The Eighth House: Hades & Persephone by Eris Adderly

V TRUST

The river of firecurved its way through the Great Cavern like an endless molten serpent. Of all the unimaginable sights Persephone had seen since her descent into the Underworld, the Phlegethôn, its destructive flow somehow death and life at once, proved so far the most worthy of her combined fear and awe.

Well. Except perhaps for that first glimpse of Lord Hades.

Both red ends of the oozing ribbon of rock disappeared into the vast black of the cavern, one ahead of her, the other at her back. In the distance, what looked like a bridge spanned the river at an impossible height, and it was toward this landmark Persephone made her steady way.

She kept, of course, a wide and respectful distance from the guttural crackle of the river even as her path followed its deadly curves.

Hades had given her leave to explore and, once she had assessed the halls of his palace as more or less barren and uninteresting, one of the famous rivers of the Unseen Realm had no trouble capturing her interest. Doubly so now that late afternoon warmed the realms above and the watery paráthyra had gone golden and dim.

The lakes of the mortal plane. Who knew?

So many surprises here.

Her mother wouldn’t even allow her on Olympos during a crowded feast day where there would have been a hundred chaperones to shepherd her interactions. Now, here she was in the Underworld, supervised by no one at all. Allowing the Lord of the Dead to play his wicked games.

And she had allowed it, hadn’t she?

Agreed to obey at first, yes, but when the commands came, did she not enjoy them? So few had come as outright demands.

Stand up. Come here.

There had been those, true. But the greater portion had come as requests. Suggestions insinuated hot and deep, sure as the Phlegethôn twisted its inevitable way across the cavern floor.

Will you allow me to touch you? She had.

Do I have something you want? He did.

Shall I free you?

The last one made something in her belly turn over as she neared the foot of the bridge. While Persephone could curse herself for falling into his clever trap with the Elaionapothos—Fates, when had she become so naïve?—she should have raged more at her blind faith in a god she barely knew who wished to restrain her. Though their first unforgettable coupling had gone astonishingly, horribly right, there was no way she could have foreseen such an outcome. The encounter might have been much, much worse, and there would have been nothing she could have done about it.

And yet there was something in it. Something in him.

Was it that voice? That dark purr that rasped at the hidden core of her being? Was it the abyss in his eyes that promised to whisper back only truths, no matter how awful?

Whatever the truth, he’d promised not to hurt her. And Persephone believed. In his own realm, where Hades held the entire advantage in power, what need would he have to lie?

Not until you ask me to.

Even with the Phlegethôn’s heat shimmering the air, Persephone shivered. He had sounded so confident in her eventual arrival at such a point, but she couldn’t imagine what the intervening journey might look like. Yet each new advance he made had found her willing, begging.

What would she beg for next?

The bridge loomed ahead, a wonder in pale stone, larger in every dimension than it had appeared from the other side of the cavern. Its arching deck traversed a far greater distance than the width of the river alone. Persephone could see from the violent and mutable nature of boiling rock why it would be necessary to place the bridge’s uprights as far out of the path of potential destruction as possible.

The arc of the crossing rose with subtle grace from the surrounding cavern landscape, its grade easy for the passage of a cart or chariot. Persephone’s curiosity, however, had taken her to the base of the nearest upright, around which a staircase spiraled for travelers on foot.

Travelers. Pff. Who would those be? The mortal dead? The unsettling Enodia?

Yet as far as she could see in any direction, there was no one. An hour’s lonely trek from the palace had her humbled. With the Underworld negating her ability to will herself over the distance, and the lack of other beings busying the space around her, there had been no choice but to dwell within herself as she walked.

Whether she could accept what she found there was another story altogether.

The curving stair before her fanned out around the column of the upright, not so much hewn as grown from the surrounding structure. Complicated sprays of milky crystal glittered at every crease in the stone, the spikes exceeding the length of her limbs or, here and there, her entire body. Their beauty bristled with chaos, but beneath that, the goddess felt art. Lit from below with the ruddy light of the river, the tower dazzled as surely as did the surface of Poseidon’s seas or the snow-covered slopes of Zeus’s mount.

Persephone had never met a stair she didn’t want to climb, and this far-flung wonder was no different. It only took one sandal on the bottom step.

She was rising, circling the upright. Crystal points glinted along her path like so many lovely, dangerous teeth. The only sounds in this remote part of the cavern were the crackling grind of the Phlegethôn and the hardened leather under her feet saluting every step.

Up and up she went, the ascent continuing for what felt like hours, though the light from the paráthyra told her it could have been no such length of time. Persephone began to worry she’d made a horrible mistake when her steps brought her the last bend around the upright to lead out onto the bridge itself.

Flaming creation, it’s about time.

She turned to survey the way she’d come and marveled.

The cavern domed roughly away in every direction, concealed in shadow except for a few, scattered lights. The spare patchwork of mortal lakes overhead, the minimal illumination Hades kept near the entrances and walkways of the now distant palace, and of course, the Phlegethôn.

The River of Fire stretched into a narrower band under the terrible height of the bridge. Though the distance made the churning breadth seem less, the heat, rising past where she stood, was more.

Her fingertips traced along the stone of the railing as she moved out toward the highest part of the arch. Far above, a small paráthyro let in enough wavering daylight to show her the curving roadway. Without it, the bridge’s path would have been no more than a black void bisecting the bright line of the river.

The cavern, its reach vast and limits questionable, swallowed the sound of her footsteps on the high span of stone. When she made it to the center of the structure, Persephone settled against the railing and let go of her focus.

It was a weight lifted to simply steep in the enormity of it. The rising heat loosening her limbs, the glowing brand of the river on the shadows of the cavern floor. The brush of red linen over her hips. Stone under her palms that felt like a temple’s steps warmed under the sun.

A glance down at her hands proved the only disruption. There was Polyxene’s ring, a dim glow, reminding her of choices unmade.

The Lord of the Dead, in all his seductive Underworld glory, would be an unreachable memory once her mother found and dragged her home. Entertaining ideas of ‘perhaps’ alongside the ruler of the Unseen Realm would be a foolish mistake. When her days returned to their prior normalcy, as was inevitable, the ring offered a chance of escape.

But is this not also an escape?

It was, and one such as she couldn’t have imagined, but, damn the Fates, it wouldn’t last. Those eyes, that voice, the delicious trill of fear when he made those demands. He wanted her to walk blind toward every outcome, the potential for disaster looming, but each time had ended with her calling out for—

“The River of Fire suits you.”

