“Come on, Zerina; don’t be so shy. I want to swim. There’s no one around,” Jinx coaxed, swimming through the water and seeing Zerina just sitting on the large boulder.

“Hades could show up at any time.” Zerina shook her head, denying herself the lure of the water.

“We haven’t seen him for the entire month I’ve been here; why would he show up now? Come on.” Jinx splashed water toward her. When Zerina reluctantly rose, Jinx then started slamming her hand down on the water, chanting, “Take them off. Take them off!”

“Shush! He’ll hear you.”

“Mother, please! He has better things to do than watch you to take your clothes off. Besides, he can do that any time he pleases.”

Zerina carefully stepped onto the slippery rocks that led toward the water. She had taken off her jeans, yet left on the gauzy top. Her long black hair fanned out around her. “How deep is it?”

“It’s deep in the middle. Shallowest under the waterfall.”

Zerina turned sideways, the cool water rising to her thighs. It rose to her waist as she stood under the waterfall.

“This is fantastic.” Zerina leaned her head back, letting the water hit her head.

“I told you,” Jinx said from the other end of the pool.

The two stayed in the water until they grew tired. She was too damp to put her jeans back on, and growing frustrated, she just carried them over her arm as they made their way through the tunnel to the castle. When they past Maxi, though, she stopped to look at the hole that he had been digging when they had passed him on the way to swim.

“Is it me, or has that hole gotten smaller?” Zerina asked Jinx, who had also stopped to watch his progress.

“It’s smaller,” she whispered, rolling her eyes at the man who kept digging away.

A loud moan filled the chamber, causing both her and Jinx to turn toward the sound. Jinx went toward the tunnel that the sound had come from.

“Jinx, let’s go. Hades warned me not to go in the other tunnels.” Zerina had become accustomed to the look of curiosity on Jinx’s face.

“You stay here. I’ll be right back.” The fairy disappeared, leaving her alone in the tunnel with Maxi.

Several minutes passed. Zerina was furious at her friend. She was tempted to leave the woman behind and return to her room alone, but what if she was trapped in a chamber and couldn’t get out? Or worse, what if a prisoner had her and wouldn’t let her go?

She had dried enough to be able to put her jeans back on. She took a tiny step toward the mouth of the entrance, trying to look inside the dark depths. Unlike the ones that Hades had shown her, this one was so dark and gloomy she couldn’t see.

“Jinx?” Zerina called out, taking another step closer.

“I wouldn’t.”

She spun around to see Maxi watching her before he went back to digging.

Zerina moved back from the tunnel, going toward the one that would lead upward to the castle. She really, really didn’t want to call out for Hades and get Jinx in trouble for being where she wasn’t supposed to.

Another moan came from the tunnel.

“Jinx, when I find you, I’m going to pull all your gold strands out.”

Jinx was proud of her gold strands. Usually, fairies had only colors or silver ones.

When Jinx didn’t reappear, Zerina knew she was in trouble.

She took one of the torches off the wall then went toward the tunnel.

“Don’t,” Maxi warned again.

“I can’t leave her,” Zerina said as she took a step inside the tunnel, expecting Hades or Grimm to appear at any moment.

The sounding moans echoed throughout the tunnel. The farther she walked, the fainter the sound became.

“Jinx?” Zerina called out, shivering in the damping gloominess, hoping her friend would hear her and answer. Only the moans answered her.

She took several steps forward. Now the plaintive cries were growing farther away. She stopped again. She didn’t know why, but she placed her ear to the stone wall, and then fell back when a huge door appeared.

Ignoring the instinct to run, she slowly opened the creaking door, then wished she hadn’t.

Hades stopped her before she could run.

“Come inside, Zerina. We’ve been waiting for you.”

Zerina tried not to focus on Hades as she reluctantly entered. The dungeon she had been inside was much different than this one.

She didn’t take her eyes off Jinx’s terrified ones.

“As you can see, you’ve found her.”

“Let her down.”

Jinx was hanging from her legs upside over a pit. She was swinging over it as she tried to escape the rope that was wrapped down her body, pinning her arms to her side.

Zerina’s eyes traveled the length of the rope, seeing it was attached to a hook on the high ceiling.

The moan that had drawn both Jinx and her to the chamber came again from Hades’ direction. Involuntarily, she looked toward him, her hand going to her throat when she saw a naked woman sitting at his feet. That was when she also noticed that he was shirtless, his olive skin gleaming in the torches that shone from the walls.

“You don’t need that one anymore. Throw it into the pit.”

Following his directions, wary of making him even angrier for disobeying his warning of entering the tunnel, she tossed the torch into the pit, expecting it to have to fall a great distance. When she didn’t hear the noise she expected, she leaned forward, then jumped back, seeing it wasn’t a pit, but a cauldron of red hot lava.

“Let her down!” Zerina was afraid for Jinx. Fire was a fairy’s weakness. If one drop of that lava touched Jinx, she would be marked for her immortal life.

“Come here, Zerina.”

Wanting Jinx down, she obediently followed his order, coming to a stop a few steps from him. She couldn’t bring herself nearer.

The woman moaned again, placing her mouth above his leather pants as she stroked Hades’ cock from outside the leather of his pants.

“This is Zora. She is my newest prisoner.”

