Receiver of Many

by Rachel Alexander

  “Truthfully? Because what am I to you now? My significance to you, to what you truly are, is not what I thought it to be.”

  “Why should that matter at all to me?”

  “You are sovereign here, you rule this realm. At least I had something to offer you when I… dragged you down here. But now I have nothing; and you honestly don’t need me. Know that. Understand that, first. If you still feel the same after you’ve had a chance to think on it, then yes; I would love to hear it. But if there is any chance, even so slight, that you’re saying those words out of pity, because you feel it is what I want to hear, and not actually…” He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. “My heart can’t take that.”

  “Are you saying this because you somehow feel less than me now? Because of what they said to us?”

  He turned and lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. “It’s not a matter of how I feel, lady wife, it just is. All I ever was to this world was a regent holding your throne. You are the Queen of the Underworld. Its rightful ruler for longer than either of us has existed. And what am I?” he asked derisively. “Merely your consort, here by your grace.”

  “Oh?” She leaned over him, stretched out at his side and propped herself up on her arm. A smile raised one corner of her mouth. She pointed a finger toward the canopy above them. “You mean just as they say about me in the world above?”

  He looked at her quizzically. Her smile spread into a wide grin at his baffled expression, but his features pinched, thinking she was mocking him. “I’ve endured enough today, my queen. Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not,” she said firmly. “Aidon, this is our marriage, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you said to me before? The gods above see me as your consort. The gods below see you as my consort. I came from a world that sees my body and soul as your property, sold to you by my father.”

  “And what of it, Persephone? The laws of their world hold very little sway here; you know that. This is— was my third of the cosmos,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “It still is! Your third of the cosmos, a place you’ve called home all this time, is where they exalt me as Queen and relegate you to merely being my destined bedmate after you’ve tirelessly ruled here for aeons— after you made this place your own. I refuse to accept that.”

  “That’s good of you, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “Nothing has to change. This is all dependent on what we make of it. Why not just be King and Queen to each other, Aidoneus, and to Tartarus with what anyone else says?”

  Thousands of years, and still you think like an Olympian, Hecate had said. Theirs is a different world, and ours are different ways. Aidoneus studied her face. “You would share this realm with me?”

  “Only if you share it with me,” she said, her eyes widening. “I love my place here,” she said, winding her finger along his chest. “At your side. As your equal, Aidon, which is a far sight better than what my place would be if you asked the Olympians.”

  “You love it here…” It sounded more like a statement than a question. It had taken him millennia. He worried it would take her even longer. “You love all of this? Even though there is no sun or moon, no roses or larkspur…” He looked away from her expectant gaze. “Even though I took you from your mother?”

  Her face fell, lost in thought as he studied her expressions.

  “You miss her, don’t you?” he muttered under his breath.

  “Of course I do. She’s my mother, and her love was the only love I’d known for aeons.” She kissed him softly. “But I love our world too, Aidon. It’s peaceful and freeing, its rivers and fields awe inspiring, and when the first light dawns through the Styx every morning, it’s so beautiful I nearly cry with joy every time I see it. If I cannot say and you cannot hear tonight that I love Hades the man, at least know that I truly love Hades the realm. I don’t live in the world above anymore. This place is my home. Our home. I love it just as much as you do.”

  He cupped her face in his hand, studying the color of her eyes— gray like mist, encircled with sky blue. Aidon pulled her toward him and captured her lips once more, his previous restraint only a memory. His tongue played with hers, his fingers tensed against her back and his body strained to be closer to her. Their passions rose quickly and met each other equally, finally free of the restraints they’d placed around themselves since Tartarus. He drank her in, leaving both of them breathless. “Persephone…”

  “You won’t hold back anymore?” she gasped as she broke off their kiss.

  “I will not,” he answered, his voice rasping. Aidon rolled them on the sheets until she was supine beneath him.

