My Lord Hades

by Beman, Stephannie

  She felt the heat and steam a moment before the water boiled around her. She yelped and

  clamped down on her raging hormones and magic, fear lending her strength.

  She needed to look objectively at her life and decided the best course of action now that she had most of the facts. She remembered the feelings she held for Hades before the lost of her memories and after the loss of them.

  She had admired and respected him when he was a prisoner in Tartarus. She had cared for

  him when all she knew of him were stories. And when they had met for the first time, the ghostly echoes of that budding love had begun to blossom into a desire to fill the lonely years as his friend. The night in the garden had only made her realize she wanted to be his cherished lover and beloved wife. She wanted to be his companion for eternity.

  Even after the abduction, her love hadn’t ended, just stalled until she’d come to grips with the situation. She hadn’t wanted to love him when she thought he didn’t love her, but only wanted her as a pawn to use against Zeus. But she knew his lie for what it was. She knew his every thought and emotion concerning her. He had wanted her from the first moment he spied her

  dancing in the forest.

  He feared she would leave him alone and yet he was willing to let her leave his world, even knowing that his soul was dying, that soon the emotions that were the biggest part of a

  Phlegethon would fade completely. He would continue on for eternity, lacking emotion, a cold shell slowly turning feral. There would come a time when he would no longer wish for death, he would become death.

  A feeling she remembered now.

  Only her affection for Hades had sustained her during those six-hundred-year of life. But around the end, even that hadn’t been enough. She’d been losing her emotions and her ability to rule had been affected. In another hundred years she would have been like the other Phlegethon daemons she’d been forced to hunt down and imprison in Tartarus. Far too dangerous to let free.

  How much harder was it for Hades? He was a four-thousand-year-old Phlegethon who was

  willing to gamble his life and happiness on the hope that she was his chosen mate. He couldn’t know that she was already out of his reach. She couldn’t be his lover or his wife. She was on the verge of losing control of her power and her emotions. She was already a feral daemon. And one wrong move on her part and she would condemn Hades to her Fate.

  Chapter 25

  HADES LEFT the palace. He couldn’t remain there while she bathed. He headed for the Hall

  of Judgment, taking in the changes to the Underworld. The line outside the building seemed longer than it should. Charon was rowing a full boat load of souls across the river Styx. And a group waited for the Ferryman on the other side.

  Hades studied the shades disembarking from the ferry. The ages were varied. Some looked

  scared. Some looked sad. Some looked relieved. Some even looked expectant, as if they eagerly awaited the afterlife.

  Hades rarely saw the shades entering the Underworld and it struck him as odd that mortals faced death with varying degrees of comfort or distress. He would have thought they would welcome death after the dismal lives they lead.

  Charon waved at him, depositing a sack of coins into his bucket, his fare for bringing the shades to their final resting place, and sighed. He boarded the ferry and started back to the other side.

  As the ferry passed, Charon called out to him, “How’s the Queen?”

  “She’s awake.”

  Charon nodded and turned to his task. Hades flashed to the other side of the river.

  “I’m going to demand overtime pay,” Thanatos said from behind him.

  Hades turned to the god and frown. Thanatos stood in the shadow of a tree, his pale horse at his side. “It’s good to see you too. Are you going back up?”

  Thanatos shrugged. “What can I say? I’m popular. People are just dying to meet me.”

  Hades frowned at the jovial remark given in such a sad tone. “Was there a disaster?”

  “No. A shift in the weather started it. But then it escalated to war, plague, and murder. But I don’t mind telling you, when this over, I need a holiday.”

  Hades frowned, glancing at the shades and the Judgment Hall. Something was dreadfully

  wrong in the land of the living. “You shouldn’t be this popular.”

  He shrugged. “I’d like to think it’s my sunny disposition.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Then how do you explain it?”

  Sighing, Hades returned his gaze to Thanatos. “I can’t.”

  “I hear Persephone’s awake. Is she okay?”

  Hades shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something seems off about her.”

  “Give her time.” Thanatos pushed away from the tree. “If you’re going outside, you’d better make it quick. It’s unbearable up there. They’re praising Prometheus for his gift of fire. It’s the only way to stay warm. Oh, they also say that no crops will grow.”

  Hades didn’t like the sound of this.

  “I have to go.” Thanatos mounted his horse. The horse neighed and leapt forward, galloping for the entrance to the Land of the Living. Hades walked toward the entrance and flashed

  outside. His foot came down on something soft and white. His sandals slid and he went down, before he could prevent it. He bolted up.

  Snow! Cold, wet snow!

  He brushed it off his hands and drew the thin cloak tighter around his body, shivering.

  Careful where he placed his foot, he walked to the river and stared down at the ice coating the surface. This didn’t look right. He tapped the river with his foot. It was solid.

  Winter shouldn’t be here this soon.It was still months away.

  His mother flashed in front of him. She was wearing a thick wool cloak dyed purple and

  lined with black fur. It covered her from head to toe. “Need an axe?”

  He turned away from her.

  “The frozen water is called ice. The white stuff is snow. It’s called this winter.”

  He snorted. Nothing changed.

