Chapter Three
Hades was enraged that she would try to flee him. At the same time, seeing her snuggled up with Cerberus took the worst of the angry edge off. Of course she’d try to get away—at least until she realized how futile it was. The guards had known but hadn’t attempted to stop her. They all knew the dog would. And the farther she was allowed to get before the trap shut, the more quickly she would come to understand her predicament.
The sooner she accepted things, the better for her.
She stirred when he picked her up. “Hades?”
He didn’t reply. He simply waited for her to finish waking up, and then he helped her onto his horse. Hers had become untethered and gone back to the castle on its own. Hades climbed on the horse behind her and urged the mare toward home.
Tension radiated off her, but he didn’t seek to ease it. They were both silent during the ride through the forest and the meadow. He spent most of the trip thinking about the business in the Eastern Sector, mostly to keep his mind off the slim warm body pressed against his own.
The problem could have been handled by someone else. It was a minor dispute between some of the beings that lived there, extremely boring. He could have left someone else to handle it and come back sooner, but he’d wanted to know what Persephone would do in his absence. And now he had his answer, though he couldn’t blame her. He’d try to escape this place, too.
When they reached the castle, Hades helped her down from the horse and handed the reins to the groom to take care of, then he led her back inside the stone walls and up to his room.
He left her and went out onto the balcony to think. He looked out over the edge. It was a huge and deadly drop-off into an abyss with jagged stalagmites waiting to rip open any fool who fell down there. Or it would be if anyone mortal and alive were to fall.
Hades looked up at the sky then, at the moon and stars all maintained by magic. It was beautiful, but it was a dark and dreary sort of beauty. He couldn’t help wishing that he could enjoy the sunlight just once. Persephone felt like the closest he would ever get to sunlight, the closest he could ever get to life itself.
He heard her tentative footsteps on the stone floor of the balcony. “Sit,” he said, forcing the hardness back into his voice. He didn’t turn until he heard her sit on one of the plush black loungers. Hades pulled up a chair and joined her. He looked at her for a long while. For once, he wasn’t bothered that so much in his world was black.
The robe made her skin look luminescent in the moonlight. And that hair. He wanted to reach out and run his fingers through that hair.
Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Where exactly did you think you were going today, Persephone?”
She looked down at her hands and shrugged.
“Really? You insult me with lies on top of everything else? Tell me the truth.”
“I wanted to go back home.”
“You are home.”
She flinched at that.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to punish you for trying to escape.”
“Are you going to chop off a finger?”
She sounded more bitter than afraid, and he found himself unexpectedly relieved by it. He wanted to punish her. He wanted to turn her into a dark thing like him, something that craved all the things he did. But she seemed so fragile, so breakable. And some part of him couldn’t seem to remember that he was supposed to be getting even with Zeus and that he shouldn’t be soft with her.
“Nothing so grim as that,” he said. But he could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t believe him. That was probably wise. From minute to minute he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do with her—what he was prepared to do with her.
Hades withdrew a large slim box from his coat, it was the one thing he knew for sure.
“What’s this?” she asked when he gave it to her.
“A finger.”
She dropped the box. “What?”
Hades chuckled. “I’m fucking with you. It’s a collar. For you.” He picked it up and opened it to show her there were no body parts inside. She didn’t seem much more enthused by the box’s actual contents.
“A collar?” she said uncertainly as she looked at the smooth silver band of metal cushioned inside the box. “I don’t understand.”
Was she that naive or only playing at it?
If Zeus hadn’t kept her from him, Hades wondered if he would have given her a crown instead. It would have been a more appropriate piece of jewelry for a queen, but all he’d been able to think about for hundreds of years was possessing her. And over time that desire for possession had turned to an irrational need for absolute ownership.
He didn’t want some sweet delicate thing that he would pamper and shield from his darkness. He wanted his lovely goddess on her knees.
“So I’m to be your slave.”
She did understand. Good.
Hades removed the collar from the box, unlatched it, and locked it around her throat.
Quiet tears moved down her cheeks, but she managed to speak without the tears reaching her voice. “You should talk to your people. They think I’m the queen.”
She shivered as Hades ran his fingers through her hair. He knew she would be unable to resist now that he was so close to her.
“You are the queen to them. And they better treat you like it. If I find out anyone has shown you even the smallest disrespect, they will pay dearly.”
