Tempted by Darkness

by Lillian Sable

  Tempted by Darkness

  Lillian Sable

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Also by Lillian Sable

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Hades sat on a throne of skulls and bones at the center of his fallen kingdom. Shadows crept ever closer, more of the land succumbing to total darkness with each passing day. He found himself growing wearier as the inevitability of oblivion became more certain.

  At this point, only the anger sustained him.

  The realms of myth and legend all served a purpose, each with their own inexplicable set of rules and procedures. The underworld was no different, even as he wished for the power to change it.

  But a realm of death served little purpose without some form of life to chase away the all-consuming darkness.

  That had been the agreement he had struck with the other gods when they cursed him to this place. He would be gifted the smallest but of light.

  Of life.

  Persephone.

  But she was gone, taking any trace of light with her.

  A crystal orb dangled from his fingers, his hand suspended in the air over the side of his throne. With even a slight movement, the thing would fall to the ground and shatter into a thousand glittering pieces.

  How many times had he thrown orbs identical to this one across the room to watch them burst, only for another to appear in his hands? It was always the same face that he saw reflected in that crystalline surface, the face that haunted his kind's version of dreams.

  This was the face that he wanted to take between his hands and crush until it burst and bled. And then he wanted to conjure it again from the ether to do the same thing over again.

  That was the anger talking, he knew, and the keen sense of betrayal. If she were here, he was as likely to fall at her feet in supplication as he was to react with violence. The urges fluctuated with moods, which were impossible to predict.

  The fact remained: this girl had destroyed his kingdom. And she was the only one who could repair it.

  This was a land of death, of course. But not of dying. Without her, he was doing precisely that.

  He had offered her a crown and a place at his side. From the moment that she accepted it, the underworld recognized her as its queen.

  Then she stole away like a thief in the night when it became too much.

  When he became too much.

  Bringing the orb closer, he inspected the face that was equal parts loathed and beloved. The curve of her cheek reminded him of eternity, and her eyes had a depth that seemed enough to drown in. As much as he wanted to hate this beautiful face, he simply wasn't capable of it.

  Pain ripped through him as another portion of the underworld crumbled into dust, nearly dragging him to his knees. It wouldn't be much longer before he lacked the power to so much as lift his head, much less rule in this forgotten place.

  Whatever could be done to salvage this decaying realm, had to be done soon.

  Using more strength than should have been necessary, he summoned a second orb. Its glassy surface felt smooth and cold in his other hand. Any reflective surface would have suited his purposes, but he liked the simplicity and grace of curved glass. In it, viewing between realms would be effortless when he returned to his full power—if he ever did.

  In this second one, the picture was no longer static. He watched the girl move across a stage, her face animated as she spoke. She was identical to the first in every physical way, but he saw something very different.

  This girl had no concept of what awaited her. She carried no guilt because it was impossible to feel sorry for something that you could not remember doing.

  This girl was innocent.

  Innocence that had come at the cost of his suffering.

  He imagined her as she had once been, perfection wrapped in the promise of eternal love. Her dress had flowed off her body as smoothly as the tears tracking down her cheek, and he had tasted those like they were nectar from the gods.

  She had suffered under his hand, that he could admit. The indignities he had brought upon her were necessary, even if he’d found some pleasure in them.

  But then she had destroyed everything.

  In moments like this, it was difficult to remember that he had loved her once, more desperately than he cared for anything else. Even himself. She had taken that love and trampled it under her feet, leaving his kingdom in dust. She had to atone for what she had done, if just to restore the balance that the rules of the universe required.

  And they would ultimately suffer together, over and over again. This was the stuff of myth and magic, written in the stars by what humans so naively termed fate. They belonged to each other as completely as the sun did to the sky or ocean waves to the pull of the moon. One simply could not exist without the other. Neither of them could survive apart, death would inevitably come for them both if what had gone wrong was not eventually righted.

  But if Hades had learned anything, it was how to bide his time. He would lie in wait, dropping his clues like breadcrumbs for innocent lambs led to slaughter. Soon his world would be set to rights, and she would be his again.

  Silence surrounded him as it so often did, but he watched her mouth shift as she spoke. Her movements were slowed, transmitted across galaxies and eons to reach him, but he still found himself fascinated. So little about her had visibly altered, although he understood that everything about her must have changed.

  She would not know him, despite the whispered imaginings floating through her head. Her history would be no more in reach than the dreams that were barely remembered come the morning.

  And he would become the stuff of her nightmares.

  Chapter One

  "Submit to me, and I will give you your dreams."