  “If that’s so, then please, I can’t be aah— Aidon…”

  “Apart any longer?” he finished for her, his voice grating as he fully sheathed himself within her and held there.

  Her eyes were closed in ecstasy. She cradled his body with hers, stretched and clenched around his length deliciously, and he couldn’t stay still a moment more. He supported her neck in one hand, the other gripping her hip, and drove into her in deep strokes. Her fingernails raked his shoulders and he winced and hissed. The physical wounds from Tartarus had healed, but the pain itself was only dulled and still present. Persephone didn’t know that she’d unintentionally hurt him— and when he looked down at the expression on her face, he didn’t have any desire to make her aware of that. He loved seeing and feeling the effect he had on her, but decided he’d best let the Queen of the Keres claw at him another day.

  He turned with her until he lay on his back, his body never breaking its connection with hers. Her legs straddled his and Aidon held her to his chest. Persephone tried to sit up, but he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and splayed his other hand along the base of her spine, keeping her close to him. The air rushed from her lungs when he thrust up into her at this new angle.

  She ground against his pubic bone and her thighs started trembling when he seated himself deeper within her. It only drove her harder against him, the tension building when he gripped her hips. His length rubbed against the secret spot within her, its heat igniting the soft ridges while his groin pressed against the bundle of nerves at the apex of her mound. She felt sparks radiating from the point of their joining to the tips of her fingers and her toes curled tightly. With a sharp cry, Persephone reached the edge and bowed her back, his shaft the fulcrum on which she teetered. He grasped the palms of her hands within his, keeping her steady and balanced. Her expression was transported, her body overwhelmed, and any of Aidon’s lingering doubts as to whether or not she needed or wanted him were erased.

  In awe, he watched her from below. Usually this interplay of surrender and release would have milked his seed from him and tumbled him with her into completion. But he stayed within her unfinished. Aidon wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion from their long day or his unwillingness to end their lovemaking so quickly. When she gazed down at him in sweet, weary surprise it didn’t matter.

  He enfolded her within his arms and drew her body back to his, then pushed down on her hips, grinding against her, and felt her tense anew. Her legs were shaking. She arched away from him, her eyes squeezed shut, her words unintelligible, her sheath rippling around him as she came again.

  This was new.

  Aidon tilted his head up to look at her as she recovered, then pitched forward into her, feeling her response, her body quivering and clasping at him. With a whimper, she was undone once more. He waited until she calmed enough to open her eyes, then eagerly repeated his motions, giving her exactly what she— lost in sensation— couldn’t ask of him. Push. Grind. Shallow strokes that made her ache. Pushing deep and pulling her closer, until her center was all liquid heat and sweet friction. Her release had her clutching at the sheets, her voice staccatoed as she writhed against his chest. Persephone finally raised her head and looked up at him in dazed disbelief.

  “Well, sweet one,” he growled hungrily, and filled her to the hilt again. “Let’s see how long
we can make this last…”

  “Please…” she slurred. Aidon, I love you…

  She shivered against him, aching for more, and he obliged her. Aidon grabbed the cheeks of her rear, spreading her along her seam while he plunged into her. When her next orgasm rolled through her, her little feminine shakes and sobs filled him with masculine triumph at the idea of pushing his wife to such heights of frenzied ecstasy.

  His reverie didn’t last long. She leaned to the side and snaked her tongue out against his nipple and he groaned in response. A nip of her teeth there made him hiss and quake, his control disintegrating. Persephone delighted in his reaction, feeling his body respond to hers. She goaded him into giving himself over and licked at the flattened peak of flesh again. Holding her tightly, he moved faster within her until he reached a fevered pitch, building her pleasure one last time. Her completion coursed through her, powerfully and suddenly, pulling at him, her cries begging him to join her.

  Aidoneus grasped her hips and rammed into her with one last fervent stroke, arching under her, his eyes shut tight, his words broken. “S-seph— my— I love you!”

