Magic Awakened: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  I am simply just and inexorable—one of the few gods that is.

  I have been feared, challenged, and reviled. Even in the deepest recesses of the darkness, the cries of the widow and the mother reached my ears, confusing my pitiless reign over the underworld with Thanatos, Death himself, and the one who crept silently into homes and stole the breath of life from young and old, sick and well, rich and poor alike. I do not rule him, only those he sends to this shadowy kingdom, and he can never claim me, for even though I dwell far below the golden fields and bright sun, I am still a god.

  I was not welcomed by my gay and divine brethren, just as the earth herself seemed to flinch and shiver away from my touch when I set my foot upon her. The blinding light, colorful tales of bravado and love, and the sweet ambrosia of Olympus were but rarely tasted of by me. When I showed my face there, a pall would fall upon the gods who romped and lolled in the holy halls, playing at their petty intrigues as if they were mortals.

  Even Hermes would cease his prattling when my dark tread measured the great corridors. Aphrodite would wrinkle her perfect nose, though her gaze was suitably pitying for the most beautiful creature in all of creation when looking upon one who was worth no second glance. Though at least, I consoled myself, I was nowhere near as ugly as Hephaestus, the blacksmith god who forged my brother Zeus’ thunderbolts.

  Humph! I see you are torn between laughter and shaking with fear in my presence. More fool you, then. There is nothing to fear in death. It is life where you must fear for every catastrophe, guard against every loss, and scramble desperately against an inexorable Destiny. If your jaw did not tremble so, and you were not about to piss yourself, I suppose you would be able to ask me if Destiny and death are one and the same. What? Have you never seen the King of the Underworld shrug before? I shrugged because even I do not know that answer. Zeus does not. Even Cronos—may he break his teeth on stones!—is ignorant of the truth of Destiny. You mortals crave certainty like they crave sweet relief from the juice of the poppy. You want to know. You feel you deserve to know.

  Yes, I am laughing at you. You deserve nothing more than this moment you draw breath. Nothing more…and nothing less. Your true weakness is not that your time to walk in the sun runs like the sands of an hourglass. It is that you forget and fail to seize every moment you are given and live it to the best you can. If you ask me—and, yes, I am painfully aware of how few people do ask—humanity’s true weakness is the addictive quality of complacency. To struggle is to live, because then you will know when you have died. And, death? Death is but one cold, silent sentinel stone along this road of Destiny that we all travel.

  See? Now, you have the audacity to squirm. Somehow, I have managed to soothe you just enough to allow your complacency to take hold again. You are satisfied with what I have told you of Destiny, believing that you now know, and you await the next part of my tale like you await the next course of dinner, breathless with anticipation of whether it will be turbot or eel your host serves.

  Mortals.

  In any case, among all my brethren gods—please, do not take that literally, for we are related by power and spirit, not your breakable blood and bone—Demeter was one who bore the most natural antipathy toward me, though she occasionally strove to hide it. I dismissed her aloof manner as simply the balance required between the goddess of all that grew and the god of all that died.

  Thus, I stayed the best part of ten thousand years in my hidden kingdom, paying only the most quick and cursory visits to the reams of mortals and gods, and only when absolutely necessary. Better to be the symposiarch of your own grim party than the unwanted guest at someone else’s.

  I do not remember what errand brought me to the surface. I was quite clear and fixed about it at the time, for anything that drew me from my lair had to be of great import. But my great, grim purpose turned pale and insignificant, for everything of reason in me vanished when I beheld her.

  She was sunlight and blue sky, with the whispery white of clouds for her skin. I hid behind a great boulder that lay on the beach and watched her as she danced silently along under the corrugated, pitted cliffs of sandstone and pumice. It seemed as if the very air around her changed when she moved, like the chill of winter being teased and softened into the first warm wind of spring.

  And that is when I knew that I beheld Persephone, daughter of Demeter and goddess of springtime. She wended her way up the path back to the fields, and I followed at a distance, keeping my dark presence well-hidden. I watched her slender fingers caress the tips of the tall grasses, buds bursting into bloom at her touch. Her lithe frame seemed so fragile yet pliable, like a spring willow that swayed in harmony with every whispered direction of the wind.