  Hades’s face was pale in the moonlight, all sharp lines and stark edges. He looked like something out of a dark fantasy or a nightmare, even as he beckoned me closer. Features so sharp that they could have been etched in glass filled my vision as ash-blond hair shifted around his head in a wind that I couldn’t feel. Everything about him was pale from his nearly translucent skin to the snow-white coat from a mountain beast draped around his shoulders.

  I saw my burning soul reflected in ice-cold eyes.

  "Submit."

  The command was softly spoken, but it resonated down to my bones. His entrancing voice seeped into me like a virus that would infect every cell of my being. A pulse fluttered in my throat from my rapidly beating heart, and his heated gaze rested there for a long moment.

  Words came to me as if they'd been written on the stars. I knew they were not my own creation but an ancient incantation. These were words spoken to invoke shifts in the very fabric of the universe.

  "Through rivers of souls and the ruins of Tartarus, I have met your challenges and stand before you as an equal. I have resisted your every temptation—"

  His gaze hardened as his mouth curved down in displeasure. I fought the urge to snatch back the words and fall to my knees at his feet while begging for forgiveness. To submit was the thing I wanted most in the world, and the only thing that I knew would ensure my destruction.

  Again, the words slithered along my skin, insidious and seductive. His voice was the caress of a lover and his anger like the pain of a lash. "Submit to me." />
  My own voice caught in my throat, but I forced more words past the painful knot. "This kingdom is mine as much as it is yours. I will not submit to you."

  A hand reached for me, stopping just short of touching. His voice was pleading, even as dangerous anger burned in his gaze. "I would gift you the universe, if only you say that you are mine."

  Even if I didn’t understand why, I knew I had to resist. “The power to maintain this realm is mine alone. You have only the dominion that I allow.”

  The ground swayed beneath my feet, even as he remained still and unmoving. My body betrayed me as his hands shifted down my form, so close to touching that the lack leaves a deep yearning in its wake. I didn't have to imagine how good those hands would feel on my bare skin, how easily he could bring me the most terrible pleasure and the most enticing pain.

  I wanted to succumb. I wanted to drown under his will, the force of it like a wave crashing onto the shore. But I knew that the moment I did, I would be lost forever.

  "Submit, or all that you love will be destroyed."

  Pieces of the world fell down around me until all I could see was creeping darkness and the cruel gleam of his eyes. The land beneath my feet fractured and broke, like my hold on reality. Frigid air froze my vocal cords as if even the universe itself begged me not to speak the final words.

  He tried one last time, speaking with entreaty even as his lip curled with threat. "Let me rule you, and everything I have will be yours."

  I forced myself to speak through the physical pain and a similar feeling in my soul.

  “No man is my master. I belong to no one.”

  “I belong to no one,” Adonis repeated the line, his tone musing. “I’m with the tension up until this point, but this line I don’t get. A few pages before, the girl acts like she’s obsessed with this dude. Now, she doesn’t want to belong to him? I don’t get it.”

  I made a note on my script without bothering to look up at him on the stage. I was sitting in the first row of the theater while he chewed up the lines. “We’re not changing it if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “And she’s supposed to be an orphan girl, where is the inheriting a kingdom stuff coming from?”

  With endless patience, I regarded my closest friend with a droll smile. “Are you gunning for a writing credit or something? Because not everything needs to be analyzed with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “I’m just saying that this is a really interesting take on the myth of Hades. Everybody knows he rules the underworld, but you don’t really hear about him having a queen.” He tossed the script with a rakish smile. “This is your first production. I just want to make sure everything is perfect.”

  I regarded him with a droll expression, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Just because the guy is my best friend doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize when I’m being managed. Just because he meant well, didn’t mean that I wasn’t occasionally driven crazy by his micro-managing.

  Adonis looked like the type of guy who should be huddled up on the side of a football field shouting plays at the other meatheads, not dramatically reciting Shakespeare on the stage. He had broad shoulders and towered over me at over six feet tall. Built like an athlete, he was lean and muscled in all the right places. When he smiled, it felt like being warmed by sunshine, his eyes bluer than a clear sky with hair so golden it shone underneath the stage lights.

  Pretty much the textbook definition of the all-American boy. Girls threw themselves at him wherever he went, but he never seemed to stay in a relationship for very long and acted all sheepish whenever I asked him what happened with the last one he dated.

  That had to be what started our friendship in the first place. I was the first girl he ever met who didn’t seem to care about his good looks. I noticed it, of course, but it was like noticing a beautiful painting hanging in the museum. You look, but it never occurs to you to touch because it’s not something to own.

  And I would never tell him that the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to touch, even though my attraction had little to do with how gorgeous he was on the outside. It was the inside that really set him apart, even though nobody else seemed to see it. But even if he were interested, which I doubted, trying to date would ruin what we have. His romantic relationships never ended well.