Persephone seemed confused by this, but why should she be confused? Couldn’t she be his slave and their queen? Hades didn’t see the complication. It made perfect sense to him.
“Will I ever see my family again? Or friends? Or Lynette?”
She was being remarkably brave. For as fragile as she looked, it was as though there was a strong core of steel inside her.
“You can never go back.”
Her bravery faded almost as quickly as it had come on, and she began to sob in earnest. Hades fought against the urge to comfort her. There were places inside him, places frozen for centuries that this tiny creature could melt if he allowed her to get too close.
She made him feel somehow powerless, and it was that feeling that strengthened his resolve. He would punish her. He would rule her. And she would submit sweetly to his every desire. Or else. He could never let anyone in who had the power to hurt him.
You couldn’t trust people. Mortal or god. They would all find a way to take things from you. He’d learned that the hard way with Zeus and Poseidon.
He couldn’t allow Persephone to become too much to him. He would enjoy her but keep her at a distance. He would break her just enough so that he could manage her—so she couldn’t manage him.
“Come,” he said. “It’s time for your punishment.”
“H-Hades… please. I won’t run again.”
“Master.”
“What?”
“You will call me Master.”
If she kept calling him by his name he was going to crumble and give her anything she wanted. And no daughter of Zeus could ever be trusted. Despite knowing she was an innocent in all this, Hades couldn’t help but feel the apple couldn’t fall very far from the tree. Underneath this sweet delicate exterior there must be something disloyal. He would never give her the chance to unleash it.
“Persephone?” he prodded.
She looked up, her bright blue eyes made somehow brighter by her tears. “Yes, Master?” she whispered.
There was a mixture of satisfaction along with a tiny hard ball of pain inside him at hearing the helpless defeat in her voice. He could get drunk on that strange blend.
He held out a hand. “Come.”
She didn’t argue or beg him again. She just put her hand inside his and allowed him to lead her back inside. He took her out of the room and down the hallway to a separate large room he kept for play.
There were souls down here who had arrived in the underworld so broken, so in need of punishment, that he’d brought them into this room to give them what it was that they so desperately seemed to need. They were the lost souls—not quite bad enough to be sent to the lower realms, but not good enough to find any peace. It was mercy he offered them, a kind of absolution. And in those moments, he had been able to pretend he wasn’t so utterly and completely alone.
Each of them had been resigned to her fate, whimpering sweetly under each implement of pain he wielded. When he was finished with each of them, they were able to move on to a better place in the underworld, having worked through their various issues and paid for their various misdeeds.
But Persephone was something entirely different.
She seemed far too innocent to deserve punishment for anything—even for running from him. Seeking freedom was hardly an unforgivable act. He could relate. He sometimes wanted it just as badly as she did.
Hades kept the playroom bare when it wasn’t in use. All furniture, toys, and whipping implements stayed inside large closets, leaving the room one large open stone square. An enormous window on the south side of the room allowed the moonlight to shine in. He waved a hand and warm flames lit the torches along the wall.
He guided her to the center of the room and unlatched the three silver clasps of the robe. She didn’t protest or fight him when he pushed it off her shoulders. He would give almost anything to know what she was thinking.
He folded it and laid the thick soft fabric on the ground. “Kneel on the robe. You can lay your head down.”
As if locked in a trance, she did what he asked. He crossed to the closet and took out a riding crop. When he returned to her, she was crying quietly, her small body trembling on the robe she knelt on.
“You’ve never been physically punished for anything have you?”
She shook her head. “No, Master.”
He’d expected more fight from her, more resistance. But she must know it would only make things worse. The hopelessness of her situation must have settled in.
“Is that because you never deserved to be punished or because those with authority over you were too soft?”
“I don’t know.”
Even if she had been punished for something, it wouldn’t have been like this, with her nude. He couldn’t pretend this wasn’t sexual for him—as it would be for her once she understood what had been taken from her just to keep her pure and hidden.
“There was nowhere they could have hidden you from me that I wouldn’t have eventually uncovered. Fate doesn’t work that way.”
She took a deep shuddering breath, and when it spilled out of her, Hades let the riding crop fall against her flesh. She gasped, as if shocked, but she didn’t cry or beg or speak at all.
Maybe she was only trying to appease the man she no doubt still believed was crazy.