Hades.

She peeled her heart from the roof of her mouth as the strolling god approached. Whether he’d willed himself atop the bridge or moved with such care the daze of her thoughts had concealed the sound of his steps, it took her a handful of deep breaths to calm the speed of her pulse.

“How so?” Her best efforts not to appear startled were laughable as Hades came to her side at the railing.

“It is a live thing in a dead realm,” he said, hands folded behind his back. “It inspires a healthy fear.”

Persephone snorted. “No one down here is afraid of me.”

“Aren’t they?” The river lit him red and orange along his left side. Bottomless eyes glinted.

What does he mean by that?

“How did you find me here?” she said. “Did you send someone to track me through the shadows?”

“Why?” The corner of his mouth twitched, the beginnings of a smile. “Were you trying to run?”

“No.” An indignant hand came to her hip and her eyes raked him from brow to waist. A further curve of his lips showed what he thought of her attempts at derision.

“I can smell you.”

“What?”

“What else in the Underworld smells of green outside my orchards? You are simple enough to find.”

“But … this far?”

He shrugged. “It is not for nothing I remain Lord of this realm.”

Persephone frowned.

“You scowl, Daughter of Olympos,” he said, placing his own palms on the rail, eyes cast out over the river. “When we parted last, I had the impression we’d done much to remedy your distaste for my realm. Or at the least my presence in it.”

The corners of his eyes wrinkled in a mirth that didn’t reach his lips. Was he teasing her?

“I still do not understand.”

“Understand what?” His shoulders rotated in her direction just enough.

“Anything. The reasons I’m here. This realm. You.” He’d made his agreement with Aphrodite plain enough, but the way Hades continued to interact with her was hardly in line with the behavior of someone knuckling under to a blackmail demand.

Now he did smile. Teeth flashed in the ruddy light, tightening her stomach. Predator.

“Well we can’t have that.” He faced her more fully, leaning one elbow on the stone. “Go on, Persephone. Ask your questions. Ask something personal. Something rude.”

The curling innuendo licked straight between her thighs and she had to shore herself against collapse. Fates, he’ll have me on my knees, and I’ll have asked for it.

Something rude. Her eyes darted to the nearest possibilities. The river. The bridge. Hades.

“Your arms,” she blurted with a curt nod. “None of the other gods have those markings. Were you born of Kronos that way?”

He tilted a brow and smirked. “Original,” he said, “but maybe not as rude as I was expecting.” He stood straight again. “Do you see this river, Green One?”

“I see it.” Her arms folded over her chest of their own accord. Why did he irritate her so?

Hades slid to her side and then halfway behind her back, the dark forearms in question caging her at the railing on either side.

Because he was toying, of course. That’s what kept her on edge. A cat playing with a mouse before the kill. It wasn’t in his nature to find mercy and simply give her what she wanted.

And what is it you want, Persephone?

It was too humiliating to admit, but why?

“There are rivers in my realm,” he said just above her ear now. “Three rivers and two lakes. The Akherôn is the River of Woe, the first from which the mortal dead drink. With a taste, they grieve for all whom they left on the living plane.”

His voice came in a soothing hum at her back. Tension began to seep from her shoulders. The Lord of the Dead continued.

“The Kôkytos is Lamentation, and by its bitter waters, they know every misdeed of the life they left behind. It causes them to reflect and admit.”

The pad of his thumb brushed over the knuckles of her right hand and she couldn’t help but draw a breath.

Toying with you.

“I don’t understand what this has to do with the color of your skin,” she said, sounding less formidable than she would have liked.

Lips pressed to her temple and the god shifted behind her. “Patience, little flower. Do I not keep my word?”

Persephone swallowed. The railing pressed below her ribs.

“Now the Lethe is Oblivion,” he went on. “If the dead wish to live anew, they must drink of it to forget.”

“Forget what?”

“Their former lives. How would it do for a mortal babe to awaken squalling in her mother’s arms, remembering everything that had come before?”

“I see.” The breathy acknowledgment was all she could give with the sensation of nails now grazing along her wrist. “And what of the Styx? And this one?”

“You do know some of them by reputation, don’t you?” His warm approval made her both swell and grimace at the same time. Why should she care what he thought of her? The void of the cavern stared back at the lesson in progress, ancient and observing.

“The Styx is my border. Kharon ferries those mortal dead who pay the toll across, and Kerberos prevents them from acting on any wild notions of returning to the living plane before their time.”

“But there are other ways in and out,” she said. “Aren’t there.”

“For immortals, yes.” His lack of elaboration glared, conspicuous.

“And the last?”

“The Phlegethôn,” he said, “is another boundary, of sorts. Have you noticed the silence in this part of the cavern?”

She nodded, mesmerized by the boiling flow of earth far beneath them, the liquid cadence of his words in her ear.

“All but a very few of the mortal dead avoid this river,” he said, his tone dropping lower, still. “It is the Unmaking.”

Something about this made her shiver, despite the heat.

“Should a mortal choose never to be born again, they may cross its fires and know the truest of ends. Their soul will cease to be.”

“That sounds terrible,” she whispered.

“For some, perhaps. For others, it is a release. They must choose, but I prevent them from choosing rashly. It is rare.”

Persephone stood with this in the circle of his arms for a time. Her own release, embodied in mortal jewels, sat heavy on her finger.

“Your hands,” she said, grasping the connection.

“Yes.” Those hands slid up over her forearms before returning to flank hers at the rail. “When I accepted rulership of this realm, I would have stood right alongside the Children of Olympos, at least in appearance.

“But I am the only being who may immerse himself in the Underworld rivers and lakes unaffected. Someone must control them, and it must be me, though after age upon age, even my flesh cannot withstand their ravages entirely.”

“But their purposes serve mortals. Why should you need to …” She gestured at the winding line of destruction oozing between the uprights of the bridge.

“Mortals are not always known for making wise choices.” Black humor tinted his words. “I’ve had to fish countless poor fools out of harm’s way over the æons. Attempting to drink from or cross the wrong waters at the wrong times. Almost always under the control of some wild emotion.”

“But … you? Personally?”

“The care of the mortal dead is my task. I will not avoid it for my own comforts. Even if it does mean the Olympians shrink in horror at the sight of me.” His final assessment curled in the shape of a smile.

