by C. R. Jane
All I could do was nod numbly as we continued to float across the haunting green body of water. None of us said a word, but I could feel Hades’ eyes upon me, watching me closely for my reaction.
It seemed like forever before we reached the other end of the lake. Charon got out first, followed by Hades, who helped me onto the shoreline. My knees buckled for a second at everything that I had just seen, and I was lucky that Hades deftly caught me.
"Easy there. Just relax," he crooned at my soothingly.
We walked down another cave-like tunnel until we reached a room that had me gasping in amazement. That seemed to be my overall reaction on this little expedition.
The room looked like it was made of millions of sparkling lavender crystals. At the middle of the room stood something that looks like a marble birdbath. Hades pulled me towards it.
"This is the pool of the Fates. They let me borrow it to watch over my domain," he explained.
Flashes of images appeared in the water inside the birdbath looking thing. There was what looked like a golden field that happy couples were running across holding hands. Another imaged showed people being burned alive. I could hear their screams of agony, and it made my stomach turn. Still another pool held an image of what looked like paradise, similar to the Garden of Eden. My heart yearned for that place, a reaction that startled me. Through all the images, Hades watched me closely.
“You recognize that?" he asked, and again the way he asked the question felt like he was asking something of great importance to him.
"You look like I should recognize this," I responded. I continued to stare at the image that strangely felt like home to me. "It looks like somewhere I’ve been before," I continued softly.
He made a pained sound that made me look at him sharply.
"Are you okay?" I asked, staring at his tortured face. Hades simply nodded and pulled us both away from the pool. I followed him with reluctance, not wanting to leave the image of the garden that I had seen.
He walked us to the other side of the room and waved his hand along the wall. A hidden doorway opened up, what looked like the inside of an elevator inside of it. Hades led us both inside.
Just like in an elevator, Hades pressed a button and the door to the crystal room closed, hiding it from view. I gasped as the room started to move, it appeared it was some kind of elevator.
"Where are we going?" I asked, holding onto the wall.
He smiled at me softly. "I'm trying to give you all the proof that you need to know that this is real and not just some kind of trick. I'm taking you to Mount Olympus," he said. My mouth hung open in shock.
The elevator seemed to move up forever. I had once been on an elevator in the Sears Tower when my class took a field trip to Chicago in middle school. It took you to the top where the lookout was. There had been a screen in the elevator that showed you how high you were compared to national and world landmarks. I'd always been afraid of heights and seeing how high we were freaked me out at the time. I had a feeling that I would've been even more scared if I could see how high we were traveling right now.
At last the elevator stopped and my stomach returned back to its normal place in my body. Hades looked like it hadn't affected him, and as the doors opened, he simply smoothed back a piece of his hair that had fallen in his face, and he took my hand again. I hated that my heart seemed to leap whenever he touched me, and that his touch was beginning to feel familiar and almost necessary to me in such a short time. I got that strange sense again that I knew him from somewhere.
My trail of thoughts disappeared when I actually took notice of the room we were walking into. It was the size of a ballroom, the most enormous ballroom on earth. It looked like it could fit hundreds and hundreds of people. The walls and floor were gold and the light in the room was almost blinding despite the fact that I couldn’t see any light fixtures anywhere. There were beautiful people in various poses around the room. Some were laying on lounges while what looked like servants brought them things. A group of perfectly built men were wrestling in one of the corners. There was a fierce looking woman that evoked images of an Amazonian shooting arrows at a target in the far corner of the room. My eyes flitted back and forth, not knowing where to look since there was so much to see. But through it all I felt Hades’ eyes on me.
"Hades," called a booming voice. I looked and saw someone who looked like the polar opposite of Hades approaching us. Where Hades reminded me of the nighttime sky and made you want to discover the secrets he held within the depth of his sparkling indigo eyes, this man looked like the sun. Everything about him was golden, and his eyes were so light of a blue they looked almost translucent. His hair was gold as well, but a shade darker than his skin. It was unruly and slightly longer than Hades’ hair.
I hadn’t been able to see very much of Hades’ body, but from what I could tell from the way his clothes fit, both of these men were built the same. They looked like their bodies had been carved by Michelangelo himself. And just like Hades, this man was watching me intensely.
"Zeus," Hades responded coldly.
My eyes widened in alarm. I was standing in front of “The Zeus.” This had to be a dream, there was no way that this could be real. Behind Zeus’ shoulder I saw the Amazonian looking woman fire a shot at another handsome man. I gasped in amazement as I saw the arrow disappear in a cloud of smoke right before it would've hit him square in the chest. As I looked around the room, I realized that everyone looked too perfect, not even in magazines did human beings look like this. These were definitely not human beings I was surrounded by.
"What do we have here?" the Zeus character asked, still eyeing me critically although the twinkle in his eye suggested that like Hades, he liked what he saw. Looking around the room again I couldn't see how they could even notice me in a room full of such beautiful people.
"This is the Fates’ latest try," he responded in a stilted voice. I found myself gripping his hand tighter, wanting for some inexplicable reason to offer some comfort in what was clearly an uncomfortable situation for him.
