When Darkness Calls

by C. R. Jane

  The thought felt crushing...destructive...terrifying.

  Before I could spiral anymore thinking about that, we were crushed together. Hot and demanding, just like him. His erection ground against me and I melted into a pool of need. It was perfection. Feelings of inadequacy and insecurity drifted away until there are absolutely no thoughts of them anywhere.

  I couldn’t even miss home, not when I was here wrapped in Hades’ arms, feeling like maybe I’d been a visitor in my whole life until this moment. I sucked his tongue, hungry for everything he was willing to offer. He groaned and his tightly bound control slipped as he licked and bit into my mouth, driving pleasure from the piercing sting until my cry rebounded against the walls. I was at his mercy. With his silent insistence, I accepted my fate and dove in. Wrapping my arms around his head, my fingers plunged into his hair and I pulled him closer, matching him need for need. We were stuck together in a frantic, pleading kiss.

  Slow clapping from down the hallway had us ripping apart from each other. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid that it was going to come out of my chest. We stared at each other, the hunger in his gaze enveloping my body until I felt like I was going to combust, like something inside of me was trying to crawl out of my skin.

  Languid footsteps coming towards us finally made Hades' gaze rip away from me to look at whoever had dared to interrupt our little moment of heaven.

  It was Zeus.

  He looked amused...but also conflicted. His hands were clenched at his sides, belying a tension that his face just wasn’t showing. I realized that Zeus had worn a mask this entire gathering. What was he hiding underneath?

  “Little human, I thought you would make him work harder,” he remarked, continuing to walk until he was just a few steps away. I was buffeted between the two of them, light against dark. It was intimidating and enthralling, and wreaked havoc on my already raging hormones.

  I cleared my throat, uncomfortable, and at a loss for what to say.

  “What do you need, asshole?” said Hades, turning me around in his arms so that my back was pressed against him. I could feel Hades still hot and heavy against me and I struggled to resist the temptation not to move.

  “I could smell the lust from out there. The crowd is starting to get antsy. I don’t want any of the guests to start fornicating in the mashed potatoes,” responded Zeus casually. I got the feeling that was exactly what he would want actually. “And there’s the fact that your psycho ex is going to be on the warpath if she realizes where exactly the lust is coming from.”

  His words finally sunk into my idiotic brain.

  “Wait. They can smell us?” I screeched as I arched my head to look up at Hades. “What the hell is wrong with all of you?”

  Hades' mouth twitched and I knew he was trying to hold in a grin.

  “The little mouse has teeth,” commented Zeus, drawing my attention back to him, which if I could have guessed...was his goal.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be like a lightning god or something? I’m really not getting that vibe from you at all,” I told him snottily and the stupidly pretty grin on his face just grew.

  The glittery goddess that had been all over Zeus for most of the night suddenly approached from down the hall. She eyed the three of us cooly. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she cooed at him. She blinked a seductive gaze at Hades. “And Aphrodite’s been looking for you.” She laughed, the sound cold and beautiful. “The gang’s all back together. It can be just like old times.”

  My cheeks flushed at the connotation and my traitorous brain couldn’t help but conjure images of what four of the most striking figures in existence would look like…

  Nope, I wasn’t going there.

  “Serenade the guests for me while I finish a bit more business,” said Zeus, hungrily devouring the female’s lips until she was a gasping and giggling mess.

  It was a hot kiss, one that left me tangled inside and needy between my thighs.

  But there was something off about it. Zeus kept a besotted look on his face until she was out of sight.

  And that’s when my exhaustion kicked in.

  “Can we leave?” I asked Hades, admiring the way you could tell I’d been running my hands through his hair. His lips were slightly swollen and his pupils were still a little blown out from our kiss. He looked delicious, the kind of beauty that made your heart throb once you realized it could never be yours.

  He looked relieved at my request. “Of course..”

  “Leaving so soon? The party’s just getting started,” said Zeus. He took another step towards us, as if he wanted to stop me from leaving.

  “As fun as this has been, it’s time to get back,” Hades said, emphasizing the word “fun” rather sarcastically.

  Zeus turned towards me, an intense look in his eyes 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.

  “I’ll be seeing you soon, little human,” 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 his hands gripped my waist even tighter, pulling me back towards him.

  We left without another word, but I could feel Zeus’ stare follow us until we were safely enveloped back in the elevator that had once again just appeared in the wall.

  “What’s the real Zeus like?” I asked tiredly as I leaned my head against his shoulder as the elevator rapidly made its way down.

  “Miserable and morose like myself, I would imagine,” he responded softly, stroking my hair absentmindedly as if he was deep in thought and distracted.

  “That would be interesting if it were true,” I answered. “It seems like one, big beautiful party up there.”

  “Even a pretty cage is still a cage,” Hades responded. “We’re all in cages of one kind or another. Zeus just wears a better mask.”

  “Your cage is built of sorrow, what’s his?”

  “Envy,” answered Hades. And I knew by the finality of his tone, he wasn’t going to say more.

  Just like before, the elevator ride seemed to take forever. I couldn’t hold in another enormous yawn.

  “I can’t believe I’m so tired. I feel like I’ve run a marathon or something.”

  Hades rubbed my shoulder comfortingly. “Being in Olympus around that much higher energy is exhausting for humans. We wouldn’t have been able to stay 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.

  Like before, the kiss was soft, 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 b
eneath 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. 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 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.