Just above audible, Persephone replied: “I’m not shrinking.”

“Not yet.”

He pressed her against the rail with the length of his body and her jaw went tight. Fingers trailed along the back of her hand, stopping when they came to metal.

“This is an unusual jewel,” he said, thumbing Polyxene’s ring. “It hums with life.”

Fates! Could he ask about anything else?

“It was a gift.” There. Vague enough.

“From your mother?”

She cleared her throat, nerves twisting. Somehow, she knew he would spot a lie. “From a mortal.”

“A mortal came by a gem like this? Do you remember a long-lost lover, Persephone?” She could feel the taunt rubbing her raw, exposing needs unsated.

I am not going to tell him about my promise to Polyxene.

“Did you seek me out on this bridge just to speak of my jewels?” she said, lashing irritation like a whip.

He chuckled behind her, the sound all shadows and coiling smoke. “No, I did not.”

Fingertips came to the far side of her jaw. A glint of light in black eyes. That mouth on hers. Again.

Finally.

Stolen kisses on the mortal plane had been one thing. Here, however, crushed between Hades and solid stone, mere architecture holding her back from oblivion, Persephone knew kisses of another kind. A kind she could only have from the Lord of the Dead, where he took and she gave, where he pushed and she lay back, unprotesting but afraid.

It was the fear. With his tongue searing against hers, the fingers of his right hand circling her throat, the goddess knew fear to be that nagging, undiscoverable lack that had kept her unfulfilled in the arms of men. The one dark something she didn’t want to confess, even to herself.

Fear was the reason she could feel her thighs slide, wet beneath her chiton. When he let her breathe at last, grip still firm above her collarbones, his forearm crossing over her breast, Persephone could do no better than stare.

An ebbing song of heartbeats had to pass before she could speak. Hades waited, a naked hunger painting the lines of his face where dour levity had gone before. Breathlessness did nothing for her pride, yet this was not the first time he’d cornered her against a precipitous drop, was it?

“You seem to enjoy this,” she said.

“Mm? Enjoy what?” Fingers skimmed her ribs, moving toward her waist.

“Pinning me at the precipice.”

A hand was on her hip, pulling her against him. “I do,” he said. “Though I admit it’s a rather unscrupulous way of getting what I want.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

Both hands held her fast.

“Fear.”

The railing disintegrated. Livid red stone churned far below, and Persephone’s heels scrabbled on the edge of the bridge.

“Hades!”

Her hands flew to clutch his restraining arm, the wool of his chiton at his thigh.

“Yes?” The god was as calm as a windless sea while every frantic muscle in her body squeezed back against his body like water seeking the lowest point.

“Move back.” Oh, how she hated the tremble in her voice. Hades only tightened his hold, and a sound of amusement came near her ear.

“Have we reached your limit, Green One?”

The river crackled. Hungry. Eternal. Pockets of stone lifted enough to cool into islands only for the patient devastation of the current to fold them back again into the earth’s molten womb.

She wanted his touch. Wanted him, but fantasy was harmless, wasn’t it? Reality yawned all around her now, its maw dire with consequence. No sooner had she owned her inexplicable appetite for those feelings of fear, than he’d been confessing aloud his desire to provoke them. Could he know? Could he feel it in her limbs?

Had they come one step too far?

“Please.” Her mouth was the only part of her to move. Her two feet arched on tiptoe at the glittering edge of stone. Where her thighs met, a now-familiar hum began to well.

His grip was iron, but so much of her remained exposed, a dare to the Fates. At her back, another danger: male arousal twitched against her curves.

“Can you feel it?” Hard cock held the promise of more trouble to come. Persephone made a noise somewhere between gasp and whimper. “Your panic,” he said, “excites me.”

Fates, I can’t take it.

“The speed of your pulse, the way you cling.”

That voice could charm a snake, and the tension in her limbs coiled tight. Should she melt to his words for one moment … Could anyone but Hades survive the Phlegethôn?

“I will cling to you without the danger, my Lord.” She dared to wriggle backward, urgent and shameless in her begging. “Please.”

“But never with such beautiful desperation.” Fingers hooked over her hip, cradling bone and sending need coursing between her thighs. “Tell me.” It was a command. “Tell me why you’re afraid.”

She wanted to obey. To please him. That was another new wrinkle. Her impulse to balk, just for the sake of pride, had all but disappeared. Those dark murmurs of approval made her reel with want, with achievement, but the drop …

“I’ll fall,” she said, allowing him his prize. “The river …”

A thumb brushed her throat. Heat rose to lick her toes, her ankles.

“Persephone.”

How could he make her name into a velvet caress, every single time? How could it stroke her like a tongue, in secret places, and bind her as sure as any tether?

“Have I taken you yet where you did not wish to go?”

The truth of it laid her open, swept her clean. “No.”

“I would never let you fall,” he said. “Never.” The silence of the cavern built around them. Even the surreal sounds of the river faded back to a purr. “Do you trust me?”

The question weighed more than even his first: ‘Will you obey?’ But that didn’t change her answer.

She nodded.

“Tell me.” Squeezing hands insisted, hinting at the fire of his own needs. Her breast rose and fell beneath the god’s protecting arm. She closed her eyes.

“I trust you, Hades.”

“Then let go.”

Against all reason, Persephone did. Clutching fingers released his arm, the pointless hold on his chiton. He nuzzled her temple with his jaw. “Go on.”

It took her several fortifying breaths before she could give him what he wanted. With each lungful, Persephone banished tension. With each heartbeat, she promised herself this would not be a mistake.

She let her sandal give up the edge. Then the other.

The goddess trusted the Lord of the Dead to hold her, feet dangling over the River of Fire.

Hades hissed with his own restrained approval. “Perfection,” he said. “Your confidence should not go without reward.”

The hand at her hip slipped to the open side of her chiton. Discovered flesh. Descended.

“My Lord.”

He found her, wet, ready to leap out of her skin. His other supporting arm firmed its grip, and Hades went about complicating her world.

Those fingers knew her weaknesses. Their prior encounters had taught him where and how to purchase response. Only now, as he explored and teased, her urges to squirm and buck came with a heart-stopping price.

She had to remain limp as the circling touch found and ignited every nerve. She had to hang, all outward calm, as he caught up that sensitive pearl and worried it between his fingers, lest all the writhing she wanted to do somehow made him lose his grip.