“I’ve met her before.” She sadly looked at the woman, remembering the beautiful soul she had met before. Earth had dirtied the soul into the one that now resided in the woman who was begging for Hades’ attention.

Hades saw her pitying look. “You still see her as the pure soul she had been. You don’t see the men and children she is for responsible for killing.”

Zerina looked away to Jinx, keeping her mind on her so her body would stop clenching in need at the sight of Hades’ body. She wanted to tear the other woman away and learn his muscles and curves with her lips.

“Zerina, it doesn’t please me when you give Jinx more attention than me.”

The rope dropped, lowering Jinx closer to the lava.

Quickly, she turned back to face Hades.

“Now, that wasn’t too hard, was it? I expect you to obey me.”

“Yes, Hades.” Zerina lowered herself down to her knees.

“That’s a nice touch, even though I know there isn’t a submissive bone in your body. Zora has a problem also. She enjoyed luring men to her bed, then killing and robbing them as they slept. The men weren’t even able to get the pleasure she promised them; drugging them before they could fuck her. When she couldn’t steal enough money, Zora moved on to richer men. Men who had children. Children who could inherit money.

“I told her that, if she could arouse my passion, then I would release her back to the human world. So far, she hasn’t succeeded.”

Hades’ explanation had her eyes going to his crotch, seeing the large bulge behind his leather pants. She could also see he wasn’t hard. She had seen enough in her mother’s garden and around court that she knew how a man’s cock should look when he was aroused.

A god as powerful as Hades would be too large to stay trapped behind a zipper. The male gods became more sexually potent as they matured. The women became more seductive. That’s why the gods and goddesses were constantly having affairs. That Hades was one of the oldest, his erotic appeal was hard to fight. That he was earthbound made his even harder to resist.

“Release Jinx and we’ll leave you to your punishment.”

“Poor Zerina. Zora is no longer the lone one who needs a punishment. Both you and Jinx have been told not to leave your areas. You both disobeyed. I had faith in you, that you wouldn’t break my rule. Another five minutes and Jinx would be facing her punishment alone, but I’m going to give you a chance to do what Zora couldn’t accomplish. Rise my desire, and I will let Jinx go.”

“How about Zora?”

“You wish for me to let her go back to earth?”

“No, but is there an easier punishment you can give her?”

Hades lifted a tendril of the woman’s bright red hair. “I may be able to think of one or two. It depends on how well you manage to convince me to make the effort.”

Zerina looked toward Jinx, then back to Hades. She couldn’t let the fairy be hurt. She was already an outcast in the fairy and magic world. Any mark on her would give the goddesses that expected perfection something to make fun of. Zerina couldn’t have her bubbly friend hurt by their cruel taunts.

She stood. She would never debase herself to ever crawl to Hades. She had earned her punishment, much as she wanted to deny it. He had given her two warnings to walk away from the tunnel. He had given Jinx one.

“You had Maxi warn us, didn’t you?”

Hades gave a regal nod. “I’m waiting. Do not think to change my mind once I set a punishment. I never take it back.

Zerina braced herself for the shock of touching Hades’ bare flesh. “What was Zora’s punishment going to be if Jinx hadn’t showed up and she couldn’t arouse you?”

“Look around you; what do you think I would have done with her?”

“You were going to throw her in the pit.”

“She always knew she was going to burn in the pits of hell. I was merely going to make it come true.”

“You have no kindness in you. Your prisoners destined to live their immortal lives with you is punishment enough.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” With that, she placed her hand on his chest. The pleasure was so intense it nearly drove her to her knees.

Zora moaned, trying to nuzzle Hades’ cock through his pants. Zerina used it as an excuse to remove her hand, rubbing the tingly fire on the palm of her hand against the side of her jeans.

“She’s distracting me.”

“I wouldn’t want you to become distracted.” Hades waved a hand, and now Zora was dangling over the cauldron next to Jinx.

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Both of their fates rest in your hands.” Hades’ voice lowered intimately. “I’m growing bored.”

The ropes dropped another inch.

Shielding her expression, she placed both hands on Hades’ chest. Overwhelmed by the fire coursing through her body, her knees buckled, but Hades caught her in his arms.

“It gets worse,” Hades whispered in her ear, sending goose bumps up her back. “Your virginity is craving what it’s never had.”

“Please be quiet,” she pleaded. Every word he spoke was like a thrust inside her clenching pussy.

Zerina felt Hades push down the sleeve of her top, baring her shoulder. Then he covered the flesh he had exposed with his mouth.

She pulled herself away from his touch until the only connection between them was her hand on his chest.

“I was trying to help,” he defended.

“If you want to help me, then release them.”

“So far, you haven’t given me a reason to.”

Zerina stared at his impassive expression. She had grown up with strong females, even Cara, who had a gentle soul, had a temper when she was provoked. She, on the other hand, had never lost her temper. She was the most tempered of the Moirai. Until Grimm had kidnapped her and brought her to Hades.

When she had met him, his behavior had rubbed her the wrong way, like velvet when you rubbed it in the wrong direction. It became unforgiving and stiff, the material refusing to give its softness to a careless touch.

The careless god wanted her to give him a reason to release Jinx and Zora, and she was going to give him one. He had forgotten who her mother was. Fate didn’t believe in sending out her daughters unprepared. Hades was about to get more than he had bargained for.