  The young of every creature, some newly born, scampered near to her blessedness, to feel her gentle benevolence warm them. It was as if Persephone could summon the sun itself and persuade it with her charm to stay a bit longer in the sky.

  Oh, the sudden anguish of my heart! The constricting, choking sensation of eons of loneliness rose up like black bile in my throat. Was I to be denied the pleasure of love and companionship simply because of who I was? Every other god dallied with mortals, visiting their passions and tempers upon them. Other gods chased nymphs and muses, and still others demanded great temples where they could bask in the glow of thousands who would gather there to worship them.

  But, what of me? What of Hades, he who sits on an ebony throne surrounded by shadows for an empty eternity, hollow of any companionship other than the cold satisfaction of my unshakable resolve to uphold that which was right in the course of nature—man’s end and safe dwelling in my kingdom. A fine fate, indeed!

  It was not like me to bemoan my lot. I admittedly took a grim pleasure in being the “responsible” one among the gods. Zeus may be fickle, Hera conniving, Aphrodite swayed by the most bathetic love song, and even Hephaestus fretted like an old woman at times about how much work he always had to do. I was the one who uncomplainingly stood as sentinel over the realm of the dead, guarding the spirits of mortals with greater care, though stricter vigilance, than any of the gods of sunlight ever did with their precious living mortals.

  No, it was not a moment of self-pity that made me long for the sweet, reviving touch of Persephone upon my tormented flesh. It was that she was a great and gentle beauty, far lovelier in her half-whispered blooming than the garish goddess of love. Even more than that, I believed that Persephone had an untapped power, a greatness untested but a greatness that would perhaps reveal her to be the one divinity capable of understanding me. Ah, we are sad creatures, we gods, that we suffer the same needs as mortals in our hearts. I longed for someone to love me. I longed for someone to understand me. I longed, body and soul, for Persephone.

  My pace quickened to match hers as she ran gaily through sun-dappled olive groves, the sweet smell of oleander mixing with the tang of olive leaves to perfume the air as she stirred it around her. Light seemed to follow her, and there was no movement that was not graceful, no gesture that was thoughtless or unkind. All the living things she touched burst forth in glad bloom. Am I to blame that the heart of the king of the dead longed for a breath of life?

  But perhaps it was not entirely my fault, though I do not think my feelings to be in any way a mistake. As she paused, I halted as well and glanced about me to make sure I was still hidden from her view. It was at that moment in the bough of one of the olive trees that I saw Cupid, that foul little boy, grinning at me obscenely. I scowled, immediately suspecting some prank on the part of Aphrodite and Eros at my expense. He laughed silently and mockingly as he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

  When I turned to calm myself by looking upon what I felt was true and beautiful and sacred, I found that Persephone had gone. Even reaching out with my mind and my mighty powers of perception, I could not discern whence she had fled.

  But, I reasoned with myself—though I am fully aware that to call my thoughts at that moment “reason” is to make a mockery of
the word—it mattered not that she had gone. I had beheld her. My immortal life and empty heart had been touched by her, and there was nowhere in the cosmos that she could hide from me. As I look back upon things now, I believe that despite what happened afterwards, that was the moment that Persephone truly lost her freedom.

  I skulked back to my kingdom, mired in murky thought. My palace, as usual, was filled with guests—those souls damned to remembrance, a gift granted to them by soft-hearted gods who believed that eternity would be easier for great heroes, poets, kings, and lovers if they could remember the glory of their lives. It is a fate I personally would not wish upon my worst enemy—even insipid, swayable Eros. But, as their king, I showed them what kindness I could by allowing them to dwell in my richly-appointed halls, drinking and eating and telling the same stories endlessly, yet always finding some new boast to insert.

  I stalked through the corridors with their walls of shadow and floors of black granite. The endless darkness was relieved by all the gold and jewels of the earth—a small consolation prize awarded to the one who ruled all that was below the surface. I bribed Hephaestus with the finest ore to be found in return for his exquisite work on making me golden lanterns, gem-encrusted candlesticks, silver goblets and plates, among other trinkets. My mind raced with the possibility of new commissions for him—sapphire combs for Persephone’s hair, ropes of diamonds to go round her throat, bangles of gold studded with emeralds, and a girdle of glowing topazes.