The angle was shallow, but he managed to stretch her entrance with just the tips of two fingers. The meat of his palm ground out a breath-hitching friction over that most swollen, aching part of her sex.

Linen abraded her nipples where his clasping arm pulled it tight over her breast. His mouth played havoc on the soft parts of her ear, her neck. She could feel the slick of her own lust painting her thighs, his busy hand. The threat of the fall, much like the binding of the Elaionapothos, had her lost for how to hold back the flood. Sensation came washing in, helpless sounds came pouring out.

Was he saying something? Fates, her senses were everywhere.

“There is more to it,” he said, jerking the cup of his hand against her mound, “isn’t there?” Persephone let out a whine that might have been an agreement. She couldn’t think. “Everything sharper,” he went on. “Every scent you inhale, every taste on your tongue. More.”

His fingers retreated, but only enough to move their devotion to that bead that made her see stars.

“Oh please!”

Bliss wrapping her up, a fiery end threatening from below: it was more. More than she could take in at once.

“Do you understand it, my love?” Circling fingertips increased their pace.

“Terror heightens the senses.” That growl had her dripping.

Oh yes, it does.

“Restraint heightens the senses.” He shored up his grip, thumb and forefinger clamping down on her throat to a point no mortal would have been able to tolerate.

Sweet Creation, yes!

“Surrender heightens the senses.”

Blue and purple lights began to flare at the edge of her vision. Persephone dripped from his arms, a stilled pendulum over eternity, allowing the Lord of the Dead to bring her to perfect torment over the promise of a fateful drop.

The keening in her ears was her own.

“Surrender.”

Every muscle under her ribs condensed. It was so close. So close. His strokes reached an impossible plateau.

“Hades!”

“Trust me. Surrender.”

Persephone abandoned her limits.

For the first thudding heartbeat, she fell in black silence. Then her senses caught up to her and her own feral noises flooded in to fill the space. Her body yielded up surging totality around Hades’s tireless hand.

She called his name and swore and gave up trying to be still because she knew he would hold her safe.

An ankle hooked back around his calf and she writhed on his fingers, tilting her head, demanding his mouth, which he gave.

Something faraway told her he was backing onto the bridge, but Persephone was still shuddering, seizing under his touch. She felt his body bend, felt her own feet touching stone, her knees folding as the last violence of her orgasm shook her.

Black eyes met hers, upside down, while slowing fingers smeared echoes of delirious heat. Her head lay on his kneeling thigh and male arousal throbbed under wool, just out of sight.

He saw to your pleasure, and none for himself.

She raised a limp hand, brushing knuckles over his length. “Hades …” Her voice came at a rasp.

“Another time.” He lifted her fingers away; brought them to his mouth in a string of soft, incongruous kisses.

She looked up at him, spent. Altered. The first dozen thoughts were too complicated to condense with her tongue. The thirteenth was absurd.

“Will we have to walk all the way back?”

His laugh was a drug.

“No love,” he said. “We will not.”

✧

Hades attempted to retain at least some respectable amount of focus on his duties, but this was proving no small feat with the goddess walking at his side.

His regular visit to Menoites and his herd of glossy black oxen was behind them, the rolling Underworld fields dwindling in the light of the paráthyra at their backs. The path through the cavern ahead was smooth from millennia of use, and he kept to it now instead of rushing to his next destination by means of the æther. It gave him an excuse to linger in the presence of Persephone without any irritating distractions.

The day after their encounter on the bridge, she’d expressed an interest in accompanying him on his rounds rather than meandering about his realm on her own.

And how could he refuse?

The collected elegance she wore like a mantle now as they strolled belied nothing of the raw abandon he’d witnessed over the River of Fire. She was a fine match for the unvarying peace of the Underworld landscape surrounding them today, but there, on the bridge …

Suspended over the Phlegethôn, she’d freed herself to the savagery of trust. The Daughter of Olympos—who had no business being in his realm, truth be told—had allowed him that exquisite gift of surrender. She had blossomed in his arms, feral and dangerous in her acceptance.

Dangerous to him, was the problem.

This entire affair should have been a transaction. Instead, the Goddess of Growing Things was a Fates-damned drug. He wanted her and nothing but her, every waking moment. For the love of creation, he had responsibilities to attend!

“Hades.”

“Mm?”

Attention here and now, immortal.

“I said, this is not something I’m accustomed to seeing in the upper realms.”

“What’s that?”

Her half smile had him wanting to do terrible things.

“When my mother still permitted my presence on Olympos, I can hardly recall Zeus making such a diligent circuit of his domain.”

Hades let out an uncharacteristic snort. “Well. The Lord of the Skies has a far larger population of immortals in his third of the rulership. No need to oversee everything himself, I suppose.” He caught her quizzical eye and added, with careful enunciation: “A far simpler matter to be fruitful when one is well-liked.”

And since when do you lapse into self-pity, Polydegmon?

“I see.” The goddess returned her eyes to their path and, for once, Hades felt the tang of regret on the back of his tongue for airing such bitterness aloud. He didn’t care for how his chest felt when her smile disappeared.

“Regardless,” he said, trying to salvage her good humor, “it behooves a ruler to make his own observ—”

The air roiled hot in their path and he and Persephone balked.

Twin red orbs swelled to hovering life and Hekate poured out of the æther.

“Hades, mmy lord.” Her three voices slipped and slid.

“Enodia.”

At his side, Persephone looked less ashen than their last encounter with the Goddess of the Crossroads, but Hades could see white knuckles where her hands were clasped.

“Kharon iss in nneed of you,” the tri-form goddess said. “It iss mosst urgent.”

“Well what does he wa—”

Hekate and her torches were already gone.

Hades closed his eyes and swore to himself. He opened them to find Persephone waiting, the tilt of her brows expectant. His sigh was audible. Intimate conversation would have to wait.

His bident cut through the air as he brought it to form with the long familiar gesture. He held out his other hand to Persephone.

“We will not walk this time.”

✧

The æther of the Underworld was no better or worse to pass through than that of the upper realms, but Persephone tasted something … other in it as Hades pulled them through the connective essence of the plane. Something earthy perhaps; more condensed.

She raised no objections at all to the necessity of clinging to his side as they went, but the grim line of his mouth at Enodia’s sudden departure had her tense for whatever their destination would bring.

As they regained their physical forms, the Lord of the Dead released her to stand on a beach.

