Summer Queen

by Amelia Wilde

  And I traded myself for it. This is what I bought.

  22

  Persephone

  “Don’t try to stop me, Oliver. I’m going.”

  Oliver does his job well, and I can see how much it pains him to even consider going against Hades’ orders. “I’ll call him,” he says. “I’ll call him and I’ll tell him to come back.”

  I draw myself up to my full height, which is still quite a bit less than Oliver’s. “Get out of my way.”

  Something shifts in his expression. For the first time, with Eleanor’s words ringing in my ears and the sunspots still in my eyes, I don’t feel like a prisoner, or an asset. I feel like a queen. This is what queens do. They’re equals to their husbands or wives, and they don’t let the staff stop them from doing what they need to do.

  And what I need to do is talk to Hades. He has to know what I know.

  Oliver steps aside.

  I go out the doors into the main part of Hades’ mountain fortress.

  This is going to cause a stir.

  The halls are filled with people huddled in the alcoves and whispering to each other. Let them look. Let them see me breaking his rules, if that’s what I have to do to prove that I can handle him. When he knows I can bear him—when he really knows it—then he’ll be able to let me all the way in. We won’t be joined by paperwork between us and life-and-death deals. It’ll be something real and timeless. I’ll never think of the stupid New York Public Library again, as long as I can make him see.

  People move out of my way on the long walk across the fortress. I should’ve worn different shoes but it’s too late for that kind of regret. I should have done a lot of things, like changed my clothes, or put on makeup, or brushed out my hair. But here I am.

  Nobody stops me at the giant doors to Hades’ office. At the last minute I pick up the pace so I’m almost at a run when I go inside, heart beating out of my chest, pulse singing with blue skies and facts I never should have known. I ignore, with all my might, the lump in my throat and the wreckage of my soul. He’ll put it back together somehow. We’ll both do it.

  “I’m sorry.” I’m too loud, too sudden. Hades stands silhouetted in front of the windows that give him a panoramic view of the factory floor, his head bowed over a tablet. The blue light catches his face as he raises his head. Oh, shit. He’s not in a good mood. His shoulders are all tension, his hands tight on the sides of the tablet. One look communicates exactly how much I’ve disobeyed him. It’s an apocalyptic amount. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. “I’m sorry,” I say again, but even my lowered voice is overwhelming for the space. The sound of the wind outside, rushing around the mountain, hasn’t fully left my ears. “For everything that happened to you. For everything that...still happens to you.”

  Concentration drops away from his face. It’s hard to see him, with all the light behind us, but I get terrifying flashes. His jaw tightens. There’s no color left in his eyes. His anger is a heat wave, an oncoming storm. I’ve run from storms before, but I’m not going to run from this one.

  His grip tightens on the tablet and then he hurls it toward the window. Don’t run, don’t run. It bounces off the window and the screen shatters on the floor. Hades doesn’t look at it, and neither do it—because I’m transfixed by what’s happening on his face. I’ve never seen him run through so many emotions, so fast I can’t identify them. But they feel like fear. And pain. And...relief? But all of them are crushed under the force of his anger.

  Hades strips off his jacket while he crosses the floor toward me. I rock up on the balls of my feet and come back down. Don’t run. Keep breathing. The jacket falls. One of his buttons comes off when he shoves his sleeves up. Then he’s breaking over me, an icy cold front. My feet come off the floor and from this close, there’s no denying his fury.

  He’s wordless with it. Another first that’s terrifying in its uniqueness. He always has something to say. Not this time.

  I’m bent over the desk before I have time to catch my breath or my balance, the glass surface coming up to meet me and crushing the air from my lungs. Hades takes one breath. It steadies him enough to speak while he pulls one arm behind my back, then another. A familiar tension around my wrists—his tie. He’s tying me up. I struggle out of instinct and his palm pushes me back down.

  “We had a deal, Persephone.” Oh, god, he’s going to snap. “You’re skirting the terms of our deal.”