  A room, my queen would have chambers that, though dark, would rival any luxury that Olympus could offer her. Silk and linen could be procured one way or another, I reasoned, as well as carved chestnut divans, soft feathers for her mattress, and painted pottery to be filled with incense and sweet oils to please her.

  My head began to spin with the preparations to please Persephone, even though I had skipped through the most important part of the plan, which was steeling myself to ask my brother Zeus for her hand in marriage. I halted as I passed a mirror of smooth, polished silver. It had been several ages of man since I had bothered to study my reflection, but now I did so with a purpose. All the comments on my appearance from man and god alike rushed to the fore of my thoughts—things trivial like Artemis’ opinion of my nose (which, as I looked at it seemed straight and well-defined, not crooked at all as she had said), and things far more important such as whether my body would be pleasing to Persephone. I regarded myself critically and allowed myself a moderate amount of shy pride that I did cut a fine figure—tall, with broad shoulders and long, sculpted muscles.

  I hoped that my golden goddess would not object to such a bedmate, and I would bring my considerable powers to bear on bringing pleasure to her bed. There is nothing I would not do for her, and with any luck there is nothing I would not do to her in bed. The thought of her pale, slender arms wrapping around my thick bronzed neck made me harden with desire, drawing my brows together in the agony of anticipation as my cock grew thick and painful.

  I lingered in front of the mirror, my gaze no longer focused on my reflection but now turned inward to the thoughts of what remained to be done in order to bring Persephone to my realm as my bride and queen. Try as I might to think of ways around it, the fact remained that the very next thing I had to do was to approach my brother Zeus and ask him for his blessing—a thing that was loathsome to me for so many reasons.

  With a snarl of frustration, I spun on my heel and stormed deeper into my palace. Mortal days and weeks passed as I struggled with myself. My longing for Persephone only grew more intractable, like the way the roots of the great oaks invaded my domain with a stubborn tenacity. Yet, I raged against my longing, reason dictating to me that it was weakness. Pride taunted me that I must supplicate Zeus like a mortal begging a favor and be resigned to accepting the saddle of his unreasonable and often ridiculous debts.

  But time, like water upon a stone, wore down my resistance. I wept with both shame and relief as I finally resolved upon my course. I would ask for Persephone.

  A storm with shattering claps of thunder heralded my arrival in Olympus. I distinctly saw Hermes roll his eyes, as if to say of course it would turn dark and stormy when the lord of the dead arrived. Ignoring him, I strode through the halls of my brother’s palace. I was raw with anticipation and raw from every painful prick of my pride each time a god sniffed or turned away.

  “Brother!” boomed the voice of Zeus as I entered the great throne room, with its columns of fire and snow. To his credit, he rose from his throne and came forward to greet me as a brother if not perhaps quite an equal, clasping my hand and shoulder.

  “What brings you into daylight, and what worry has you looking as grim as Death himself?” he asked, unable to resist indulging his juvenile humor at my expense.

  I nearly cuffed him as I had done so many times when we were godlings and the stars were young. In light of the purpose of my visit, I checked this impulse and tried to look grim instead of embarrassed.

  “I have come to ask a favor of you,” I said between gritted teeth.

  “A favor?” My brother sounded truly surprised, his bushy brown eyebrows climbing high onto his forehead. “Come, sit and drink with me. For, the first favor that Hades has ever asked is no small occasion and cannot pass without celebration.”

  He took me to his andron where even Hera dare not show her pretty nose. I never saw the point of such a room where women could not enter, but Zeus, Ares, and even Apollo would all assure me that even gods needed a place where women could not intrude with their meddlesome management. I remember wishing that should I ever be so lucky as to have such a mettlesome companion, she would never leave my side, and I would treasure her devoted interference.

  We settled onto two couches, reclining on our left sides as customary. I was forced to shift about by the pointy bits of the feathers from one of the cushions poking me in the back. Zeus stuffed the pillows in his andron with the peacock feathers that symbolized Hera, clearly enjoying the irony of pressing them into his service when his wife rarely deigned to cradle his weight. Delightfully vindictive? Yes. Comfortable? Decidedly not.

