving her peace wasn’t his goal.
She didn’t fight him when he pulled her out of the cage. Not only was it futile, but it was better to be with him anywhere than be left down here alone with the madness that overtook her when it was only her and the screaming void of the underworld.
Hades was silent as he carried her up the stairs to the main level. There was a palpable change in the air up here—something different in the stance of the guards and servants. They trembled in his presence. If they were scared of him now, what hope did she have? They’d never seemed scared of him before. Respectful and obedient, but not scared.
Even the castle itself seemed afraid.
Hades carried her up the grand staircase and then up to his floor. She knew where he was taking her before they got there. The playroom.
Once they were inside the room, he set her down on the ground.
“I owe you a punishment,” he said.
But they both knew he wasn’t punishing her for the secrets she’d kept or trying to hurt herself. He no longer cared about any of that. He just wanted to hurt her.
Persephone looked down at her wrists still wrapped in gauze. It seemed impossible that all of this had happened in the space of a day, that just this morning she’d loved the monster she now merely needed.
He gripped one of her wrists and unwrapped the gauze. He growled at the sight of her injury. Still too fresh.
“You’re far too easy to damage.” He pushed her away and she fell against the hard stone floor. “No matter, Sunshine, I’m sure I can find ways to hurt you that don’t require long healing time. I can pace myself.”
He raised an arm and the leather table came shooting out from the
closet.
“Take off the robe,” he practically snarled when he saw she was still dressed.
Persephone tried to drag it out, unlatching the silver clasps as slowly as she could manage, but Hades noticed, and the look he gave her had her rushing to undress.
“On the table.”
She climbed up on the table, unable to stop trembling. She tried to reassure herself he wasn’t going to do anything that required healing time. He wasn’t going to seriously injure her. There were limits to what he could do. She’d survive it. She tried to push away the thoughts that kept crowding into her head reminding her this wasn’t worth surviving. Going on like this wasn’t worth it. And yet even death couldn’t free her.
It was hopeless.
“Master… please.”
“The more you beg, the more excited I get, so you might want to rethink that strategy.” He moved closer to her, so close she could feel the heat coming off his skin. Then he bent and licked the tears off her face. “Fucking delicious,” he said.
She leaned closer when his tongue dragged over her cheek. She shouldn’t want him to touch her. But she couldn’t help it. It calmed her. It shut up the screaming panic for as long as he touched her. It had to be some kind of magic, but if it was, it wasn’t one he was consciously controlling. Comfort was the last thing he wanted to give her. He no longer seemed capable of it.
Then he pulled away, and the creeping dread was back. Persephone wished he’d just do whatever he was going to do. She couldn’t stand this anticipation. She couldn’t cope with the underworld and a monster bent on her destruction.
“M-Master. You won. You have me forever now. I know you’ll never release me. But do you really want to break your favorite toy?”
He chuckled. “Not an expert negotiator, are you, Sunshine? Maybe I like my toys broken. How would you know? You’ve never met the real me. Until now.”
He was lying. Whatever this was, this wasn’t the real him. She closed her eyes against the memory of him incinerating that soul. He’d done that before he’d become this… thing.
Maybe he had always been worse than she’d imagined. Or maybe just desperate.
Hades took the ropes from under the leather table and tied her down spread-eagled on her stomach.
When he went for the whip, she started to cry. Before, it had been different. There had been someone who was in control of himself, who deep down she’d known didn’t really want to hurt her. She’d grown used to seeing Hades as her protector down here. And now there was no one who could or would protect her from Hades.
Chapter Nine
Persephone felt numb. Hades had finally put the whip away. The hope she’d had that he wouldn’t damage her was gone. She felt the blood dripping down her back. How would she survive him? If this was what he did the first day of the new him. There was nothing left of him.
She couldn’t stop crying, and yet at the same time, it had become such a background noise that she could barely remember she was doing it. She cringed when he jumped on the table with her. It creaked under his weight.
She was afraid to beg him because she knew the more she reacted the more it drove him on. All conscience and feeling had left him. He might talk like a man, but he wasn’t one. It was all just… empty inside.
Why couldn’t Zeus have left well enough alone? Despite the suffocating energy of the underworld itself, she’d started to feel happy with Hades. She’d felt free. He’d been kind to her. It wasn’t as though she knew Zeus or had even met him. Some father. All he cared about was controlling her. If he was any kind of real father he wouldn’t have kept so much from her.
“Master, did you know you would become this if you destroyed those souls?”
“Yes. Everything was too complicated. And now… it isn’t.”
Maybe she could have forgiven him if he hadn’t known what he would become. Even with the horror of it all. She could have decided to believe taking all those souls had been an act of desperation and temporary insanity, not premeditated pure evil.