  My pants come off, and panties. A drawer opens. A drawer? All of me goes tense and hot. I’m already bound. I already want this. But it doesn’t stop the chill of not know what’s going to happen.

  “Punish me, then,” I tell him breathlessly.

  “What the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

  He spreads me apart next, perfunctory, humiliating. Wide. And then something cold and slick makes contact. A vicious, visceral flashback to the train rears up and slaps me. I know exactly what he’s going to do. He can’t do it. He can’t, he can’t. It’ll never work.

  “I think you’re teaching me a lesson.” Anything to delay, even shaky words that don’t quite make sense. Words that he never asked for.

  “I’m collecting payment. You’re overdue, you little thief. You’re a fucking brat, and you know it.”

  His finger comes next. I have no way to stop him and it’s terrifying and wonderful—it’s what I wanted. But the pendulum swings toward terrifying and I squeeze tight, trying to keep him out. Not there, not there. No, no—

  Another finger. There’s just not enough room. My lungs flatten, refuse to take in a breath. It’s so wrong, what he’s doing. This is worse than when he made me come over and over, this is worse. Two fingers in a tight space and I can’t get used to him. I rock uselessly against the desk in the half-inch of leeway he’s given me. I’m getting nowhere. He won’t stop.

  “You can steal from me. You can dig into my past for secrets. But I meant what I said, Persephone. You. Will. Pay.”

  He takes his fingers out and pushes them back in. How long have I been crying? Another tear splashes against the glass below me. It’s too much. Too much. More lube, cold and slippery. More fingers. His other hand pins my wrists to my back. It’s so sexy I can’t catch my breath and so embarrassing, so awful. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong is a drumbeat that makes my face red and the tears come faster. It makes wetness gather between my legs, where he won’t touch.

  Another panicked tear splashes onto the desk and the next moment the fingers are gone. Something much bigger is pushing against me. It’s him, it’s him, and he will never, ever fit. Hades lets go of my wrists and strokes his hands down the outside of my hips. Is he going to force it? The answer is almost certainly yes.

  “Open up for me.”. The command filters down through an ugly, wheezing sob, but I hope he doesn’t stop. I am a sick and twisted slut and I don’t want him to stop. He follows with a sharp slap to my ass.

  “I don’t know how,” I plead. “Please, don’t.”

  He strokes across my back—easy, easy—and then that hand moves around to the front of me and delves between my legs. I cannot fathom how I got to this place in my life that this situation—this, here, now—has me on the edge. It’s not right. It’s so terribly wrong.

  “Open. Relax,” he says gruffly. The pressure intensifies. He’s going to do this no matter how much I struggle and cry. So why struggle? I can’t help crying but I can let go.

  I can let go.

  I fall onto the desk, letting it take all my weight, and I think I hear him whisper good girl. Angel. Brat. You don’t know what you do to me.

  He pushes the head of his cock inside and I’m dying. I’m going to die. It’s a painful stretch, too big and too much and yet not enough. Hades plays gently with my clit. It’s the polar opposite of what he’s doing to my ass. My legs shake. I’m up on tiptoe, trying to get a good angle, trying to relieve any of this intense pressure, but nothing works. The trembling moves up and takes me over. I’m at its mercy, and his.

 
Another inch. Another.

  “Good.” His voice is stretched thin. “Good, you filthy fucking thing. You’re such a pretty liar, such a pretty thief. You’re doing so well. Hold still. Yes. Hold still, that’s it—”

  My mind splits away from the rest of me. He is so huge, and I am so small. Another inch, and then another. He keeps me from falling. That, and the desk. One by one, my memories fly away. The things I wanted. My name. I’m no one. I’m his.

  When he’s fully inside of me I know it’s the end.

  The end of me, the end of the world, the end of everything. If he moves I’ll die. The stretch is too much, the struggle to keep letting go is too much.

  Hades doesn’t move.

  He makes me do it.

  His fingertips on my clit have gone still, and I only notice because he starts moving them again in an infinitely soft circle. “No,” I howl into his empty office. “Don’t make me.”

  “Oh, Persephone. It’s far too late for that.”