A beach?

A shore, to be more accurate. Black sand stretched away in either direction along a calm, but steadily flowing river. Low-hanging mist obscured the opposite bank, but the water stretched for quite a breadth before it disappeared into the cloud. None of the watery paráthyra appeared in this place, but Hades’s favored sourceless light kept the land around the riverbank visible like the grey time before dawn in the realms above.

Upstream from where they stood, a stone pier pointed out into the water like a bony finger, lanterns made from the thinnest alabaster glowing at intervals down its length. Docked at the end was a boat of such ancient and somber purpose its mere presence cooled Persephone to her immortal bones.

The ferryman’s boat.

This was the Styx.

“Kharon.”

The first word out of Hades against the near silent shushing of the river made her start. The gnarled immortal was already making his way across the sand to where they stood, his staff marking out a trail of holes as he went.

“My lord,” Kharon said as they drew near, “we have a hero.” The ferryman mouthed the word with the same tone one might discuss vermin.

The roll of Hades’s eyes drifted sideways into irritation. “You couldn’t have sent the Guardian to handle this? Or could he not spare a moment from his eternal complaining?”

“That is the very trouble, my lord.” Kharon looked as though he wanted to wring his weathered hands, and Persephone suspected any sort of trepidation like this in front of his ruler was rare. “There was not merely the one.”

“Oh?” Hades took a step forward, and she saw his eyes take a darting survey of the area.

“There were three more, and Kerberos gave chase.” A knobby hand gestured down the shore in the direction of the pier. “I believe they were to serve as a distraction. The other has escaped to the inner realm.”

“Fools.” The god spat the word with a heat that threatened to fuse the sand at their feet into glass. “They waste everyone’s time, including their own.” He was already discarding his chlamys.

“I don’t understand,” said Persephone.

“Oh, every now and again some idiot mortal believes he can sneak into my realm and spirit his deceased loved one back to the planes of the living.” The Lord of the Dead drew his bident out to its full, intimidating length.

“I have docked the ferry until the matter is resolved, my lord. No one in or out while the hunt is on.” Kharon inclined his head and Hades grunted approval.

“I will return with our ‘guest’ once I track him down.”

His decisive momentum had Persephone stammering, lost for what to do on the banks of the Styx.

“My—my lord,” she said, stepping in his direction with a hand lifting to slow his departure, “will you go alone? May I—may I not continue to accompany—”

“You will not be able to match my pace, Green One.” He strode to her side, hauling her to him with an arm around her waist. The breath flew out of her as he crushed them together with no little force. “You are not of this realm. Your abilities are suppressed, and you would need them to keep up. I will need you to wait here with Kharon.”

And how long would that be?

The disappointment must have shown on her face, because the entire set of his pale features melted from brusque into something else. Those black eyes went deep, devouring.

Ravenous.

“Would you like to see me hunt, little flower?”

That voice of his had dropped to a stony grind and his arm clutched her with a fierce possession. The offer, like so many before it, held some dark potential that had her humming with want. Her lips had parted as she looked up at him. She gave a tiny nod, and his smile was a thing of deadly promise.

“Very well.”

He held her eyes with a knee-weakening intensity but, on her periphery, she saw him press the pad of his thumb down onto one of the tines of his bident. When he brought it between them, a bead of golden ichor swelled from charcoal flesh where he’d pierced the skin. Without pause, he drew the thumb along her lower lip, and then descended upon her with a savage kiss.

The honeyed tang of immortal blood filled her mouth as Hades’s tongue painted her confusion with the purpling colors of need.

Persephone reeled as he pulled away, but the god had already whirled to face the ferryman. The Lord of the Dead wielded his bident with a flourish and it tore the æther once more.

“See that Enodia finds Hypnos and has him here by the time I return,” he said.

Kharon gave another nod. “My lord.”

When Hades disappeared into the space between, Persephone’s vision swam. She crashed to her knees in the damp, black sand, and fought the dizziness and whirling light.

Again, she tasted blood and her world went black.

Then … she felt everything.

✧

There was no time to regret allowing her to experience him in this state. Hades had a mere heartbeat before the majority of his rational thought left him. It was just long enough to marvel at the beginnings of his arousal when she’d admitted to wanting to watch.

When the æther bore him forth some distance from the Styx, The Lord of the Dead was one with his realm.

He did not think, nor reason, so much as he felt and knew the Underworld around him. He had shed the need to exist in such complex states.

Dim landscapes flashed and leapt by on all sides. The chaos of his search defied any sort of method or plan. Only the burgeoning throb demanding he seek—find!—mortal life where there should be none filled his base senses to their limits.

The only difference today was a delicate new presence, hovering, it felt, just at the perimeter of his awareness. It clung, terrified but determined as he streaked along, and some essential part of him knew the goddess shared in the sensations. Pure and raw, the Unseen Realm distilled; she would feel it all.

There.

Approaching the Lethe. Mortal blood pulsing. Breathing lungs that didn’t belong.

Hades could feel the impermanence of a living man.

He surged forward. Descended.

The man had just enough time to scream.

✧

Persephone sat back on the heels of her palms in the sand, panting when Hades returned.

He stepped into being again, the reality of the Underworld rippling around him in a way that made her queasy, even after she regained complete control of her senses.

This time he bore a mortal before him, dark hand fisted in the back of the man’s filthy chiton, scruffing him like a cat. He propelled the man forward and the trespasser stumbled, falling to hands and knees on the shore of the Styx.

She blinked, trying to expand her awareness again after …

After what? What—where had he taken her?

You said you wanted to watch. Well?

The banks of the river were more crowded than when her mind had left with their lord.

Enodiachurned her own dark space nearby, hands—how many?—folded at her waist, twin orbs bobbing above her shoulders with reddish light.

Kharon leaned on his staff looking as bored as an immortal could, weathered fingers drumming through the wait.

The mortal man cowered and Hades stood, arms folded over his chest, his disapproval plain.

Grey mist swirled further down the shore, and the head of a beast appeared. Then another. And another.

Kerberos.

So this was the infamous Guardian.

Each of the towering dog’s three heads held a terrified man in its mouth. When the beast closed the distance to the gathering of immortals, he dumped his three charges without ceremony to the sand.

“The rest, Polydegmon.”