  “I thought you’d find the little morsels of knowledge interesting.”

  “I don’t.”

  Eris sighed. “Persephone is going to be fine. Stop worrying about her. She just needs to work through things. I have to hand it to Demeter. She knew exactly what she was doing and how to prevent Persephone from finding out.”

  “A woman after your own heart.”

  She looked offended. “Give me some credit. I didn’t steal your inheritance from you. I taught you to defend yourself.”

  He glared at her.

  “You’re unbecomingly sour,” she pouted.

  He turned his back on her and entered the cave.

  “Persephone’s strong enough to pull through it. I wouldn’t have done it if she couldn’t

  survive. I may have my moments but I’m not inhuman.” She giggled. “Get it. Inhuman? I’m not human, I’m immortal. I just made a paradox.”

  He bent down to the lump hiding under a thick blanket. The huge, three-headed dog poked

  his head out and whined.

  “Come on! It was funny.”

  He ignored her. “You must be cold, Cerberus?”

  He plucked a few rubies from the cave wall and set them aflame. Cerberus licked Hades hand and waggled his tail. He patted the dog’s head.

  Eris grunted. “Well, some people have absolutely no sense of humor.”

  “And some people don’t know when they’re not wanted.”

  She flashed out and he was glad to see her go. He glanced back at the living world and

  shivered. No wonder so many mortals were dying. Winter was months away. With temperature

  low enough to freeze water, mortals couldn’t sustain themselves on their dwindling food stores.

  Had they even been given the chance to prepare for this weather?

  The Underworld might not be ideal, but at least it could function with
out him for days. The world of mortals wasn’t functioning properly. What was Zeus doing up there?

  PERSEPHONE FLASHED from her rooms and to the cells of Tartarus. The place hadn’t

  changed much from what she remembered. The dark tunnels glowed an eerie red, not from

  torches, but from the veins of magically enchanted rubies interspersed throughout the obsidian rock walls.

  She passed doorway after doorway, the mirror-like surface revealing the punishment of the prisoners within. Screams and cries for mercy surrounded her, but it didn’t affect her as it should have. This place had once been a place where the Titans had incarcerated their enemies, Hades included. Now the Titans were gone and she could feel the difference in the atmosphere.

  There were men hung upside down, men covered up to their necks in water and unable to

  drink it despite their thirst, men under trees who starved but were unable to eat the fruit dangling from the tree branches, men who rolled heavy boulders up the hill only to lose their footing at the top and have the boulder roll back to the bottom, and countless others who labored or suffered unsatisfied needs, or faced physical torment from their past misdeeds.

  But nowhere did she see the brutality the Titans inflicted upon their prisoners, as she’d witnessed in Hades cell when Coronus had forced her to watch the torture he so loved. She found Hades’ cell easily, having walked these halls a hundred times. Little had changed and no new occupant resided within.

  The chains still hung from the ceiling. The broken pottery, glass, and sharp stone littered the floors. The various weapons and devices of torture hung from the walls. But the voices were silent. Hades was gone.

  Not gone, she reminded himself. He was King of the Underworld. He was ruler of his prison.

  How could Zeus have been so cruel?

  “Persephone? What are you doing here? You should be resting?”

  She checked the walls of her control, glad that no power or emotion leaked out, before she turned to the man who was the center of her thoughts. “I came to see Tartarus for myself. I like the changes you’ve made.”

  He frowned and she turned away, motioning toward the man sleeping on a bed across the

  corridor. He twisted and turned and screamed, but he didn’t wake. “I never delighted in

  punishment,” she said, touching the smoky stone that separated her from the criminal. “But those I brought to this place couldn’t live in the Elysian Fields as they were. They’d harm those who didn’t deserve to face such evil.”

  He touched her shoulder. “Sometimes justice is a cold monster, but it’s one that protects the innocent.”

  She glanced at him. “I remember him.” His frowned deepened. Through his jangled emotions

  she could sense his confusion by what she was telling him. “He raped and murdered three young girls. Coronus laughed at the punishment I devised for him.”

  “What punishment was that, Persephone?”

  She could detect the hint of worry through the vibrations of his magic from his hand on her arm and the apprehension in his deep voice. She wanted to erase them from his mind. But she couldn’t, her power was too erratic and emotions too undisciplined. She clamped down hard upon her control. “He’ll relive those last memories and emotions of his victims for years to come.”

  “So he’ll rape himself for eternity? What of the girls?”

  “They enjoy the Elysian Fields with their families. No memory of their deaths.”

  A niggling of a thought surfaced in his mind before he drew away from her, trying to hide what she already knew. Zeus had given Hades the Iron Queen of the Underworld as his wife.

  He’d traded Persephone like a sack of meal to the god holding the most cards against him. Only Hades hadn’t known that Persephone was the Iron Queen. He come, not for the wife promised him, but the woman he loved, even knowing that he would lose his throne one day to the woman who was Queen of the Underworld.

  Regardless of their surroundings, she leaned into him, her breath short, her eyes locked on his lips. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to make love to him as they had in her mind. It didn’t matter to her unstable power that they were in a place of torment. It wanted what it wanted and it would have it eventually. She just feared what would happen when it finally did.

