Receiver of Many

by Rachel Alexander

  “Then why were you carrying it this whole time?!”

  “Because it’s dangerous! Just hand it over.”

  “You didn’t answer my question!”

  “I just did. You think I carried it with me to bend you to my will? The exact opposite is true! The only reason I kept it close to me is because I didn’t want you or anyone to be accidentally influenced by its power.”

  “Then you admit that you only… love me… because of this?”

  “No! That’s not how it works. It only made me aware that I’ve loved you since…”

  “Since when?”

  He stayed silent, searching his memory for the moment that he first felt anything for her. Nyx and Hecate may have persuaded him that it was time to claim her on the night of the full moon, reminded him that she’d been a woman for many centuries. But Aidoneus had thought about her, felt something for her long before he’d ever visited her dreams in Eleusis. Despite there being a host of nymphs in his kingdom who, thanks to Thanatos’s philandering, had proven themselves very willing to take lovers, he’d never so much as glanced at one of them. He had always attributed his avoidance of them to his somber self-control, and to his own pretense that unlike the other gods, he operated above the level of baser instinct. But the truth had always gnawed at him— he was a man with needs as much as anyone else. Leuce, a nymph that once lived amidst the white poplar trees in his garden, had tried to seduce him early in his reign, only to be immediately rebuffed. He could have used her body in a moment of lust, or kept her as companion to ease his self-imposed exile. She had even suggested as much. Yet, he didn’t want anything to do with her. Nor any of the others who saw his place in the cosmic order as a prize to be claimed, or regarded his celibacy as a challenge to be conquered.

  Aidoneus only dreamed of Persephone. Demeter, joyous in conceiving a child by Zeus, had once grabbed Aidon’s hand and placed it on her womb to feel the tiny life move about within her. He remembered drawing back in surprise as a jolt traveled up his arm, filling his mind with an augury of a future he couldn’t begin to comprehend and a startling vision of the three Fates pointing at him. Before she was even born, he’d beheaded Iapetos to save her. When he stood in Demeter’s home at the end of the war to remind her of their agreement and the infant Kore started crying, he had only wanted to comfort and protect her. He’d felt love for her swell in his chest, though he hadn’t known what had struck him so profoundly that day until now. Aidoneus had left his kingdom for the first time since that night to be gawked at by the Olympian gods in order to ask for her.

  The string of epiphanies hit him so hard he sat awestruck, almost forgetting that this same woman, whom he had loved and would love forever, was in the room right now. And she was very angry with him.

  “You can’t even answer me,” she scoffed, frustrated by his silence. “All you’ve done since the beginning is evade my questions.”

  “The beginning of what, exactly?” he said, snapping back into the moment, alarmed. He was losing her…

  “The moment I met you! When you came to me in the dream, I asked you who you were. You turned it around and asked me who I thought you were. It angered me then and it angers me still!”

  “You know I couldn’t have told you then, and you know the reason why! Demeter would have hid you from me if you told her, no matter how innocently, that Hades had come for you. I was trying to introduce myself to you slowly. Would you rather I just took you below the earth right then and made myself known to you for the first time once we arrived?”

  She stood tall and narrowed her eyes. “Well, isn’t that what you ended up doing?”

  “That was not how I wanted to—”

  “But you did! You did, Aidoneus! You abducted me from Nysa and took my maidenhead on the way to the Underworld! I don’t care how much you wanted it to be different, that was it!”

  He winced, knowing she was right. He couldn’t give back what he had taken from her. And when his thoughts lingered too long on their first time, he didn’t want to.

  “That’s what happened,” she continued, fighting back her own memories, “and it stands as another example of how you can’t ever speak plainly to me about why you did it.”

  “I cannot answer that for you. We’ve been over this!”

  “And why not?”

  “Because any answer I give might harm you as much as it will harm our marriage.”

  “Oh, speak plainly to me, Aidon! I am not Charon; I am not Hecate. I am your wife! And I am tired of riddles and partial truths and evaded questions even as you continually ask me to trust you. You make it impossible for me to love you!” She saw his eyes flash with hurt and anger.