  A brace of nymphs scurried to bring before us a low bronze table with sweetmeats and silver flagons of wine. Zeus mixed the wine and honey and poured it into wide-lipped saucers for us both.

  “To the grim glory of Hades,” Zeus toasted, chuckling with delight at his own joke.

  “To the glaring glory of Zeus,” I retorted, nostrils flaring with annoyance.

  Zeus paused mid-sip and studied me over the rim of his cup.

  “What is your favor, brother?” he asked quietly, finally seeming to sense that this was not the time for his mawkish humor.

  I paused, wetting my lips with wine for suddenly everything within me seemed dried and shriveled, choking off speech.

  “Persephone,” I managed to get out. “I am here to ask you for Persephone. I would marry her and make her my queen.”

  Zeus eyed me steadily over the rim of his cup. Eternity paused for a moment with him, holding its exquisite breath. His presence expanded as he searched out the deep meanings of my words and placed them in the context of the cosmos. Tendrils of his great awareness unfurled and traced the branching veins of Fate and Destiny. I allowed him to gaze unfettered into my eyes and behold all that I felt, revealing the abysses of my loneliness, my desire, and my love.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “Demeter will not permit it, and I cannot go openly against her wishes,” Zeus said slowly, his voice low and rumbling like the warning of a distant storm.

  I felt my stomach tighten, and flashes of hot rage seared my cheeks and the back of my neck.

  “But,” added Zeus thoughtfully. “I would not deny you the only thing you have ever asked for.” He paused, as if to consider his words and turn his vision inward once more. “I do not know how this will end. There are choices within tangles, and for once, the threads will not yield up their truths to me. There is but one thing I can be certain of in this moment. I ca
nnot change the wants of the heart any more than I can change the current of the River Styx.”

  I felt frozen by his words, perched on the knife’s edge of hope and despair, the blade cleaving my heart into equal halves of pain.

  “If you truly desire her, then you must take her,” he said finally. “Let will shall be come to pass.”

  Blood pounded in my ears, and my breath felt hot in my chest as I heard his words.

  Take her.

  Take Persephone.

  Rip her from the world of sunlight, dragging her screaming to a world of unending darkness. Turn a deaf ear to tearful pleas and a blind eye to sweet features twisted by sadness. Force her to learn to love me, the king of the dead. Force her to find pleasure with me, the lord of her bed, her body. Her heart.

  I would take her.

  Chapter 2

  I dwelt in a kind of sweet madness for a time. Just the thought that I would soon hold Persephone in my arms drove me into a frenzy of joy. No effort was spared in preparation for the arrival of my beloved, and soon, she had a bower that would rival that of any queen, mortal or divine.

  In all this time, my heart lived off the memory of the one moment I had seen her. The memory became worn and faded like a scroll that has been read too many times and touched by too many fingers. I both dreaded and dreamed of the moment my eyes would be filled with the vision of her once more. The day finally came when I ventured forth from the darkness to claim my bride so that she would never be absent from my gaze again.

  I had received word via Hermes from Zeus that Demeter was to take Persephone with her to a feast with one of the nymphs. I never bothered to hide my disdain for these flighty creatures of glade and brook. They chattered on like silly girls, became as wild as mountain cats in their love-making, then went on their way as if they had simply been doing their spinning.

  When I espied Persephone wandering the soft, fragrant fields in their company, I had to repress a snarl. Such vapid companions were not worthy of my beloved! Even as they played at childish games and sang inane songs while picking flowers, I could see that Persephone was different. She alone moved with an eerie grace that seemed more in time with the rhythm of the earth’s heartbeat than their little ditties. I greedily drank in the sight of her long, slender limbs, just barely hidden from view by the gauzy white chiton she wore. Through the fabric, I could see the pale bumps of her breasts and the rosy tips of her nipples. Her glorious golden hair was bound up, tied with vines and blossoms. She was the glad morning come to touch the dry, tired earth, and soon, she would bring her light and joy to the darkest places of the Underworld, the place that perhaps needed her the most.