Her pale skin reacted immediately to the bite of the crop, turning a lovely pink in the spot where he’d struck her. He wanted to run his tongue over its warmth and soothe the sting, but he wasn’t done yet.
Hades made a row of pretty pink welts across her back. She flinched each time the crop sliced through the air. Each time it landed, he was rewarded with a new sound from her. A gasp, then a whimper, then a mewl. He wondered if he could teach and train her so that it turned into a moan.
There were seven marks on her otherwise perfect skin. And now he knew. Not only did she need to eat like a human, she healed like a human. He was still reasonably certain her finger would have grown back eventually without her powers, but he was glad he wouldn’t have to find out.
“Master, p-please,” she said.
Ordinarily he wouldn’t allow begging to stop him. He couldn’t allow that manipulation. But she wasn’t manipulating him. It was a sincere plea from someone who had bravely accepted her punishment.
He put the riding crop on the ground and sat beside her on the cold stone. There were far worse things he could have done, but he wanted to ease her into his world slowly. For as much as he wanted to use her to get back at her father, there was a piece of him that knew once his anger was sated, she’d still be here. And he needed her to be a whole being and not look on him with utter contempt and hatred.
He might be afraid to let her in, but he still had to protect her to some degree. She’d been meant for him from the start. How could he break his toy in a fit of childish rage? He couldn’t. He had to be careful with her.
***
Persephone had thought once Hades started he might never stop. He didn’t always seem altogether sane or present. She tried to be brave, hoping it would appease him, but the uncertainty of how far he might take things… She hadn’t wanted to play on his mercy—or the small bits of it she’d seen so far. Begging had worked to stop him from cutting off her finger. And now it had worked to stop the strip of leather he’d struck her with.
But for how long would it work?
She was afraid to overplay her hand, afraid he might work past whatever ambivalence he felt about hurting her. It was beginning to dawn on her that she was going to have to find a way to exist with this man in this awful underground place where the sky was just another lie—and not even a comforting one.
She couldn’t convince herself that things would be better in the morning. There was no morning—no dawn to soften the edges of the fears that creep in at night. Somehow, she was sure the darkness was the worst of it.
When Hades sat next to her on the ground and pulled her into his arms, she didn’t resist him. It was the first moment of real tenderness he’d shown her. She couldn’t even argue with herself about this. She didn’t want to resist or fight. This place just by virtue of its absolute crushing darkness was too exhausting all by itself. She had to have an ally here. Even if it was her captor.
Escape was impossible. Since that was the case, all she could do was figure out how to make her existence here more tolerable. He seemed content for the others to see and treat her as the queen. That meant there was only one being down here she had to fear, so it seemed smart to her to get him on her side as quickly as possible, before he changed his mind about how the other beings here were to treat her.
She jumped in his arms when his tongue moved over the welts he’d left on her. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel them. Each of them had been a sharp, penetrating sting at first and then a strip of bright hot warmth that felt like the only warmth in the underworld.
His tongue was followed by lips, pressing soft kisses, then fingers stroking along her back.
He’d made some of his intentions with her clear already. When he took her, would he be gentle like this. Would it be in his bed? Would he give her the illusion of romance? Somehow, she doubted it with the way he talked about hurting Zeus. And he was still convinced she was this goddess of spring he’d been looking for.
The only hope Persephone now held of getting out of this place was that Hades would realize she was just a normal mortal and release her—if he didn’t feel she’d somehow tricked him.
The longer he held her the more it felt as though inside the circle of his arms was where she was meant to be. She wanted to fight that thought, but fighting was so exhausting. Even the idea of it made her want to sleep for a thousand years. She wanted to make this easy on herself.
And the way Hades was touching her right now made it so easy to want to get lost inside him, to pretend he was a man who could love and care for her and that this place wasn’t so bad.
“Master?”
“Hmmm?”
Would her petty human needs begin to annoy him? “I’m hungry.”
It didn’t seem like it was possible, but it had been hours since she’d last eaten. She couldn’t be sure with no sun to mark time and guide her but she felt as though she’d slept for a very long time with Cerberus. She must have for Hades to have been away dealing with whatever business he’d had before he’d come for her and brought her back to the castle.
And how long had they been here in this room? It felt like forever.
“Come downstairs to the dining hall when you’re ready. I’ll have something good for you.” He got up off the ground and left her alone.