  “You want me to speak plainly, my lady? Fine! If I didn’t take you, and take you in every sense of the word, your mother would have eternally rooted you to the earth to keep you from me!” Persephone gaped at him in shock. He paused, but it was too late to take it back, and his voice hitched as he continued. “The only way she could have done it was if you were still a virgin. You would have lived the rest of your days like the nymph Daphne unless I acted. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  She clutched her hands around her naked body, backing away. “My mother would never— you’re a liar! I can’t believe I ever let you touch me! You’re a liar!”

  “And now you know why I didn’t tell you!” he bellowed back at her, matching her volume. Any urge to hold her and comfort her was overridden by anger— anger at Demeter, at his wife’s obstinacy, anger at the destruction of any chance he’d ever had to begin their life together peacefully. “Honestly, Persephone! If I was going to fill you with lies, wouldn’t it have been easier for me to do so from the start? Instead of suffer through this?!” he said gesturing at her.

  Persephone’s mouth was dry, her eyes wet and aching as though acid were about to spill out instead of tears. She blinked them back again.

  “Let me speak plainly to you again.” His voice wavered. “I did it because I love you! I’ve cursed myself every day for how it had to be done. But if I hadn’t, you would have been lost to me forever.”

  Unwanted heat flooded into her again at the memory of him whispering in her ear, her legs twined around him in the dark. She turned her anger at her traitorous body back at him. “If that’s the truth, then you weren’t afraid of losing me, Aidoneus! You were afraid of losing your claim over me. All I am, all I ever was to you is a fulfillment of a contract.”

  “Listen to me again very carefully, Persephone. I love you. Whatever oath I made with your parents has nothing to do with what I feel for you!”

  “But you could have had these feelings for anyone as long as they were already bound and betrothed to you! The only reason you took me here as your bride was to perpetuate your eternal pissing contest with my mother!”

  He gritted his teeth. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yes I do! And how exactly do you know what you’re saying anyway? You’re still under the golden arrow’s spell! Without it you would have never felt anything for me, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with me, or… whatever it is you feel right now! Eros needed to shoot you with this before you’d even contemplate bedding me, much less loving me,” she said, thrusting the arrow before his eyes in her clenched fist.

  “How can you even think these things,” he shouted at her, his face reddening, “when I bare my soul to you time and again? When you know what is in my heart?!”

  “This was the only thing that ever found its way into your heart!” she screamed back, throwing the arrow at him. It skipped across the floor and spun, coming to a stop at his feet. Aidon threw the sheet off and stood up, stepping over the golden arrow. She shrank toward the columns next to the door.

  “Enough of this! I am tired of scraping for your affections, Persephone. What more do I have to say before you will believe me?!” Aidoneus strode toward her quickly and deliberately until he loomed over her. “And tell me this, wife— why give half a thought as t
o whether or not I truly love you in the first place? We wouldn’t even be having this argument if you didn’t love me! Tell me!”

  “Well, my lord husband,” she said chewing on the last words, “that’s rather presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

  He narrowed his eyes and smirked at her. “Now who’s evading questions?”

  “As you evade mine in the same breath!” she said, balling her fists.

  He drew intimately close to her and lowered his voice. “Fine. I do presume, wife. I know that you love me, Persephone, because I can feel it. I can feel it whenever I’m in your presence. Even now, through your anger, when I look into your eyes— I feel it. I can feel it when I speak to you, when I hold you, when I touch you, when I’m inside you. Deny it all you want, but if you felt nothing, then you wouldn’t have shown me such tenderness last night.”

  “It’s not as if I feel nothing for you,” she said under her breath, averting her eyes as he came within inches of her. She felt her body shudder at his closeness, her heart beating fast.

  “Then what do you feel? Look at me.” He lifted her chin roughly. “Look at me! Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t love me!”

  Her blue gray eyes met his, then filled with tears. She turned away from him.