  10

  Elena

  I woke enveloped in a pair of arms. Once it hit me that someone was 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 delicious he looked in his slightly sleep rumpled state. He’d taken off his shirt to sleep, and my eyes devoured the hard, perfect planes of his silvery 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 you could possibly be an ancient mythological King 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 was 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 we’d sat in the breakfast nook instead of the cold dining room, he led me out to the gardens once again. We walked until we got to a section that we hadn’t seen before. It was a patch about an acre wide that looked like it had been scorched. There was no sign of green or living vegetation anywhere.

  “What happened here?” I asked.

  “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 hated that we’re talking about her for some reason, but my heart ached for the sadness in his voice. Would anyone ever be able to replace her in his heart? Did 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’d walked all around it, he seemed to be even more depressed.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere else,” I told 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. The rest of the day stretched before me and I was lonely just thinking about him leaving me by myself.

  I gave him one last look before I went into my room and I was shocked by the pure pain on his face.

  “What did I do?” I asked hopelessly.

  He shook his head and turned to go. I grabbed his arm, desperation seizing me. It felt like if I allowed him to walk away right now, I’d never see him again.

  “Hades,” I whispered as he shook me off.

  He took a deep breath and then swirled around. I stumbled backwards from the force of his emotions. The pain was still there...but there was fury there too.

  “You know what Hades means?” he asked bitterly, turning his face away from me as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. “It means “unseen.” Because I’ve been fucking unseen from the very beginning. She was the first one to really see me...to know me. It feels impossible to give that up.”

  “I see you,” I whispered, reaching up to touch his face.

  He yanked his head away as if my touch was painful.

  “You see what I let you see. Your human heart sees my beautiful face. You see the mask I wear. You’ll never know me. And even if you knew me, you’d still never see me.”

  I struggled to understand what he was saying. I opened my mouth to say something...anything. But he was gone.

  I stayed in my room all day. Darkness had fallen, not that it seemed that different from when the sun was up. There’d been a gloom around this place all day, like the sky was reflecting Hades’ mood. Someone had left a tray outside my door for lunch and dinner. I’d left it out there, too emotionally exhausted to eat.

  I’d always thought I liked the quiet. But the piercing silence of this place, it was too much. I was homesick. Desperate to speak to my mother...to my brother. Even Dallin at this point. I’m sure my brother was freaking out. Whatever excuse my mother had come up with for why I was suddenly gone...forever, wouldn’t have gone over well.

  I sighed and stared out the window, watching shadows move under the moonlight.

  The temperature dropped then. A shiver passed over my skin. I wasn’t alone. I knew that much. Yet I was terrified to turn around and find out who was in the room with me. I slowly turned, holding my breath as I tried to be brave...but there was no one there. Or at least there was no one visible in the room.

  I got off the window seat and walked slowly around the room. I threw open the closet door, fully expecting someone would be there lying in wait. But again, there was no one. There was no one under the bed or in the bathroom either.

  Maybe this place was making me go mad. It was the kind of place that would do that. It’s beauty held hints of nightmares and I don’t think I’d gotten a good night’s rest since coming here. I walked over to my bed. And that’s when I saw it. A shadow in the full length mirror leaning against the wall. I trembled under the shadow’s gaze. It flickered briefly and for a moment the shadow shifted, showcasing an image of a beautiful woman in its place. She stared at me cruelly, challenging me with her haughty gaze. Her lips were curled up in a smirk, like she saw me, and she wasn’t impressed.

  I blinked and she was gone. Not even the shadow remained. But I could feel her presence around me, engulfing me. She was still here, taunting me.

  Persephone.

  I had to get out of here.

  I sprinted from the room and down a dimly lit hallway. She was right behind me, her dark energy licking at my heels as I ran for my life.

  It was incredible how the place seemed to be alive despite the fact that I hadn’t come across another living soul. There seemed to be eyes in the walls as I ran, aiding the ghostly specter who was coming after me.

  I ran down the stairs, envisioning those scenes in the movies where the heroine fell down them. Except I was never going to be someone’s hero obviously. The chill I’d been feeling only worsened as I passed under the giant mural showcasing the impossibility of my pligh
t. If you loved someone enough to paint a giant freaking mural of them, you probably were in for the long haul. If her spirit didn’t kill me right now, something terrible was going to happen anyway.

  I made it to the bottom of the steps and icy fingers trailed down my back. I screamed and pushed forward, making my way down a seemingly never ending hallway. The icy fingers tapped on my back as I ran, almost as if the spirit was mocking me.

  “Help!” I screamed, wondering why there was never anyone around except for meal times. I made it to the end of the hallway and grabbed the door knob.

  Of course it was locked. I pulled on it frantically with no luck before turning around to face my fate.

  The shadow hovered just a few inches away from my face. It materialized until I could see Persephone’s face once again. She opened up her red stained lips and began to suck in. That was the only way to describe it. Where I should have been able to see a tongue and teeth, there was only a dark abyss that seemed to get wider and wider as she breathed in.

  My back was plastered against the door as terror crashed over me. That feeling of being touched by ice...it was back. The more she breathed, the more the feeling spread. I watched in horror as a gold mist began to flow from my body into her waiting mouth. The longer she breathed, the more she materialized.

  And the weaker I felt.

  I belatedly realized she was literally sucking my essence out of me. The color in my skin began to fade the more the gold mist flowed out of me. I would have sunk to the ground but it was like an enormous force was holding me in place against the wall.

  I was too weak to scream for help anymore, too weak to do anything. The image of my tree by the river came into my mind and a feeling of peace passed over me. I could almost feel the blades of grass tickling my skin as the breeze blew by. I could almost smell the delicate scent of the wildflowers that grew all along the creek bed. What a pity I was never going to see that place again.