Persephone swallowed at the new sensation of hearing the Guardian’s words in her head. The dog sat on his great haunches like a sentinel, tail lashing and red eyes judging, she suspected, everyone in his sight.

The mortals ran to each other to huddle for comfort, tripping and flailing along the way. They had a mess of bruises and scrapes to share among them, and Persephone didn’t envy the ride between the Guardian’s jaws one bit.

“Where is Hypnos?” Hades said. His black eyes went to Hekate. “I thought I told you to—”

The æther wavered in a dizzying way at Enodia’s side. Another god stepped forth, sweeping a fluid gesture with a hand as he came.

“Hello, naughty children.”

The God of Sleep sauntered toward them, smiling in a way that said he made his own rules. He looked almost as out of place as she did in the Underworld, with tanned skin and a chiton floating about him in a subdued purple-grey. Long silver hair fell in a mane around his shoulders and pale eyes glinted with some unspoken jest.

“They’re to remember nothing,” said Hades.

The men stood in a rough line, facing the god with fear-wide eyes. Hypnos strolled along behind them, brushing idle fingertips over one set of shoulders after another.

“Wicked little boys,” he said as though the words tasted like wine in his mouth. “The Underworld is no place for you. At least not yet.”

As he passed, each mortal’s eyes rolled back at his touch, their bodies slumping to the sand as their knees gave way.

“Not that one.” Hades indicated the man he’d brought himself.

Hypnos stepped around the last one and his eyes lit on Persephone instead. “And I see the rumors are true.” Her face flamed from the appreciative once-over as the god circled her before coming to stand aside again with a languid hand on a hip. “You may have waited around for an age or two, Clymenus, but I can certainly see why.”

“Enough.” The Lord of the Dead uncrossed his arms. Hypnos cut her a lascivious wink, but stayed silent. Soft snores came from at least one of the mortal men now deep in the grip of sleep on the beach.

“Tell us the story, hero, but do not waste our time.”

The trembling man, though fit and likely in the prime of his limited life, blanched at the sight of so many immortals facing him down in a realm where he didn’t belong.

I’m surprised he hasn’t voided his bowels already, right here on the shores of the Styx.

A rumbling noise welled in the Guardian’s chest.

“You delay the ferry, human. Speak.”

The man let out an abrupt, high-pitched noise at Kerberos’s words in his head, but—possibly to avoid anything more terrifying still—began to sputter out his tale.

Again, Hades met her with the unexpected.

After the violent urgency she’d experienced sharing a mind during his hunt, it seemed only natural now for him to deliver some swift and brutal justice to an interloper in his realm. The muscles in her limbs were tense, ready to have her turn away the moment the horrific punishment came.

But, no. He stood there, cool and impassive, as the man spun words of woe about a sister swallowed up by death on the eve of her betrothal. There had been an accident. A fall. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

“And so you thought to make your way into my domain and retrieve her?” The god’s features remained neutral.

“My-my lord …” The man tripped over his own words, at a loss.

“Hekate.”

The tri-form goddess stepped forward at her lord’s command. There was no point in Hades avoiding her true name, Persephone supposed, if she already stood in their midst.

“Fetch this one’s sister.” He laid each word down, quiet and distinct, the bonds of his gaze never leaving the mortal quailing in their grip.

Enodiaand her torches vanished. They all waited on the beach in uncomfortable silence, the gentle waves of the Styx lapping the shore the only sound.

Well. Almost all of them.

Hypnos leaned in and spoke to her under his breath. “Has he spoken to you of making the vows?”

She blinked at him, mouth gaping like a fish. “Wh-what?” Persephone cleared her throat as quietly as she could, but Hades appeared to be paying little mind. “I do not believe vows are a part of his plans.”

And what was that twinge in her chest when she admitted as much?

The god hummed discreet amusement. “I wouldn’t go saying that in front of Enodia.”

“She called me his Consort,” Persephone said, more to herself as she tried to take the measure of things, than to the smirking immortal at her side.

“Our lord is impossible to please,” he said, “and yet here you stand. I don’t believe he’s made a blood union with anyone ever.”

The blood union. Yes. The savagery she’d experienced as he tore through the Underworld. She had known such a thing was possible, but until today, none of her kind had trusted her enough to share in it. And if she were to believe the God of Sleep, Hades might have offered her another of his firsts.

Feeling every sensation of his, knowing his every thought … His words on the bridge over the River of Fire had shown her a truth: fear did excite her. But trust? There was something altogether more potent.

The æther parted in a smoky dance, and Enodia was with them again. This time a young mortal woman walked in her stead, ever so slightly insubstantial in the way of human shades.

“Iokaste!” the man cried, and ran to embrace his sister.

“Alexios?” Her wonder didn’t cease at the clasp of her brother’s arms. “You are here? And not … not …?”

Persephone could see the man fighting the urge to recoil. He mustered the control to draw away at a measured rate, but contact between souls on opposite sides of the cycle of life could not have been anything the poor mortal was ready to experience.

“No,” Hades said, “your brother has not yet breathed his last. He imagined he would enter this realm and ‘save’ you from the horrors of death.”

“Oh, Alexi …” A familial sympathy melted the woman’s graceful features.

“Tell him,” said Hades. “He does not understand.”

Iokaste brought a hand to her brother’s shoulder and drew him near. She began speaking in a low hush meant for his ears alone.

The knot between his brows loosened. The tension went out of his stance. His eyes shone wet and within moments he was dropping to his knees. His sister went with him, arms around his shoulders, and the mortal man shook with grief. Iokaste remained serene and patient.

When their arms untangled at last, Alexios red and sniffling, the Lord of the Dead spoke again.

“Do you see now?”

The man gave a limp nod, climbing to his feet. His sister stood at his side.

“What do you see?” Hades said.

“I see”—he swallowed, wiping at his eyes with the back of a hand—“my sister dwells in the house apportioned to her by the Fates. She is at peace.”

“And so must you be,” said Iokaste, smoothing fingertips down his arm.

He continued his nodding. It would be a weary acceptance, but the misdirected fire for ‘justice’ had burnt out.

“You will return to your lives,” Hades pronounced, gesturing with his bident at Alexios and his men. “You will forget the means by which you entered my domain. You will mourn your kin and be at peace.” He took a step forward, looming tall and fearsome.

“And you will never attempt such a misguided feat again. My mercy has limits, and I assure you, mortal, you do not wish to see them. Do you understand?”

