Dazzling Brightness

by Roberta Gellis

  “I have lain with more than a few women,” he said, now completely serious, “but none has shared my bed in the sense you mean for many years now. I have taken a little easy pleasure, and given it too, I hope, but you need fear no rivals, not from the past and not in the future.”

  “I know what such lies and such promises are worth,” she said, turning her face away. But she did not pull free of his grip and, although she had no intention of admitting it, she was mollified.

  He snapped back sharply, “I do not lie nor make any promise lightly.”

  Oddly, Persephone did not think he was angry, despite the sharp tone. Something told her he was really flattered, and she was further soothed. His manner toward her was certainly not of a man seeking a little easy pleasure. She did not know much about men, she reminded herself—and then she thought, but I do know the tales about Zeus, and myself have seen the way he looks at and speaks to a beautiful woman. Nonetheless, she understood the advantage of reserving any sign of belief or acceptance.

  “Five new gowns for two handspans of cloth?” she said slowly, as if she were adding advantage against price. “That is a good bargain. Now let me see…”

  “Persephone!” Hades barked. “If you are considering deliberately forgetting the basket each time we go gathering so I will carve up your gown and offer you new ones, put it out of your mind. I have no intention of bringing you to my palace stark naked. It is bad enough that you will doubtless tell everyone I abducted you and not admit it was with your father’s permission. I do not intend to let you make my subjects think I tore off your clothes too.”

  She looked at him sidelong and shrugged. “If that is already your reputation…”

  “No, that is not my reputation, which is why my people would be—” he began hotly, then drew a sharp breath. “Persephone, if you do not stop teasing me I am going to murder you.”

  The remark had been more in the nature of a test than a tease, but she was satisfied with the answer and she laughed. “Not before I bless your seeds and fields, I hope. I do not think Zeus will give you permission to abduct another priestess if you kill the first one.”

  He made a strangled sound and Persephone laughed again, but she had been looking away from him teasingly and suddenly her mind “saw” what her eyes had been resting on idly. She pointed eagerly to the left. “Oh look, Hades, are those not the young shoots of asphodel? And there, beyond that trickle of water, surely that is askolonion?”

  Now Hades looked out at the surrounding area with more attention and nodded. “You are certainly right about the askolonion and I think about the asphodel too. And in the water above where the askolonion is growing is winter cress. I know that one. I have eaten enough of it at this time of year. And look beyond. Those are shoots of some kind of lily, which means bulbs below. I do not believe this valley has been gleaned in many years—if ever. I suppose no one would pass the chrusos thanatos to find the passage that led out. We will have a more tasty second supper than I expected, and for little labor.”

  Without more words Persephone started toward the plants she had recognized, but she was not thinking about them. She was thinking that Hades had confirmed, all unaware and thus truthfully, his assurance that she could not find her way back to Olympus even though she was now in the outer world. Had there been any passage from one valley to another outside the caves, his people, who were plainly in want of the fruits of the earth, would have gone around the cave of the golden death and gleaned this valley. She stepped along light-footed, not quite smiling as she bent above the nearest patch of winter cress.

  They did, indeed, eat well, and there was sufficient food to quell at last the hunger that had gnawed at Persephone more or less constantly since she had poured out her power into Hades. Having returned scraps and bones to the pool where they would feed its living inhabitants, she turned to find that Hades had spread his share of the fleeces on another flat-topped rock, although there was room for both on the large one where she had been lying.

  She smiled at him and said, “I am no longer afraid that you will ravish me. You need not lie halfway across the cave to reassure me.”

  He straightened up abruptly. “Are you telling me you accept me as a husband?”

  Surprise that she had barely bit back a “yes” kept her mute, but she managed to shake her head. He stared at her for another moment and then turned back to straighten the fleece he had pulled awry when she spoke to him. His head was bent too far over what he was doing and he was taking too long over it to hide his disappointment.

  “I have known you for one day, Hades,” she said. “That is a brief time in which to agree to make over my life.”