  “It’s crazy how much overlap there is in your head between perfection and whatever you happen to be doing.”

  Bringing his hands to his chest, Adonis dramatically fell to his knees. “Forgive me, lovely and fair Persephone. I meant no offense.”

  “Then say your lines and quit it with the commentary.” I giggled, then lurched out of the way when he lunged for me. But I wasn’t fast enough to stop him from grabbing me around the waist and swinging me around until I felt dizzy. “Put me down! We only have the stage for an hour.”

  “So sorry, doll. I find your gripping performance too fascinating to keep my head on my shoulders.”

  He liked to tease me, but the compliment was real. If it weren’t for Adonis’s encouragement, I never would have decided to let this play be performed.

  I’d spent years trying to forget the crazy things I would see when I closed my eyes. But I finally realized that the only way to get the images out of my head was to put them somewhere else, as words on paper or paint splashed angrily across canvas.

  People probably thought the weird girl who was always the last one to leave the art studio at night and the first one to arrive in the morning just had a crazy work ethic. But really, I was compelled to produce, and when the studio closed down for the night, I’d stay up until dawn writing in my room. I’d initially been an art major as an undergraduate then switched to the drama program when I discovered they had a screenwriting and producing track for graduate students.

  It was Adonis who had pressured me into producing this play, based partly on my own imaginings but also on the book I’d read over and over again at least a thousand times.

  Lament of the Underworld.

  Although, it was both fascinating and appalling to watch Adonis transform into the terrible ruler of the dead, dark elves, and all other manner of creatures inhabiting the underworld. He was all light, and the character was all darkness, but his acting skills were more than enough to pull it off.

  From the stage, Adonis smiled down at me in a way that made me feel warm and comforted, like sliding under the covers between soft sheets.

  “Will you just quit with the armchair directing and say your lines.” I pointed at his mark on the stage floor and gestured for him to start again. “You are not offer-only, buddy. Someone else might get this part if you don’t start taking it seriously.”

  As if I would ever in a million years want someone else playing that role. Screw that. But Adonis doesn’t need to know he’s been the only one I envisioned as the star from the very beginning.

  “Oh, please. I’m the best thing that ever happened to this theater department.”

  I rolled my eyes, fighting off a smile. “At least the size of its collective ego.”

  “Bitch.”

  “No talent hack.”

  “You wound me.” He knew damn well I would never give the part to someone else, but made a show of rushing to get back into place. “Just don’t spank me. You know, since you’re the master and all.”

  My lip quirked, but I forced myself not to laugh. “Spankings have to be earned. Now, start from the top of page twenty.”

  Adonis launched into character as the magical and maniacal Hades with gusto. His claims about being the best weren’t just bravado, the man could act. This play was only going to be performed at a student showcase, but he treated it like we were weeks away from going on Broadway.

  “Good job,” I told him, yawning as I glanced down at my watch. We’d been at this for two hours. I was always tired, but it was difficult to sleep these days, dreams woke me up all night long. “We can probably break for the day.”

  He swiped at his forehead, where beads of sweat
dotted the skin, both of us overheated under the bright lights. “When are you going to let me in on who you picked for the female role?”

  I hadn’t found the right person to play the kidnapped orphan-turned-princess fighting for her freedom. None of the other girls in our program felt like a good fit, and it had to be someone I was willing to spend dozens of hours working alongside. That alone excluded most people, let alone the handful of good actresses in our program. I’d always struggled to make friends with girls. Hell, I struggled to make friends with anyone, but girls were a difficulty setting on Insanity mode. Aside from Adonis, most of the other students treated me like the resident crazy person who should be avoided at all costs.

  Wisps of dark hair fell into my face, and I pushed them away impatiently. My hair refused to stay in the messy bun on my head, no matter how many times I redid it. It had always had a mind of its own, and now it wanted to flow free down my back no matter how much that might get in my way.

  Okay, I knew my hair didn’t have sentient thought processes or a will of its own, but still. I’d always been prone to flights of fancy.

  “You must have read a lot of Greek myths when you were a kid.” Adonis flipped through the script before casting a sly glance at me. “Although parts of this read more like an erotic fairytale.”

  “I like to think of the sexual aspects as subtext,” I replied primly. “Maybe you should keep your mind out of the gutter.”

  Adonis jumped off the stage and slumped down into the chair next to me. “The guy is urging her to submit to him while she talks about pleasure and pain. How else am I supposed to read that?”

  “Most fairy tales have darker themes than Disney wants you to believe. In the original Rapunzel, the prince gets her pregnant before she escapes from the tower. And you should hear all the Freudian theories about Sleeping Beauty. Issues of consent aside, what kind of prince goes around kissing girls that look dead?”