The man, who had shrunk down to a knee again during the god’s admonition, nodded his head. “My Lord Hades, I do.”

“Hypnos?”

A grey and purple swirl flourished away from Persephone’s side.

Iokaste stepped near her brother again and ran ephemeral fingers through his hair. The siblings smiled at one another just before the God of Sleep had the man wilting to the sand, his memories dissipating like a cloud.

Hades nodded his approval at this and began to issue commands.

“Hekate, if you would see these mortals returned to their proper plane.

“Indeed, Polydegmon.” The glow from Enodia’s torches expanded, bigger and brighter to encompass the unconscious men. When the red lights winked out, the goddess and her charges were gone.

“Kharon, we will delay you no longer.”

“My lord.” The ferryman dipped his ancient chin before heading back to his craft.

Kerberos made some low noise Persephone could only feel in her chest, and Hades turned to acknowledge the beast. “Well done, as always, Guardian.” The sound turned to something like appeasement and the massive dog turned and padded off into the mist. She tried not to start at his voice in her head, which came in time with the vanishing of his tail.

“We all serve the Unseen Realm, Mate of my Lord. If you wish to dwell among us, you must choose a way to do so.”

Hades had a tongue for seduction, but Kerberos was blunt as a millstone, and twice as heavy.

“If you require nothing else, Rich One?” Hypnos raised silver brows, waiting for his lord’s dismissal.

“You have done what is needed, Bringer of Dreams. Take your leave as you will.”

“Don’t I always?” White teeth flashed and pale eyes turned to Persephone. “Try not to dismantle him too completely, will you? We’ve grown rather fond of our Lord of the Dead.”

In an eddy of purple linen, the God of Sleep passed into the æther. His knowing grin was the last thing Persephone saw.

The shore was empty save she and Hades, but the god spared them no time for reflection.

“I have business in the Hall of Judgments,” he said. “Do you still wish to accompany me, or have you seen enough for one day?”

It was no question at all, really. She moved to his side, her sandals making prints in the sand. Rather than wait for his offered hand, as had been their pattern for the day thus far, Persephone slipped her arms around his waist and tilted her head back to meet his eyes.

“I will come.”

The hand not holding his bident slipped up along her neck and into her hair. When he bent to sample a kiss, the new normalcy of such a thing rendered her mute. Simple affection from the ruler of the Underworld had become a matter of course. Not that it was any less potent, if the hum between her thighs was any measure.

“Hypnos is wrong, you know.” He brushed the words against her lips. “I’m not impossible to please.”

The æther swallowed them once more.

✧

The Hall of Judgments was no more a hall than Enodia’s ‘torches’ were truly torches. Like an iceberg the size of a small island in deep grey basalt, the top surface leveled to provide an arena for the proceedings, the ‘hall’ hovered far above the River Lethe. What unseen force held it suspended there, Persephone didn’t know.

There were neither stairs nor ramps nor any other physical means of ascending to its plateau, but mortal shades continued to materialize and vanish atop its polished expanse as their summons or business there required. The majority kept to the perimeter of the space, where Persephone had elected to remain. Here, in this place of ultimate truth, they saw her for the immortal she was, and most left her a wide berth.

At one extreme edge of the circular ‘hall’, a trio of granite benches stood raised on a set of three steps. Here sat the judges: Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos. Hades’s sigil all but shone from the center of the floor, inlaid in white onyx, at least four times the height of the deceased mortal man standing at its center.

Behind the judges, the Lord of the Dead stood and observed, only inserting his own opinions on rare occasion.

Persephone had vague memories of Minos from his time as a ruler of mortal men, but that had been ages ago, and she could only recall his reputation as just, which she supposed led to his eventual appointment in the realm of the Dead. He and Rhadamanthys were brothers, both sons of Zeus, though she had long ago given over the idea of attempting to acquaint herself with every single one of her half-siblings. Of Aiakos, she’d heard only rumor, but, as with the others, she suspected Hades knew his mind when he chose them as servants of his realm.

We all serve the Unseen Realm, Mate of my Lord.

Kerberos’s words echoed back to her. They’d sounded so matter-of-fact, yet a central tone in them resonated with a sliver of something growing at the back of her throat.

What was it? Disgust?

For whom?

Hades had designed her fall into the Underworld, certainly, but after the initial indignity at such an arrival wore off, how had she not used the situation to her own advantage? Out from under the purview of anyone who could enforce her mother’s edict, she had amazed even herself with the speed at which she had accepted the god’s offer.

Perhaps she hadn’t foreseen every detail, but the intent behind his demand for obedience had been obvious enough. And while fear had often been a factor, there could be no question of her arousal—her undeniable attraction—at their every interaction.

She was enjoying this. She was allowing it to continue. Allowing him to provide her with new pleasures, literally spreading herself wide for what Hades could give. On the bench in that first bedchamber, atop the Elaionapothos, high above the Phlegethôn where she dangled and shuddered under his touch.

Every time she had wallowed in new sensation, yet he had attended to his own gratification only once.

And the way he called out your name as it happened …

If he glanced her way now, would he see the color in her cheeks?

Was this who she had allowed herself to become? This passive figure, lying in wait for others to offer up satisfaction? Which of them had been giving thus far, and which had been happy to receive?

She had no right to lament injustices when she hadn’t been behaving in an equitable manner, herself.

From the other side of the hall, Hades caught her eye. One of his half-smiles trifled with the speed of her pulse. A silent thunderclap of truth cleared away all other thought.

If Persephone wanted fulfillment in this existence, she was going to have to be an active participant.

If her affairs on the mortal plain had taught her nothing else, it was that no one partner could ever complete the circle. The Lord of the Dead had come as close as any had ever done, but an element was missing.

Her.

She would not remain passive. She would serve. She would give.

I am not impossible to please.

Images of just how she might do so washed over her in a delicate shudder.

“Goddess?”

Persephone inhaled and her eyes snapped to the left. At the sight of the mortal man who dared an approach, they opened wider.

“Iacob?”

“Yes, Karporphoros.” He averted his eyes and clasped his hands together, but did not seem at all startled to hear her address him by name. “I believe my wife owes you many thanks, as do I.”

The shade of Polyxene’s husband stood as near as he could brave, and Persephone was at a loss for words. Each time she had visited the woman, had they not met in private? How would he recognize her here? The statues and mosaics the Sons of Man created in her image rarely bore her much resemblance, and here in the Underworld, there was no wake of leafy growth following in a trail at her feet to make her identity plain.