  She stilled, her insides warmed by each wave of his release. He collapsed underneath her, his gasps harsh. Persephone lay on his chest, listening to his heart race. Her fingertips danced over his shoulders and neck, feeling his pulse slow, his breathing return to normal.

  “I love you, Persephone,” he slurred with barely a whisper. “I always will.” Exhaustion and replete contentment took him and his hands slowly fell away from her waist.

  His body felt heavy with sleep underneath her. She recovered, listening to each measured breath that lifted and lowered her with the movements of his chest. When she knew Aidon had sunk deep enough into slumber that she wouldn’t wake him, she pulled herself off of him, limbs numb and aching, to rest at his side. She reached for his hand and twined his unmoving fingers with hers.

  “I love you, Aidoneus,” she whispered to him. “I love you, my husband… I love you so very much…”

  She knew he couldn’t hear her. His body was nearly motionless, resting at last. Perhaps he could hear her in sleep and dreams. Nuzzling close to his arm, she took in his scent, cool cypress and warm tilled earth. Persephone smiled, joyful tears welling in her eyes and spilling over her cheeks. She whispered it against his skin.

  “Hades, I love you.”

  She basked in it, raw and natural, like sunlight. She loved him. Persephone loved Aidon, wholly and completely. She would wait. Not too much longer— only until she knew it was time. She knew what she felt— but out of respect for Aidoneus’s concerns, she would take time to process this. The time, she realized, would also give him greater reassurance so that when she fully and consciously gave her heart to him, he would accept it without any question or doubt.

  It should have been said long before, she thought. Persephone reviewed everything that happened since she first arrived. The happiness that filled her heart was not a new sensation. She had loved him for weeks, she discovered to her delight. Chiding herself for not saying it sooner, she thought about how little time it had taken for her to fall in love with him. Persephone almost lost track of the weeks she’d been here. She’d been here for less than the passing of two months, from full moon to full moon and very soon another would— Gods above…

  Blood is a dangerous thing in Asphodel.

  Oh, Fates… Persephone clapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes opened wide and she felt a cold shock race down her spine, part of the vision rushing back to her. His hand on her womb…

  27.

  She hadn’t bled. Not once while she was down here, and she had been too distracted by her life being turned on its head to count the time. She thought back, trying to remember. On the new moon… two weeks before she was taken. And two weeks after she came here, nothing. A month after that, nothing. Her heart pounded in her ears. Moving the sheet aside, she looked at her flat belly and ran her hand over the natural contour just below her navel, imagining it swelling with life in coming months. Was she?

  She thought back to when she was young, before her first flowering, when her mother had surrounded her with nymphs. What was her name; what was her name? She had dark brown hair… Kyrene. Demeter had thought she was the perfect guardian for her daughter. She was tall, wore a spotted leopard pelt on her broad shoulders and told Kore stories about wrestling lions to protect her father’s flocks at Mount Pelion. On the longest day of every year she went to the vast lands beyond the desert, with grassy plains as far as the eye could see, to tame the wild striped horses. She would wander the earth looking for one that could defeat her. After one such trip to the great southern lands, she came back smiling, saying she had been happily defeated in the hot sunlight by the golden one, Apollo. Kore had pressed for stories, asking how Apollo could have defeated her, but Kyrene refused.

  Not long after, Kyrene said she felt sick, and several mornings in a row had showed evidence of that. She had wandered into the tall grasses to lose the contents of her stomach— something that Kore had never seen before. The stocky nymph had moved more carefully, gracefully, patting her belly lovingly. A few months later, she had excused herself from Kore’s company forever without even saying goodbye. When Kore asked her other fleeting companions what happened to Kyrene, they had said she was with child. When Kore pressed them, innocently asking if she had found a baby and was caring for it, they had tittered and whispered amongst themselves, a few of them scampering away.