  She didn’t want that. She wanted her life as it once was, minus the fear of discovery and the consequences of being a Phlegethon daemon and god. She wanted Hades.

  She swayed and Hades arms closed around her. The scent of sandalwood and vanilla filled

  her senses. Her magic, ever so close to the surface rose and her passions awakened, demanding to be satisfied.

  She flashed to the Elysian Fields, gulping in breaths of stale air, striving to manage her raging passion. Eris’ teachings saved her the unconscionable action of attacking Hades. She needed to redirect her power into something else.

  Looking around the world she’d created, her heart ached for the neglect that transformed the Underworld into the barren world. Even the imitation sun wasn’t as bright as she remembered.

  Kneeling on the ground, she placed a hand on the bare dirt and closed her eyes. Tapping into the wellspring of power, she sent the questing tendrils through the ground, strengthening the whispers of magic. In her mind’s eye, she saw the web of faint grayish power brighten.

  Her heightened sense told her the moment Hades joined her. His hands rested on her

  shoulders, warm and strong, tentatively offering his own store of unadulterated power. She accepted it in the spirit it was given. Her power twined around his, making his mark in the Underworld in another way. The magical web burned a brilliant, blinding white.

  Aroused by the blending of magic and the connection of souls intertwined, she turned in his arms, embracing him, kissing him, drawing him down into the soft jade grass beneath the

  sparkling emerald leaves of the tree. He kissed her back, his body gently pressing against her.

  Her hands roamed over the planes of his back and arms, feeling the multitude of scars beneath the thin tunic.

  She nipped and licked a path from his lips, along his jaw, down the cord of his neck, sucking deeply on the vein in his neck. She breathed in the scent of sandalwood and vanilla, and

  something distinctly male.

  “Persephone,” he groaned.

  HADES NEEDN’T worry that Persephone had lost her ability to feel. She was more alive

  now than before the return of her memories. Her passion was a fire burning bright within her, raging into an inferno at his touch.

  She moaned as he cupped her breast, tweaking the nipple through the flimsy dress, his lips on the sensitive spot on her neck. She squirmed under him, seeking. Her hands gathered the hem of his tunic, tugging it up. Her bare leg glided sensually along his legs, wrapping around his waist, opening her to him.

  Hades didn’t think. He couldn’t think. His primitive mind was focused on one thing. Make

  Persephone his in truth.

  He moved her dress aside, and pressing into the entrance of her wet folds. Her hips rose to meet him. He shoved his cock to the hilt inside her, shocked by the tearing of her maidenhead.

  She gasped at the sharp pain and power seared across him, burning, then dulling. He didn’t move until she flexed her hips, drawing him deeper. Their magic whirled around them, shoving his passion over the edge into the unknown. This wasn’t the loving coupling he’d experienced in her mind, but an untamed passion. It was sex and nothing more.

  Chapter 26

  OVER THE next week, Hades anxiety over Persephone’s strange behavior grew. Her

  movements lacked their previous grace. They were methodical and eerie. Her behavior was

  erratic, moving from hot to cold in seconds. Something was very wrong, and yet he couldn’t get her to confide in him.

  She actually seemed to be avoiding him again. But rather than hiding, she seemed to be

  immersing herself in work. Penelope, Zana, and Than
atos had each noticed the same thing and come to him to express their worry.

  “What do you want me to do about it?” he finally snapped at Thanatos one afternoon.

  “A Phlegethon needs their mate—”

  Hades groaned. He didn’t need a lecture on Phlegethon daemons from Thanatos.

  “I’m just saying she needs you just as much as you need her. She knows very little of

  Phlegethon daemon-gods. Seeing as there are only three that I know of, and one of those three spent a thousand years in Tartarus.”

  “Will you all leave me alone if I talk to Persephone?”

  “Yes!” Thanatos said and two voices behind the door echoed in unison.

  “I should figure out a punishment for rebellion and punish you all,” he mumbled loudly,

  closing the book and handing Thanatos a clay tablet. “Could you give this to the judges on your way out?”

  Thanatos saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  Hades rolled his eyes and located his wife. She was sitting on the dais in the throne room, a large globe before her. She flicked a wrist and the scene changed over and over again.

  She finally glanced up. She looked so beautiful and cold, so removed from the scenes before her, the innocence and passion he so loved about her hidden. The goddess sitting before him terrified him and made him feel safe at the same time. The irony in the paradox wasn’t lost to him.

  “Do you have the time to talk with me?”

  He nodded, striding across the chamber and taking a seat on the step beside her. “I always have time for you.”

  Emotions flickered in her eyes and then where banked. She nodded and waved her hand at

  the globe. It disappeared.

  “I have some questions and I want you to answer them honestly,” she said softly. “If your answers are satisfactory, I will stay here with you as your wife and your queen forever. If your answers are unsatisfactory, I will leave tonight and never see you again. Is it a deal?”

  His heart soared. He had a fighting chance at forever with her. With fear and hope in his heart, he started to nod but stopped. It wasn’t right. If he agreed, she’d remain only because she promised, not because she wanted to, and that was no way to live their lives.