  He looked over his shoulder. “We have lived through enough today to fill several lives and we have helped and sustained each other.” Turning to face her fully, he added, “I do not see how time will show you better what I am. I am willing to pledge to you—my life, my honor, my heart. He swallowed, and Persephone, who had been looking down, trying to find the strength to resist the logic of his words and the deep hunger in his voice, raised her eyes to his. Both choked on suppressed laughter.

  “Oh, I wish I had not said that about your heart,” she murmured, and bit her lips.

  “I wish you had not too. I am going to have to find some other part to offer you, something less tasty.” Hades swallowed hard again and there were tears in his large black eyes, but Persephone did not think they were of grief.

  “But I am not hungry anymore.” Both lip and voice quivered, Persephone being racked between mirth and disappointment.

  Hades closed the space between them before she even thought of retreat and caught her into his arms. He was shaking with laughter and his voice trembled as he said, “Oh, but I am hungry, Persephone, my dazzling brightness. I have not felt such a light in my soul nor such a fire in my body since… I swear, not since my father drove me from Olympus. Be my queen, Persephone.”

  She did not answer, but she did not struggle against him when he stopped laughing, then lifted his hands to the sides of her face, tilted it toward him, and brought his mouth to hers. The pressure of lip on lip was very light, hardly a kiss. Persephone knew she had only to step a pace back to be free of him. Instead she closed her eyes, partly to avoid the strain of looking at his face, which was too close, but more because there was a very strange sensation in her body.

  The teasing, light tickle of Hades’s lips and the bare touch of his chest against her risen nipples seemed to be the source of the trouble. Persephone circled his back with one arm to pull him tighter against her and used the other hand to press his head forward. Surely the firm pressure would put an end to the tickling, which was generating an insidious warmth that was turning her limbs to jelly.

  As if he understood and intended to cooperate, Hades released her face, sliding one hand around her back and the other down to her buttocks. He pressed her firmly into his body, but Persephone found it did not help at all—and she realized that he did not intend to help. The fingers of the hand around her back were running gently back and forth over the side of her breast, which made her nipples even more sensitive to the pressure of his chest against them. And the hand on her buttocks—that was rubbing her against a hard bulge between Hades’s thighs.

  Between her own, she could feel the nether lips full and slick with moisture and a sense of emptiness that needed to be filled. She knew that was desire for coupling. She had felt it before, once most strongly when she had by accident come upon Dorkas and a man locked together. Yet that had been only a shadow of what she felt now, as had been the interest she felt in those who cast admiring eyes on her in Olympus. And why should she resist, she thought, letting her lips part for Hades’s exploring tongue. She was promising him nothing by yielding her body. Many priestesses of the Corn Goddess had lovers; that only fulfilled another aspect of the Great Mother’s worship.

  Although he held her tighter than ever, Hades’s tongue withdrew and his head lifted. Persephone opened her
eyes. To her amazement they were no longer standing by the spread fleece but lying upon it, she on her back, Hades poised above her. He lowered his head and kissed her, then raised it again, looking troubled.

  Persephone felt an additional spurt of warmth at this evidence that he was waiting her permission, and she smiled and whispered. “Let us celebrate the Great Mother’s gift that there be male and female and joy in their coming together.”

  “So do I wish,” he murmured, “but this time I may not bring you joy but pain. A maiden’s first piercing is not always easy, and I do not wish you to hate me or to think it will always be so.”

  Of the pain, Persephone had heard ad nauseum from her mother, who made no pretense about wishing to spare her daughter that pain—and the pain of bearing children too. She was grateful, nonetheless, for Hades’s warning and quite certain that his final words were equally true. She had, after all, seen and heard Dorkas’s satisfaction and knew that some of the other priestesses went willingly, eagerly, to meet their lovers.

  “Would it be easier for me with another man, Hades?”

  His mouth thinned to a hard line and his eyes glittered like polished jet. “No, not easier nor sweeter, I promise you that.”