  “That’s what I thought,” he sneered and stepped back.

  “How could you ever expect me to love you?!” she spat back at him. “You’ve kept me prisoner here and you’ll never treat me as anything more than your bedmate! You say you ‘lay all you rule at my feet’ but they’re just words! Sweet, condescending words to keep me pliant!”

  “I meant every word of what I said to you! And at this point I’ll do anything to convince you! What is it that you want from me, Persephone? Name it!”

  She took a deep breath. “I am She Who Destroys the Light and I want to know why the Hundred Handed Ones knew me by name.”

  He closed his eyes, realizing too late that he’d walked right into this one. She was about to trap him with the one thing he could not give her. Aidoneus glared at her again and pursed his lips, knowing full well where this was going.

  “I want to know why the pathway I opened to the ether was surrounded by the Phlegethon. I want to know what I am and why I am here! I want you to take me to Tartarus!”

  He stood in front of her silently. Unnerved, Persephone inched up to sit on the column relief as far from him as she could get without bolting from the room. Aidoneus closed those same few inches with another step forward, his body magnetically pulled toward hers. He stayed there until she met his eyes then spoke slowly, his voice rasping in anger. “You have no idea what you ask of me. You think that Tartarus is just another new place to wander into, and that I’ll be able to casually rescue you if you get into trouble as I did when you ran into the Lethe. I assure you— it’s not.”

  “Why not let me see that for myself?”

  “Why?! To see how fatally perilous it is even for gods?! I’m not taking you there!” he shouted at her, watching her flinch in fear.

  “Then you’ve proven me right, Aidoneus,” she shot back at him. “Your pretty words mean nothing! All you want is to dress me up to look like a queen, without any power or consequence whatsoever, and lock me away in your palace!”

  “If that were in any way true,” he fumed, trying to control his anger, “then why for Fates sake would I have spent yesterday showing you our realm from the Styx? Why would I have gone out of my way to take you to Nysa last night”

  “You gave me a taste of what I could be, what I am supposed be, and then pulled it away from me! For that, you’re worse than Demeter!” She saw his eyes widen in shock as she compared him to his enemy. For that’s what her mother was, Persephone realized, if his accusations against her held any truth. She looked up at his clenched jaw, the stone column cold and unyielding against her back, his body looming over hers. And she felt pulled toward him, and knew he felt the same thing. She shivered. Her voice faltered as she continued. “At least my mother had the decency to keep me completely unaware.”

  Hades gritted his teeth and slammed his hand against the column, the smack of his palm echoing through the room. He narrowed his eyes at her and stilled for a moment before he spoke low, struggling to abate his anger. “Your mother kept you an ignorant girl because she needed the eternal devotion your father could never give her. And once she knew for certain that I had come to you— that she would lose you to me— she decided to obliterate everything that made you what you were. I saved you; I gave you freedom and knowledge, and made you into a woman when I took you here to be my queen. Don’t make me regret that.”

  “You don’t want a queen, you want a whore! All you want is for me to lie on my back and spread my legs for you!”

  Once she said it, they became acutely aware of their proximity to each other. Persephone looked down at his hips parting her knees. Her breath hitched. Aidoneus looked away, biting his lip in anger, his body responding to her closeness. The air hummed around them, the space between them alive and closing. She saw his muscles tense as he fought to restrain himself. Persephone shuddered, heard him grinding his teeth together as he stood over her, and felt the heat of his cock pressing against her trembling thigh. She was unable to back away any further— and didn’t want to. All either could hear was the other’s shallow breathing. He stood there cursing himself, cursing her, every fiber of his being screaming to be inside her.

  Aidoneus closed the gap between them and grasped her by the nape of her neck, tilting her head up, his fingers catching and lacing through her hair. Coiled lust made him tighten his grip, and a short cry from deep in her throat nearly undid him. He stopped an inch from her face, eye to eye with his wife. He tried to ignore the sensation of her thighs trembling and twitching around his hips, the infernal heat pouring from between her legs, and the scent of opening lilies rising from her skin. His breath came out in pants against his ragged words. “I should never have brought you here. My life was ordered; it made sense before you threw it into pandemonium. And when you do spread your legs for me, Persephone, when you welcome me inside your body, you turn me into a fool— an idiot— that thinks you are capable of loving me.”