  One final stroke yanks me down into an orgasm so filthy and powerful that my eyes go dark from all the tears.

  “Please, please.” I sound like I’m underwater, drowning in him. “Please.” I don’t know what I’m begging for.

  What I get is Hades dragging himself back out and pushing himself back in. He sets his own deadly rhythm and I twist in his tie, searching for his hand, and when I find it he doesn’t shake me off. Hades holds on tight while he fucks the breath out of me, and then the tears, and then, finally, lets himself go. “Fuck,” he says, so softly I could be imagining it, I could be hallucinating it. “Fuck, I love you.”

  23

  Persephone

  Somehow, we end up back in Hades’ bedroom. There must be a...a doorway, a hall, a secret passage, because I have no memory of hundreds of people staring at me, draped half-naked in his arms. Then again, maybe they did. Who cares? I’m untouchable now. He’s done his worst, and I survived. I just can’t keep surviving. I’m distantly aware of a shower and then riding him, my forehead pressed against his neck, and then I’m dead to the world. See you when spring comes.

  His voice wakes me up. It winds its way down the hall to the bedroom and brushes over the shell of my ear until I’m forced to unbury myself from the sheets. It’s a wild tangle in the bed, which makes sense given what I can remember of last night. Somehow, miraculously, I’m not hurt. A flower rests on Hades’ pillow—one of the purple ones that grows outside, near the ravine. Diamonds, and now this.

  It’s early enough that the window still displays faded stars. That means the sun will be up outside, and Eleanor will be working on her flowers. The floor is cool on my feet, enough to wake me up.

  In the bathroom I catch myself with a stupid smile on my face. I might have been out of my mind but I could still hear him. I hear everything he says. In that moment it couldn’t have been anything other than the truth. The flower proves it. The flower, the book, the jewelry...all of it.

  Wrapped in a light blanket—more of a shawl, really—from the closet, I go out into the sitting room. It’s empty, which is weird. I could’ve sworn I heard Hades in here. But since he’s obviously not, I open the door and listen.

  My stomach sinks. Hades didn’t sound close because he was in the sitting room. He sounded close because he’s yelling. What I should do is stay where I am and wait for him to come back, but I can’t. It’ll squeeze the air out of me and make my hands shake and honestly, no. I’m not going to do it.

  The voices come from his office. Oliver’s first. “I’m not fucking with you and—no, no. My people aren’t fucking with me. This is happening.”

  It stops me dead center in the hallway, and I have to catch my breath. Oliver sounds afraid. And I know he wouldn’t talk to Hades like this unless that fear was real. If Oliver’s afraid, then I should be afraid. No question.

  Something crashes against glass and cracks it. I get one hand up to cover my head before I manage to take hold of myself. It’s easy enough to ignore the outside world when I spend all my time helping Eleanor in the garden and getting dragged into Hades bed. His presence doesn’t leave a lot of room to dwell on what’s happening out there—with Zeus, with my mother, with anyone. Her fields and his whorehouse seem like they’re a million miles away. The moon has more of an effect on our lives.

  Okay. New plan. Don’t sneak up on this conversation, which is obviously not going well. Just walk like a normal person. My nerves stop me from taking heavy steps. Also, it’s extremely difficult to make noise in bare feet. Not trying to hide will be enough.

  “This is untenable,” Hades hisses. I can see it now—he’s probably got his knuckles against the surface of his desk. I’ve got to get in there now before they stop talking and he finds me out here. A few more steps, a little more speed—

  That tiny burst of speed is how I end up stepping in front of his office door at the moment Hades rubs a hand furiously over his eyes. It’s how I’m there to see the words come out of his mouth. “Fuck, Oliver. I should never have accepted her as payment from Demeter.”

  The world stops. Collapses into itself. Detonates. Or maybe that’s just my heart. I can’t move, or speak. Hades twists toward the window in his office.

  I see him see me in the reflection and turn, fast, too late.

  “Persephone—”

  My bare feet help me with the dead sprint back down the hall and to that outer door. I don’t know what’s worse. There are so many horrible things carving themselves into me that I can’t tell which one deals the killing blow and makes me cry. Again.