She flinched when she felt his tongue on her back, lapping up the blood. All she wanted was to get away from him. And at the same time, all she wanted was to get closer. Because even after the pain he’d just caused her… even after breaking her skin and making her bleed and suffer, when he touched her, she was home and everything felt safe. She was the farthest she could be from safe, and yet despite the rational truth, all she wanted was for him to touch her. If only he’d leave the whip alone and put his hands on her.
A moan left her throat as his tongue moved over her skin.
“Even after everything I have done and will do to you, you still want me,” he said.
No. Needed. But she couldn’t tell him that. He truly would use it against her now.
He untied her and left her alone in the room. Several endless minutes passed, but before the screeching panic could claw its way to the surface, the door opened again and one of the female servants stepped in. It was the same girl who’d brought her food a few hours before.
“Your Grace,” she said quietly, looking down at the ground.
“Please stop calling me that. We both know it’s a lie. Just call me Persephone.”
She shook her head. “Oh no, I can’t call you that. It would be wrong. Disrespectful.”
Persephone didn’t bother fighting her on the issue. She was too exhausted. And in the grand scheme, the mockery of that title was the least of her troubles.
The servant carried a large basket filled with first aid supplies. She put it on the table and pulled the items out carefully one by one.
“Does he know you’re doing this?”
The girl kept her eyes trained on the items from the basket. “He sent me. He wants you cleaned up and brought to him in his room.”
A hard lump formed in Persephone’s throat. They both knew what that meant. He’d beaten her. Now he wanted to fuck her. But he didn’t want her blood messing up his nice sheets.
She started to cry.
“You must be brave, Your Grace,” the servant girl said.
Persephone couldn’t bring herself to explain the true cause of her tears. She wasn’t crying because she was terrified or horrified by the idea of sleeping with him like this. It was the fact that she knew, even after everything, destroying souls, destroying her… she would like it. She’d found no evidence that any direct physical touch from him would or could ever repulse or upset her. Quite the contrary.
In his new form, everything was a thousand times worse. And yet he was both everything bad and everything good. He created all her suffering, and then his touch erased it all again so the miserable cycle could start all over.
The girl spread an ointment over the whip lashes on Persephone’s back. “We aren’t really much into healing things down here, but this might help you heal a little faster than normal.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to heal a little faster. Healing faster only meant more would come sooner. But she didn’t say anything. Hades had ordered this. The girl would carry it out. And there was nothing Persephone could do to thwart him.
The servant worked quietly applying the ointment and then the bandages. Below the sting, the whip had caused a painful ache. How long would it take that to heal, and would he spare her more pain until then? Or would he learn to work around her human frailties with pain that caused less damage?
A part of her still didn’t believe she was a goddess. Wouldn’t that be a fucked-up twist of fate… to have been the wrong girl this whole time?
But if Zeus had turned the world to winter to get her back, she must be who they said. Even if she didn’t know herself, he did.
Once the bandages were secure, the girl opened the basket again and pulled out something slinky and shimmering. It was the dress Hades had ordered made for her for that first party—the night she’d first realized just how far she’d started to fall for him, the night she’d been truly awakened to a carnal potential she’d never known she had or wanted.
“No. Not that dress,” she said.
“He wants this one. It has to be this one.”
It was too painful remembering that night. The sharpest memory wasn’t the endless hours of pleasure, it was when she’d gotten scared and Hades had pulled her out of there and taken care of her. She knew he’d never do anything like that again.
“Please, Your Grace. It will only be worse for you if you fight him on this.”
Persephone knew she wouldn’t fight him on anything. It would get her nothing but suffering. She allowed the servant to help her into the sheer gown without further complaint. When the girl was finished, she packed up the basket and left. On her way out the door she said, “You must go to him now. He’s waiting.”
***
Persephone paused outside the bedroom door and took a long, deep breath. The guard standing in the hallway looked at her with pity as if he wanted to rescue her from this fate. It felt as though every being in this castle wanted to rescue and help her, but none of them had the will to defy Hades.
And even if they did, it occurred to her that if he ruled the entire underworld, he had far more power than she’d ever witnessed or fully contemplated. Every being in this place had to know that to fight him would mean their own annihilation. He could destroy anyone or anything he wanted down here. Persephone hadn’t appreciated just how much power he’d had and how much self-control, until he let go of it. She hadn’t understood until now how safe and cherished she’d truly been in his arms.
Tears had been silently moving down her cheeks, but she couldn’t stop the loud strangled sob that escaped her.
“I’m so sorry, Your Grace,” the guard said. “We never thought that he would ever...”
“I know. It’s not your fault.”
And even if they had thought it, what were they going to do about it? They were all helpless actors on his stage. If that stage was a hedonistic orgy or a horror show of torment, either way, everything that happened in this realm happened at his pleasure.
She scrubbed the tears off her face with the back of her hand and pushed the door open.