When he’d left, it was like a fog of cold sadness swept over and around her. She felt so tired and sad all of a sudden.
Persephone wasn’t leaving a big exciting life behind. But it had been warm and safe and comforting. She’d loved everything about it. She’d had a small studio apartment over a Chinese restaurant a couple of blocks from the flower shop.
It was on a corner with a park right across the street. Because of this location, her apartment got a surprising amount of sunlight for being in such a big city with so many buildings everywhere fighting to crowd out the light.
The rent had been low, they said, because of all the cooking smells she’d have to deal with. But she loved it. She’d filled the place up with plants that seemed to like the smell of the food as much as she did.
The couple that owned the restaurant ran a special on lo mein and egg rolls on Wednesdays, and the old Chinese woman always overcooked that day. She always brought leftovers upstairs to Persephone along with a handful of fortune cookies.
“Open the right one, you might find a husband,” she’d teased each week.
They both knew a fortune cookie couldn’t do that, and Persephone hadn’t had the heart to tell the old woman that she didn’t think a husband was in her future. It didn’t feel like anybody else in the world fit her.
Even in a city so big, she’d never felt that excited swept-away feeling she thought she was supposed to feel. She’d admired her fair share of male models and actors and construction workers as they’d drifted past the door of the flower shop, but it had never been more than a passing aesthetic admiration.
She’d never felt the wild urge to try to flirt or get to know one of them or to do something more carnal.
She hadn’t spoken to her dad in a couple of years, not since her mom died. They’d had a fight. They’d said some things. And they’d both been too stubborn to apologize and make it right. She’d run off to New York and left him with the farm. She knew her dad needed her—at least to talk to her. And now more than ever she wished she’d made things right while she’d had the chance.
The only good thing was that he wouldn’t know she was missing. Knowing that would probably kill him, especially with mom already gone.
In the city she’d made a few friends, mostly regulars that hung out at the Chinese restaurant below her apartment. Then there was the shopkeeper at the bookstore across from her job she’d formed a friendship with. And Lynette at the flower shop.
It was such a small life tucked inside a couple of blocks of an enormous city. But she’d been content. And now those plants were all going to die. Her apartment would be rented. Her job would be filled. And she could kiss free Chinese food on Wednesdays goodbye.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d stayed on the ground thinking about this, mourning the finality and the loss of everything and everyone she loved. Even if it hadn’t been a big life, it had been her life. She’d been so happy she’d never stopped to consider how unhappy she could be if it were all taken.
Now she knew.
And it wasn’t the fear of what he might do to her. Surprisingly the closest thing she’d felt down here to the happiness of her life up there had been when Hades was holding her. She didn’t want to think too hard about that, and she definitely couldn’t bring herself to fight it. She had to find a way to hold onto this one warm thing even if he was also the source of all her problems.
Persephone got up off the ground and put the robe back on, carefully locking the three silver clasps back in place. In the hallway, she found another guard. This time she was less afraid, though she did worry he might have heard what Hades had done in there with her.
She felt the marks the god had left on her as they pressed against the soft fabric of the robe. She was so very aware of that—and her nudity. Strangely, after the whipping, she was more aware of her nudity under the robe, of how the slit in the garment rested mere inches south of a place between her legs that felt suddenly awake.
Her nipples were aroused and pressing against the fabric. It was such a foreign sensation. She hoped the guard didn’t notice. She’d never been more aware of her own body before in her life. Something dark and carnal felt as though it were slithering between her legs, then up and around her belly, over her breasts, pulling her into a mad embrace she didn’t think she could survive and couldn’t decide if she wanted, even though a craving had started that very much was not for food.
“Your Grace,” the guard said.
It was still weird being called that.
“My Lord Hades said I should wait for you and help you find the dining hall.”
“O-okay. Thank you,” Persephone managed as she tried desperately to stop thinking all the thoughts that had insisted on pushing into her mind at just the wrong and most mortifying moment.
She followed the guard downstairs and down several massive hallways until they reached a large room that contained a long, shiny, black table. The guard excused himself back to his duties, and Persephone stepped inside. There was a long row of tall windows where the moonlight cast reflections on the table.
Hades had set a fire roaring in the grate of an enormous fireplace on one wall. He pulled out a chair for her at the end of the table near the fire as if he knew how much she needed to feel something warm and bright on her skin—the smallest echo of sunlight.