  The door leading outside opens for me, flooding the end of the hall with pure sunlight. Fuck him—I’ll go where he can’t go. I’ll stay in the light forever. See how he likes it, see how he likes how this feels, if he could even feel this. It’s agony. Heartbreak overflows into all of my veins. I can’t outrun it. My only solace is that, this once, I can outrun Hades.

  My toe catches on an upturned chunk of dirt, throwing me off balance. For a second I swing toward the ravine. It would be a terrible fall. Let it happen, something inside me says. Just let it happen.

  No.

  I’m better off living in hell than dying in a fucking ravine.

  It’s not just him. It’s not just the fact that he lied yesterday and I believed him. This wild keening that I can’t stop is also for my mother. Why does it hurt so much? I knew—I always knew—

  I hold my breath but more sobs tear free. There’s no holding it back, no stepping away. A stark breeze dries the tears on my face and whips my hair into my eyes. More tears come to replace them. I can’t decide whether the sky is an uncaring witness or a friend. The sky—a friend. I’m losing it. I always knew my mother didn’t love me the way parents in books loved their children. She just didn’t, or couldn’t. But I never thought she’d sell me out. For what? For what? There’s no answer on earth that can fill in the hole, newly blown, where my heart used to be.

  Someone’s talking to me but I can’t make out the words—Eleanor. She comes hurrying across the grass. I’m too far gone to be embarrassed about how ridiculous I look right now in this shawl, with no shoes on.

  “Persephone, darling, what’s the matter, tell me—” Her question cuts off in a gasp. She raises her voice. “Don’t do this, Luther. She’ll be back in a minute.”

  He stalks across the grass, eyes steely and dark. “Go inside, Eleanor.”

  “I’ll bring her—”

  “Go inside.”

  Eleanor squeezes my shoulders and steps back. I feel her go. She won’t be far, I can tell...but she’s an old woman, and I’d rather fall into the ravine than ask her to stand between me and Hades.

  “You don’t know what you heard,” snaps Hades. “Running out here like this is a stupid fucking idea, Persephone. You are asking for punishment and I’m happy to give it.”

  “You bought me? My mother s-sold me?” God, it hurts so much.

  He looks down at the ground and I know, with complete certainty, that th
is is his one concession to being out here where he should not be. This gesture is not about feeling ashamed. It’s about staying alive. Hades picks up his head and looks me in the eye. Tension builds in his shoulders. If he hadn’t stabbed neatly through my heart I would feel for him. But he did, and I want this answer for free.

  “Years ago. Before you were born.”

  I thought there was nothing left of my heart to break, but there is. There’s so much more. I stuff the back of my fist into my mouth to hold in the sound, swallow it back. “That can’t be.” I clear my throat. “I’ve spent my life—I’ve spent my life trying to get away from her, and she never wanted me to leave. She would never do that. She’s obsessed with me. She loves me.”

  Never is a long time.

  “That wasn’t always the case.”

  Couldn’t he just lie to me, for once? And say that she did love me at all? He’s so mean. He’s so awful. He’s right.

  Conor comes tearing out of the doorway in the mountainside, barking at the top of his lungs. Hades keeps his eyes on mine as Conor races around him in a tight circle, his barks softening, begging. He puts a hand down on Conor’s collar and Conor sits, but I can tell he hates it. He struggles against Hades’ legs, even with his own wound, and barks.

  “Then all those papers I signed were meaningless. Fake. It was never real.”

  Hades points a finger at the door. “Get back inside.”

  The only reason I go toward the door at all is because Eleanor shouldn’t have to watch this. I want a closed door and several feet of rock between me and the rest of the world. But when I get there, I can’t go in. I turn on the spot and block Hades’ path. Conor pulls urgently at his collar. I’m ready to scream forever, just keep screaming until I’m dead, but somehow it becomes words. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the truth. I’m done with lies, Hades. I’m done with buying everything I need to know about you, it’s not fair.”