She tilted her head. Narrowed her eyes. “Your beloved gave her word not to speak of my visits.”

“She kept it Green One, I swear.” His brow creased in protest, but he kept his gaze on the floor. “I returned to our home early one evening and caught sight through our window.”

“And you chose not to enter your own house?”

“Goddess, I did not wish to risk any favor you might have bestowed on my dear Polyxene. I was certain you appeared in secret for a reason. No. I found reason to pay my brother a visit. It seemed the wiser choice.”

“You never told your wife?”

“She never knew.”

Persephone’s shoulders eased. “There is no need for you to stare at the stones,” she said. “It is not I before whom you should humble yourself in this realm, in any event.” She tilted a quick nod in Hades’s direction.

The shade cast an uncertain glance around before daring to meet her eyes. “Thank you, Goddess,” he said. “May I … that is, might I be able …”

“Speak. You have nothing to fear from me.”

He approached the question with caution, as though its answer might bite. “It has been many years, I think. How … how is she?”

Persephone smiled at this. “She is well, Iacob. I’ve seen her within the last month. There are perhaps more white hairs on her head, but she still laughs. The house you made together does not want. She speaks of you each time we meet.”

The man’s eyes shone, and he sniffed. Were shades able to weep? “That is … to hear that makes me full.”

The goddess felt a lump of emotion welling in her own throat. “I am glad to hear it.”

Fates!

She made discreet use of her thumb to rotate Polyxene’s ring so the stone faced her palm. For him to see it now …

“Do you … believe you will visit her again?”

“Unless I am prevented.”

But how long will you be in the Underworld? Mortal time whirls like a chariot wheel.

“Karporphoros,” he said, bowing his head, “will you tell her I think of her, as well? That I wait for her here?”

Damn this man, but he was drowning her in sentiment!

“I will tell her,” she said.

“What will you tell?”

The Lord of the Dead appeared at her side, black eyes appraising the mortal shade. Now Iacob did shrink, and did go to one knee.

“My—my lord!”

“I have seen what I need of the hall today,” he said, circling her shoulders with a charcoal arm. “Come.”

“I will tell her, Iacob,” Persephone said again to the wide-eyed kneeling man. “I will.”

Hades pulled them into the æther.

✧

The space they arrived in was rectangular and deep, flooded with that nebulous light he preferred throughout his somber halls. This was another formal venue, like the Hall of Judgments, only enclosed on all sides, as she remembered from Olympos. Here were twisting columns, running parallel to the outer walls, a finished ceiling vaulting high overhead, and massive doors guarding an entrance behind her.

Should I not have been speaking to Iacob?

Ahead was what could only be his throne. Lords of realms had thrones. This one was serious and black, intimidating between two soaring stalagmites glossy with life in a dead land.

Persephone swallowed.

“So,” he said, meandering in the direction of the seat meant for him and him alone, “who was your ‘friend?’ ”

Between them, above a medallion in the shape of his sigil in the stone floor, a misty likeness of Iacob materialized and hovered.

Creation take me, is he jealous?

“A mortal I know. Knew. During his last lifetime.”

Hades turned, lips curling into the beginnings of a smile. “How well did you ‘know’ him, Persephone?”

Her nervous laugh brought her an internal grimace. As if this god had any authority or right to an opinion over her activities on the mortal plane. He’d admitted to such indulgences, himself. “I knew of him through his wife. I was surprised he recognized me, as I was sure I’d never appeared before him in my true form. He claims to have seen me one evening when his wife and I imagined we were alone.”

“More intriguing by the moment.” Hades lowered himself onto the bench of his throne and crossed one dark ankle over the opposite knee. “And why show your true form to this woman of his?”

“She was … I was something of a—a matron of hers, I suppose.” Why did everything sound so foolish when she had to say it in front of him? Probably those black eyes flustering her now, as they followed her every movement.

He let out an amused huff. “Interesting. Why bother? It can only last for so short a time, with their little lives. Come.”

The Lord of the Dead held out a beckoning hand, and she fought the flush in her cheeks when her mind leapt at once to the last two times he’d told her to come.

You’re in an awful lot of trouble, you know that, Persephone.

Iacob’s likeness dissipated into the light of the throne room as the goddess made her way past to join Hades on the dais. When she took his outstretched hand, he gave a subtle tug.

“Sit.”

There was room enough for one, of course, and here she was again, on his lap. No, not again. The bench in that first chamber had left room for her to sit on the stone in front of him. Now, Persephone had to perch on a thigh.

She was able to abandon at least some of her tension, though, as his questions had taken a casual turn, rather than the interrogation she’d been dreading. An arm slipped around her waist, pulling her right side against his chest.

And he expects me to think, this way.

“I suppose,” she said, “if I were a mortal, I would choose to be like this woman. Polyxene.”

“Was it she who gave you the ring?”

Persephone felt fingers come up and brush her hair away from her neck. Knuckles grazed along the top of her spine.

“She is.”

“And what is it that places this Polyxene ahead of so many others? That a goddess would trouble herself to emulate her.”

His leg shifted beneath her and the subtle movement had blood rushing in Persephone’s veins. How did he do it? How did he keep her in this state, without even appearing to try?

Her mouth and body were having two different conversations. The latter grew warm, wet, impatient, while the former answered his mundane questions.

“She does something useful.” Her eyes were on the dip between his collarbones. “Something good. She is helping others, improving their lives.”

She has known love.

“You do not imagine yourself this way already?”

Persephone frowned. Arrogance and seduction were far easier tones to handle coming from the Lord of the Dead than the hint of concern she heard from him now.

“You are useful by your very being.” His thumb brushed her lower lip, muddying her impulses further. “You are an invaluable force in perpetuating the mortal cycles. We both are. I collect life as it collapses, and you push it forth as it renews.”

“But what am I doing with intention for anyone?” she asked, waving him off with a hand. “Nothing. I am without purpose.”

Hades caught up her dismissive fingers, lacing them with his own, a study in light and dark. He brought her knuckles to his lips and pressed them there, black eyes intense when she met them at last.

I will give. I will please him.

“You have at least one purpose in my realm, Persephone.” By their linked hands, he hauled her close; close enough to make her breath hitch and his next words fell in place of a kiss over her open mouth.

“Would you like me to show you?”