He waved a hand, and several silver candelabras with white candles lit all down the length of the table. Instead of leaving her alone and sitting all the way at the other end, he pulled a chair up beside her.
“Eat,” he said.
She looked down at a shiny black plate in front of her. It was empty. But then a second later it was filled with lo mein and egg rolls. Exactly like from the Chinese restaurant.
“An interesting choice,” Hades remarked.
“H-how?”
“The castle knows what you want,” he said.
Then the castle must know how badly she wanted to return to her life on the surface. If the castle could magically deliver the food she’d just been thinking of, couldn’t it take her back to her life?
A silver goblet beside the plate filled with water as if it were being poured from an unseen pitcher.
Persephone didn’t give voice to her thoughts of escape. Even if the castle could know her deepest desire to return to her life, it would never defy Hades to deliver her that one fervent wish. She was sure that the castle, like the guards, were loyal to him.
Instead, she ate as requested. It was exactly like the food she remembered, down to the strange touch of cinnamon inside the egg rolls that made all the other flavors pop. Hades sat quietly beside her while she ate. It was unnerving, but it was better than eating alone.
“Don’t you eat?” she asked.
“I do, but I don’t need to nearly as often as you.”
When she’d finished, the plate cleared away and became clean and shiny again. A moment later, a single fortune cookie appeared.
Persephone opened it and read the small slip of paper inside.
Give the dark mysterious man a chance. He’s not all bad.
“Did you do this?” she asked, passing the fortune to Hades.
He read the slip of paper and chuckled. “No. The castle has a weird sense of humor sometimes.”
“What now?” Persephone asked.
One dark eyebrow rose. “What do you mean, what now?”
“I mean what happens now? What are you going to do to me now?”
Hades pulled back his sleeve and looked at a gleaming silver watch on his wrist. “It’s midnight in the city you came from. You should get some rest. And then in a few days, we’ll throw a party. I can’t hide you away from the whole underworld now can I?”
“How will I ever know what day it is?”
Hades covered her hand with his and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, the watch had somehow transferred from his wrist to hers. She’d been so busy watching him, that she hadn’t seen the magic happen.
“I’ll have another made for myself,” he said.
“T-thank you.” Was there a possibility he might be kind to her? Couldn’t he forget this vendetta against Zeus and be decent?
She looked down at the watch. In the transfer from his wrist to hers, it had also gotten smaller—not just to fit her much tinier wrist, but the band had gotten slimmer to give it a more feminine feel. The face of the watch was a normal time piece, but right above the face where the band started there was a little moon symbol.
“The watch is set for New York time. When it’s day, that moon will change to a sun,” Hades said as she studied it.
Under the face of the watch, where the other band started, there was a date and a year so she would know what day it was, too. Even though this place seemed like a stagnant endless noise of no time, the watch around her wrist felt like the smallest window back into the real world. At least she could know how many days, weeks, months had passed. She could know if the sun was out in her world, or if it was night.
She could know when to sleep and get up, assuming Hades allowed her to keep to some kind of normal schedule. He seemed like he might. Since her punishment, something in him seemed to have unwound the smallest amount as if some darkness inside him had been appeased, allowing her a small window of safety. And in that window, he wanted her to sleep.
“Go on up to bed, Sunshine,” he said.
She felt his eyes on her as she got up from the table. Then it was the eyes of the guards she felt as she walked down the hallways, up the grand staircase, and up to the third floor and the room with the big, comfortable bed.
Inside the room was a big black door she hadn’t noticed before. When she pushed it open, she found a clean, simple bathroom. When she glanced at the marble counter, a toothbrush and toothpaste appeared along with a fluffy gray towel.
She took the watch off and laid it on the counter, along with the robe he’d dressed her in. The silver collar gleamed at her throat. She didn’t know how to take it off or even if she was allowed to, so she left it on. Then she took a hot shower and brushed her teeth.
Admittedly, a good meal and the normalcy of a shower and a toothbrush made her feel somehow less stricken by everything.
She wrapped the gray towel around herself and put the watch back on. Persephone didn’t bother with the robe. If Hades wanted her, he would have her, and no flimsy piece of fabric would get in his way. She would rather at least be comfortable under the soft sheets and blanket.
She got into the bed and dropped the towel onto the floor, where it promptly vanished into thin air.