  He unhooked his broad belt and cast it aside, pulled the pin from the cloak she wore and spread it apart. The movement opened his kilt, no longer held by the belt, and it slid away. Persephone had seen naked men in plenty when they wrestled, cast the discus, or performed other exercises in the games of the solstices or the rites of passage, but she had never seen a man aroused. Her breath drew in, and then in again much harder when Hades lowered himself and took her nipple in his mouth.

  The wanting had diminished when they talked, had been further dampened by the shock of wondering how she would engulf what she had seen. It flooded through her again, a mindless urge that made her lift her hips before thought or fear could restrain her. But Hades did not respond by thrusting into her. He only slid himself between her thighs and rubbed against her while he sucked one breast and fingered the other.

  Vaguely Persephone wondered whether she should be hurt because Hades had not taken what she offered, but in a very few minutes she could not think at all. She moaned and writhed, pressing his head closer, squeezing his hand, releasing that to clutch his buttocks and struggle to change his position to fill her emptiness. In the end her need was so great that when he did impale her, the shriek she uttered was as much of satisfaction as of pain.

  Without instruction, her legs clutched him to her, eased when he rose to plunge anew. They urged him faster, deeper. She cried aloud, feeling that she would split in two, but driven by a spiraling pleasure that fed off the pain, the almost unbearable sensations in her breasts, and the feel of Hades’s body touching and releasing hers. She gasped for breath as the pleasure grew and grew, and shrieked again when it burst in spasms. Those faded and then pulsed anew as Hades lifted his head and howled like a beast, his body arched backward, locked in its moment of climax.

  Chapter 8

  Persephone woke slowly, aware she was being watched. With her eyes still closed, she frowned in irritation. It had been years since her mother would sit by her bed and gaze at her as if she expected her to break out in spots or disappear. Then she became aware of an ache in all her bones and between her thighs and began to wonder whether she had been sick. Simultaneously she realized that her bed was strange, a fleece atop something hard as rock and she was covered with a woolen cloak rather than her own smooth blanket. A man’s deep voice touched with exasperation caused her eyes to snap open and brought her to reality.

  “You need not frown. I am very sorry that I fell asleep at once,” Hades said. “I am not usually so thoughtless, but I had a rather strenuous day, and that—that coupling was a little out of the usual for me.”

  He was sitting beside her on the edge of the rock, his body turned so he could look at her. Below the end of his short tunic, which came barely to his hips, he was naked. He should have looked ridiculous—he did, and Persephone giggled—but nonetheless she could feel a ripple in the muscles of her belly.

  “I have no idea when you fell asleep,” she said, blinking in confusion. “I think I was before you.” Then the exasperation in his voice irritated her. “After all,” she went on, “my day was no easier than yours. I was abducted, not you.”

  “But that cost you no effort,” Hades pointed out, trying to sound indignant but laughing. “I did all the work of the abduction. I had to half strangle you, carry you—and you are no wraith—and bring you with me through the rock, which is hard labor, I assure you.”

  “What happened to me,” Persephone pronounced in as high and mighty a tone as she could manage when she wanted to laugh too, “was very exhausting.”

  “Tell me about it!” Hades exclaimed, the corners of his mouth quivering. “I thought I would fly all to bits.”

  She shuddered, suddenly sobered. “I am sorry. I do not know how to control myself.”

  “Mother forbid you ever try,” he said, giving up the struggle and grinning from ear to ear.

  “But you told me it was dangerous, that I could have killed a lesser mage.”

  “A lesser mage,” he echoed, laughter gone, his face hard with fury. “What do you want with a lesser mage?”

  Persephone shrank away from eyes flat as polished obsidian. “Nothing,” she cried. “I did not even know I had a Gift. How could I learn how to use it?”

  The rage disappeared as quickly as it had erupted. He laughed again, full throated, throwing his head back. “Your Gift. I thought we were talking about…” He hesitated and then with a secretive half-smile said delicately, “our worship of the Mother.”