  Kore had hung her head in shame until one of the Oriades took pity on her and admonished the others. The kind tree nymph finally sat down with Kore and told her what had actually happened— that Apollo had stuck that thing between his legs inside Kyrene and put his seed in her, and the growing babe was what made her sick. Kore was shocked at the idea of this, horrified as the nymph crudely demonstrated with hand gestures what Apollo had done to get Kyrene with child. Kore had cried when she thought about a man roughly spearing into her friend like that. The nymph hushed her, saying that Kyrene had wanted him to do this to her.

  Naturally, curious Kore had gone to her mother to ask more questions about men, and that pleasurable part of them they used for making babies. Demeter was furious and banished all the Oriades from her daughter’s company. Finally, with great embarrassment, she admitted that Kyrene had lain with Apollo and had left to spare Kore’s innocence. But, she had said, if Kore ever gave herself to a man it would hurt; she would tear and bleed and no longer be a maiden. No longer Kore. Soon, the rest of the nymphs were gone— after an Oceanid swelled with Poseidon’s seed and Demeter grew tired of explaining their antics. Between the Oriad’s bumbling gestures and her mother’s dire warnings, she had no idea that coitus could be enjoyable until she witnessed the Eleusinian wedding.

  Maiden no more. Persephone was a woman now— a wife— and had certainly known the pleasures a man could bring her. She looked at her husband, his head tilted back in sleep, his chest rising and falling. Was the vision in Tartarus foretelling what was to come? Was she carrying Hades’s child? She did understand enough to know that she was at the apex of her fertility— between the tides as Cyane had once put it— when Aidoneus had first taken her. But other than the stopping of her moon blood, there had been no other sign that she was pregnant. She didn’t feel any physical changes, and she knew enough about what happened to women to know that she should have at least felt sick by now. The Oceanid who carried Poseidon’s child was nauseous and had complained of soreness and tenderness in her breasts. Persephone gave one an experimental squeeze. Nothing. She hadn’t been faint or sick either; neither in the mornings, nor in the face of anything she’d seen today in Tartarus.

  What if she was with child? Throughout her existence she had never considered the idea of giving life to anything besides flowers, much less a child sired by the Lord of Souls, in the realm of the dead. Persephone had known only her mother’s suffocating protection. Aidoneus had known only his father’s cruelty. Their child would k
now no sunlight, no flowers, and no birds. What sort of parents could they hope to be? What if she was a terrible mother? Should she tell Aidoneus what she suspected?

  But what if she told him and he didn’t want a child with her? She looked back up at his peaceful face and shook her head, dismissing this almost immediately. Persephone couldn’t picture him refusing to create a new life with her. He’d been alone and without love for so long. He’d welcome it. And they could have— and the idea sent chills through her— a family. She imagined a little raven-haired infant boy with blue gray eyes nursing at her breast. And as he grew older, Aidoneus would teach all he knew to their son, his heir. He would be eager to give life to more children with her, and raising them together would be a triumph over their own broken childhoods. And if she turned out not to be pregnant at all? He would be crestfallen if she raised his hopes like that then dashed them.

  Perhaps her moon cycle had stopped because of the dangers Aidoneus spoke of— what blood itself could do to the shades. This idea wrinkled her forehead in frustration the more she thought on it. If her blood had stopped because she was in the Underworld, then that would mean they would never get a chance to have a family. Not as long as they were down here. Anger set in, and then hot tears, followed sharply by confusion. Now that the possibility was being considered, how badly did she want to have a child?

  She felt a pang of guilt. Persephone was just becoming comfortable with Aidoneus, enjoying herself and him, had fallen in love with him, and to add a third entity… Was she strange to even think this way? Shouldn’t a child be what a woman should want? Wasn’t it the natural desire of a wife to provide her husband with children, a lady to provide her lord with heirs? Even if everything was different in Chthonia and the ways of world above were not the ways of the world below, didn’t the desire to have children mean anything? To see the love of two merge together in the most elemental of ways and create a new life from it?