"Much prettier than the others," Zeus said flippantly. "What do you think your chances are with this one?" he asked as if he was discussing the weather and not the fact that his brother had been suffering from heartbreak and a curse for who knows how many years.
Anger rose up sharply inside of me. “This one's name is Elena," I replied sarcastically, beginning to get the feeling that the God standing in front of me was a jerk. "Hasn't anyone told you that it's rude to talk about someone in front of them," I said. I felt Hades chuckle beside me, and I could almost feel his tension disappearing with my comments. Zeus threw back his head and gave a laugh so boisterous that everyone in the room turned and looked, curious to see what had made their leader laugh so hard.
"I like you little Elena," he said, still chuckling. His eyes gleamed brighter, suggesting that I had sparked his interest even more. Hades inexplicably moved his hand from mine to around my waist, pulling me close to him in a way that made my knees weak.
I looked up at him. He was giving Zeus the universal signal for him to “fuck off.” Was Hades feeling territorial over me? The thought made me happier than I wanted to admit.
"We will have a banquet in your honor. We don't have guests very often," Zeus announced, waving his hand. I jumped in surprise as a table that could seat 100 people appeared in the middle of the room, laden with food that immediately had my mouth watering.
"Show off," muttered Hades under his breath.
“Come, come," said Zeus, gesturing towards the table. "Let us eat." Hades reluctantly led me to the table.
"I'm getting the feeling that you don’t see your family very often," I said. He gave me a small smile.
"You would be correct in that assumption," he said wryly.
Zeus sat us in the chairs next to him at the head of the table. Without having to lift a finger, my plate was filled with an array of mouthwatering food. The sound of chairs being pulled out from the table signaled that th
e other beautiful creatures in the room were joining us at the table. Harp music began to play, filling the whole room with haunting, delicate sounds despite the fact I saw no speakers in the room and there were no musicians playing.
Dinner seemed to last forever. The food was good, but it was hard to concentrate as I continued to gape at the mystical specimens around the table. There was a particularly beautiful woman at the end of the table that had been eyeing me throughout the meal. She had golden hair that seemed to glimmer like there were tiny crystals all over it. Her eyes were a shocking green color that reminded me of emeralds. I had never before seen a more spectacular looking woman. But while I admired her, she seemed to have a great sense of distaste for me judging by the scowl that was smeared across her perfect face.
“Who is that?” I whispered to Hades, who was still glumly picking at his food.
He looked up and rolled his eyes. “That’s Aphrodite,” he answered. “Ignore her, she can’t stand when other women have attention on them.”
“The Aphrodite?” I asked in amazement.
He smiled at me, obviously enjoying the continued awe that I couldn’t help but display.
“Yes,” he said.
The meal continued like this except it became more of a guessing game as I would try to put names on the Gods. For the most part they fit their stereotypes and I only missed the ones that hadn’t been talked about much in school.
As interested as I was in everything though, I soon realized that I was becoming exhausted.
“Can we leave?” I asked Hades, admiring how the golden light of the room reflected off his jet-black hair. He had the kind of beauty that made your heart throb once you realized that it could never be yours.
He looked relieved at my request. “Of course. I’ve just been waiting for you.”
We stood up to leave. “You’re not leaving, are you?” asked Zeus, standing abruptly in his chair.
“As fun as this has been, she’s exhausted and we need to get back home,” Hades said, emphasizing the word “fun” rather sarcastically.
Zeus turned towards me, an intense look in his eye as he lifted up a hand and softly stroked my face. I couldn’t help the tingles that went down my spine at his touch. And they weren’t all bad. In fact, they resembled the feelings I had whenever Hades touched me.
It must be a god thing.
“I’ll be seeing you soon,” Zeus said to me, and the way he said it sounded much more like an oath than an obligatory farewell. I heard Hades softly growl behind me and then a hand gripped me, pulling me back towards him.
We left without another word, but I could feel Zeus’s stare follow us until we were safely enveloped in the elevator.
By this time, I was exhausted. “I can’t believe I’m this tired,” I said. “It’s only been a few hours since I woke up.”
Hades rubbed my shoulder comfortingly. “Being in Olympus around that much higher energy is exhausting for humans. We wouldn’t be able to have stayed much longer regardless if you had wanted to.”
“How long will it last?”
“You should be fine by tomorrow,” he said as the elevator doors opened. He had me step out first and we both stopped abruptly as we looked around the room. The crystal room had been transformed. There were flowers covering every surface of the room. I couldn’t help but step closer to the walls, reaching out my hand to touch one of the vibrant pink petals of a flower that had caught my eye. The flower appeared to grow as soon as it made contact with my hand, and I quickly yanked my hand away in surprise.
“What in the world…” I said as I turned to Hades. The rest of my sentence was cut off with the way he was looking at me. There was a new gleam in his eye. It looked a lot like hope. And it made me nervous.
“Do your rooms regularly change like this?” I asked him, wanting to know what he was thinking. My question seemed to yank him out of whatever trance he had been in, and he was in front of me, holding me within seconds.