  Except for the small flick of desire when her eyes had fallen on his bare lower body, Persephone had been distracted from that memory. Now it returned and with it the explanation of Hades’s sudden anger. He was jealous! The knowledge gave her intense satisfaction and recalled a more immediate memory—the way he had said their coupling was “out of the usual” for him. Her fair skin colored.

  Hades had been silent, watching her, but he made no direct comment about her flushed face. “You are so enchanting that I have lost all common sense.” He smiled and touched her cheek gently. “But you are right and I a fool. We have far to go and may face other dangers. If you are willing to add to my strength, you had best know how—and you had best know how to seal what you have within you so that no mage can sense your Gift or draw from you without your consent.”

  “You also?” she asked softly.

  “Yes.” His reply was short and hard.

  She sat up and kissed him on the lips, holding the cloak so that it covered her upper body, which was as bare as his bottom. Although she completed the movement, she squeaked with dismay before he could respond. “Oh, I ache and I am all sticky.”

  “I hurt you,” he said softly. “I did not mean to. I meant to be gentle. You drove me out of my wits.”

  Again memory brought a flush to her skin, part shame but more a flash of recalled pleasure. She shrugged. “You are not alone to blame. I am very ignorant and hurt myself too.”

  Hades shook his head. “I cannot believe you are real. I cannot think of any other woman alive who would face the dangers you have faced without complaining, and share the blame—

  “Not without complaining,” Persephone pointed out, looking up at him through her lashes. “I have complained in the past and reserve the right to do so—loud and long—in the future.” She laughed. “Do not make me into some perfect ideal or you will be sadly disappointed.” Then she shook her head. “And sharing the blame does not absolve you of quite shocking behavior.”

  “You did not appear to be at all shocked—” Hades began, and then rolled his eyes up. “I wonder if I will ever learn not to snap at the bait you cast for me. Persephone, how is it that no one has murdered you?”

  She began to laugh again but stopped and looked down at her hands. “I do not believe I ever had anyone
to tease before. One cannot tease someone who will be hurt and cry.”

  Hades did not respond to her remark. He bent and groped around the base of the stone, afraid his face or his voice would betray his satisfaction. She was his, all his, forever his—not because she responded to his lovemaking but because she trusted him and could laugh with him; that was a rare and precious bond. Still, he knew it would be a mistake to let her see his certainty. That might breed resentment. Let her believe she was still free.

  When he sat up, his kilt in hand, he said, “What we both need is a hot bath.”

  “Oh yes!” Persephone agreed, then she frowned. “But if you heat the pool, the fish will die. I think we have done enough damage to them already, poor things.”

  Hades stood, wrapped the kilt around himself, and tied it in place. “No, no. There are natural hot pools,” he said, but he spoke absently and swung his head, muttering when he found what he was looking for, “There it is. I wonder how it got all the way over there.”

  He went almost to the flat rock where they had eaten to pick up his belt, and closed it over kilt and tunic, turning his head and raising a brow when Persephone giggled. They both remembered him flinging the belt away, but she said nothing and Hades shrugged and went to pick up the empty flask that had held wine. While he rinsed it and the remaining cup and filled both with water, Persephone pulled her gown up and reinserted her arms into the sleeves. She found her girdle on the other side of the rock and simply wound it around her waist until it was short enough to tie fast, making no attempt to recreate the elaborate folds and crossings of the previous morning. By the time Hades carried the filled cup and some sprigs of mentha to her, she was able to drop the cloak and still be decent.

  The refreshing taste of mint chewed and rubbed over her teeth with a frayed twig somehow seemed to ease her aching muscles, and she was hungry enough to make movement to the “table” rock the lesser evil. An excellent breakfast—cold baked fish and lily bulbs and cress kept fresh in the pool—made her feel even better, so that when Hades rolled up the fleeces, she packed the basket and made ready to go with only a few grimaces to mark her twinges.