  Persephone watched him shiver with a barely restrained need that mirrored her own. She brought her hand up to lightly trace along the straining muscles of his arm. He brushed his other hand over her hair, cupping the back of her head. Her lips moved against his with a whisper. “Hades…”

  He crushed his lips against hers so hard it flattened her against the column behind her. The shock of the freezing marble against her bare back made her shriek and arch toward him. She heard him grunt into her mouth as his knuckles grated on the stone behind her head. Persephone raked her fingernails down the solid wall of his chest, leaving a trail of raw lines on his skin. Their tongues battled for dominance as he possessively mauled and bruised her lips. When Persephone caught his bottom lip between her teeth and pulled back, he hissed in pain. He broke away with a feral stare and ran his tongue over his lip, tasting blood.

  Aidoneus whispered her name and pressed his body against hers, tension humming between them. His hand knotted in her hair, pulling her mouth up again to accept his. She locked her legs around his waist, tasting him. He dipped down to her exposed throat, then nipped at the flesh on her neck and shoulder, leaving a trail of rose blotches as he went. Persephone cried out and felt his hand squeeze at her breast, her nipple beading against his open palm. She squirmed and trailed her foot along the back of his leg. When his lips found her puckered areola, she tightened her thighs around him. He lightly pulled at the tip with his teeth, delighting in her sharp intake of breath.

  Her fingernails bit hard into his skin, leaving reddened marks across his lower back. Filled equally with fury and delight, she whispered around punctuated gasps. “Better an idiot than the whore you’ve made out of me.”

  Aidoneus released her breast and narrowed his eyes at her again. He locked his lips to hers to silence and t
aste her. Persephone moaned around his darting tongue. Her hand found an opening between their bodies and he groaned in surprise when she wrapped her fingers around his cock, her thumb swiping the gathered liquid across the crown before stroking him, squeezing and pulling the silken skin away from the head and over the hardness underneath.

  The pleasure forced him away from her red, swollen lips. His eyes squeezed shut as he tilted his head back and gasped. She relished his reaction to her. His hips involuntarily thrust toward her hand and he rested his head on her shoulder. She gripped him tighter, and he tensed. Aidon’s breath poured hot over her breast, his voice just above a whisper. “Do not forget who you toy with. I am the eldest of the gods and I will not be made into a fool. Especially not by a mere slip of a girl.”

  “You’re my fool,” she whispered into his ear, guiding him to her entrance.

  He pulled back her hair and bit at her collarbone, angry and undone, feeling her undulate against him. “And you are my whore,” Hades growled.

  She pulled him into her, the first inch sliding in effortlessly until he took over and slammed his hips into hers. His head leaned on her shoulder once they were fully joined and he gritted his teeth, groaning from low in his throat. Persephone lurched forward upon his withdrawal, and cried out when he pushed deep into her again. She wrapped her legs tightly around him, locking her ankles, trapping him inside her.

  He looked down at her, desperate to move again within her. His nostrils flared at her challenge once he realized he was caught. Aidoneus glared at her, unsure of her intent until he felt her inner muscles close in around his cock, shooting pleasure up his spine. He gasped. She tensed every part of her body and squeezed around him in waves, orchestrating his bliss.

  Aidon’s eyes rolled back in his head and a strained moan forced its way from his throat. Desperate, he squirmed from side to side within the tangle of her legs, stirring her insides until she felt lightheaded. It was difficult enough to close around his fullness when he was still, let alone thrashing about. With all her will, she focused and contracted around him again. Each squeeze sent a burst of pleasure through her while it buried him in waves of slick heat, and Aidon was unsure if he wanted her to release him, or to never let him go. Persephone bit her lip, realizing she could not sustain this much longer.