“Not usually,” he said, that same strange sparkle in his eye. All of a sudden, the room’s wonders faded from my mind as I realized that his lips were inching ever closer to mine.
At first the kiss was softer than anything I’d ever known, like a quiet whisper. I couldn’t help but dig my hips into his, wanting more. My lips parted, encouraging him to explore my mouth with his tongue. Completely possessed with a blinding desire, I found myself lowered onto a velvet couch that had appeared out of nowhere. He braced himself above my body, claiming my mouth in a way that made me want him to claim every last inch of me. My chest expanded beneath him with heavy breaths and we melted into one, my arms locked around his neck as if I had no intention of ever letting go as his fingers shaped to the fine contours of my skull as if I was the most precious and delicate thing that he’d ever touched.
I finally pulled away with a gasp as we lay there staring at each other. Never in my life had I reacted to someone like that. He stared at me in a possessive, hungry way that sent sparks shooting across my body. I wanted more...but at the same time I was scared at how fast this had all of a sudden started moving. A few hours ago, I was thinking I was the victim of a kidnapping...and now I liked him.
“I think we should go back to the manor,” I told him in a breathy voice that I couldn’t hide.
He reluctantly nodded and pulled away from me. I finally took a second to realize that he had just made an elegant purple velvet couch appear out of thin air. “That’s quite the useful trick,” I told him with a shy grin.
He blushed, making him even more attractive to me. He pulled me up, brushing another soft kiss across my lips as if it was difficult for him to stay away.
The journey back was a blur as my exhaustion made me so tired that I couldn’t help but stumble as we walked.
Hades scooped me up into his arms. The rocking of the boat as we were once again funneled across the glowing green river, and the feeling of his warm body heat enveloping me, sent me into a dream-filled sleep before we even made it across.
Chapter 6
I wake enveloped in a pair of arms. Once it hits me that someone is in bed with me, I yanked myself away with a small shriek.
“It’s just me,” came Hades’ voice, and I relaxed back into the bed, my heart still racing.
I rolled over. “Why are you in bed with me?” I asked him, not able to prevent myself from admiring how yummy he looked in his slightly sleep-rumpled state. He took off his shirt to sleep and my eyes devoured the hard, perfect planes of his golden chest that led to a set of abs that looked airbrushed they were so flawless. My fingers itched to touch them.
“I didn’t want to stay away from you,” he admitted shyly. “I haven’t felt like this since…”
“Since Persephone,” I finished for him, an unbidden shock of jealousy coursing over me at the sound of her name.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“So now that I’m willing to believe that you possibly could be an ancient mythological lord of the underworld, what are we doing today?” I asked him, settling back into the warmth of his arms.
“I thought we could do some experiments,” he said vaguely. I opened my mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but I’m interrupted when he suddenly pulled me out of bed and kissed my lips with a perfunctory smacking sound. “After breakfast,” he said, setting me down. He disappeared out of the room before I could utter another word.
After breakfast, where he distracted me with tales of his family’s exploits, he led me out to the gardens once again. We walked until we got to a section that we hadn’t seen the day before. It was a patch about an acre wide that looks like it had been scorched; there’s no sign of green or living vegetation anywhere.
“What happened here?” I ask.
“This used to be the prized section of Persephone’s garden,” he said softly, sadness leaking out of his words. “The day she died a mysterious fire started, decimating it all.”
Again, I hate that we’re talking about her for some reason
, but my heart ached for the sadness in his voice. Will anyone ever be able to replace her in his heart? Does the curse even have a chance of being broken?
He started to lead me around the perimeter, stealing glances at me as if he was waiting for something. When we’ve walked all around it, he seemed to be even more depressed.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” I tell him softly, not willing to watch him mourn another woman for another second. He nodded and we walked around the rest of the gardens for another hour before he led me back to the manor. We barely spoke during the whole walk, and I felt frustrated and depressed when he led me back to my room.
He turned to go with a stilted, “I’ll see you later.”
“Are you even willing to let anyone else in?” I called after him, channeling all my frustration of the last hour. “Can the curse even be broken if you’re unable to stop mourning someone who’s been gone for centuries? We need to find a way for me to go home if that’s the case.”
He turned back around and started walking towards me in a determined manner. “Make me forget,” he said to me before his lips were crashing against mine and he was pushing me through the doorway of my bedroom.
I should have pushed him away, unwilling to compete with a dead woman, but his kisses were magic against my skin.
Once we had laid on my bed, his kisses turned soft at first as he slowly coaxed my lips open with his tongue. His hand moved up my back and into my hair, positioning me to deepen the kiss. His other hand moved to cup my chest, his thumb teasing me until I couldn’t help but arch into his hand, moaning softly into his mouth.
He abruptly pulled away from the kiss. A sound of protest came out of my mouth until my dress was pulled over my head. He angled me to the side, laying me back on the bed as he hovered above me.
"I'm going to taste every inch of you starting with these." He popped the front clasp of my bra, pulling the cups to the sides, exposing my breasts to him. I could feel my face turning a deep shade of red, my face and chest burning as he stared, lightly tracing my skin.
