The Eighth House: Hades & Persephone by Eris Adderly

VII PAIN

Leaves fell from treesin Athenai.

Fields withered in Kornithos.

At Delphoi and Argos and Pella, fruit rotted on the vine as though it had sat on the ground for weeks.

Demeter’s wrath knew neither bounds nor precedent.

The sons and daughters of Man wailed and pled at her temples, but the goddess had abandoned mercy. For where had been the mercy of Zeus when he’d sentenced their daughter to the advances of the Lord of the Dead?

The well of her abilities ran deep, and Demeter drew from it as she hadn’t since the war, all those many sprawling ages ago.

Granaries writhed with weevils; stores of wine spoiled in hours. As her chariot rode in ruin over mount and vale, the Daughter of Kronos reached down into the marrow of the earth that was hers to nourish, and closed a vengeful grip around the source of its lifeblood.

Plows crumbled to dust. Cattle, goats, and fowl alike knew sickness and demise. Such a blight on the world of men she wrought as hadn’t been seen in ages.

If they have no way to eat, they have no way to live.

And the gods of Olympos needed live mortals to worship them. Altars would lay bare of offerings and songs of praise would be extinguished.

They will beg. Before it is all over, they will beg me. And I will have my price.

✧

Persephone was lost.

Not from any additional overwhelming displays from Hades, but because she had no idea where she was.

Upon awakening, she’d found herself alone. After waiting and waiting, with neither Elaionapothos, nor paired empty chairs, nor darkened fireplace providing any sort of company, she’d decided to leave.

Her first goal had been to seek him out, but that had proven fruitless. She knew how to get to the bridge over the Phlegethôn, but that was some distance from his palace and she didn’t imagine him having any reason to be there. What she didn’t know was how to get almost anywhere else in his realm.

Of course, he had taken his time strolling with her through some of the more interesting parts of his domain, but more often their travels had taken them through the æther. Such means of movement left her with no sense of direction at all, not with her abilities suppressed and him the guiding will behind their journey.

For a time, she’d hovered on the smaller bridge where her unintentional summoning of Enodia had driven her into his arms. She’d stared out into the Great Cavern, her gaze going unfocused over the scattered paráthyra and the meandering red line of the River of Fire.

The Underworld answers to Underworld gods.

This realm had a dark, still sort of beauty to it, but Persephone was not an Underworld goddess. She belonged at the new green edge of Spring under a morning-bright sky, but the words kept singing along in her head, regardless. How had they gotten there?

In her resolve to either find Hades or find anything else of interest within his spare and silent palace, she’d quit the bridge for the tangle of hallways. At each crossing where there had been a choice, she’d turned left in an effort to remember her path back to his rooms, should she give up her pursuit.

Once she did give up her pursuit, however, the return was not so simple. Having found nothing and no one of value after what felt like more than an hour wandering corridors, trying doors, and surveying the sparse contents of otherwise empty rooms, Persephone doubled back only to find her path not matching up to the one she remembered taking in the first place.

Had there been a gallery she’d walked through that faced this side of the cavern? There had been stairs, yes, but so many? And with a landing in the middle?

She rubbed her forehead with a frustrated hand and made another right turn. This hallway was more rough-hewn than the last, and her mouth went into a thin line.

You’re probably getting further away from the heart of the palace with every step.

The only thing keeping her from the true heat of irritation with herself was the knowledge that no matter how turned around she got, the Lord of the Dead would be able to find her. And after the escalation of events over the last few days, she had little doubt he would come looking.

Some dim sense of familiarity began to tickle here at this outcropping of stone, at that pair of alcoves. Ahead, on the wall, there was something …

His sigil angled into view as she approached. Curves and lines spanned the stone in the same dull iron as that bident he wielded with such violent grace. Her fingers rose to the embedded glyph and traced along its edge. The shape brought to mind the sound of his name on her lips. An exhalation at first, a hiss at the end. She sampled it there in the hall.

“Hades.”

“Goddess.”

She gasped and whirled. There he stood, a pace away, the faintest hint of a smile on that mouth of his. Had she summoned him, as she might Hekate, just by saying his name? Impossible.

“How long?” she demanded.

“Moments,” he said, stepping forward. “I do enjoy hearing you speak my name.”

Persephone felt her cheeks go hot, but he was already crowding her against the wall, the iron symbol at her back. How did he continue to bring her, without a word, to that place of quavering heat in an instant?

“With what frequency”—he braced a hand on the stone beside her, black eyes on her mouth—“are you willing to tolerate my attentions?”

The space was all but gone between them, and the strange new calm in his words made her heart speed.

He’s wasting no time on preamble today, is he?

But this was different. There was no command. Only a question.

“Are you … are you asking me if …”

“If I have pushed you too far, and too often.”

Fates, not far enough.

“No,” she said as he leaned down, “and no.”

There was a kiss, and it was slow. Deliberate. Her palms drifted up to his chest. When they parted, more of his smile had returned, but it was calculating. She swallowed.

“I thought perhaps you sought darkness again,” he said, “to return to this place.”

“This place?” He still had her pressed to the stone, but she turned her head to the side glancing at the corridor walls.

“You don’t recognize it?”

Persephone shook her head and mischief flashed in his eyes. The stone at her back chose to be elsewhere.

He had to catch her at the waist to keep her from falling backward into the empty space. As soon as he was sure of her balance, Hades turned her by the shoulders to face a room that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Or, it had been there, closed away by a wall of basalt and the will of a god.

There was the platform and its array of cushions. The granite bench. The rugs, many of which were now conspicuously absent.

He stepped up behind her and circled her waist with a now familiar arm.

“In truth, my Lord, I did not seek this place at all,” she said. “I was quite lost.”

“But now I’ve found you.” The words fell at her ear, shadowed with meaning upon meaning.

“You have.”

Fingers trailed down her right arm and laced together with hers. She let her shoulders settle against his warmth.

“I did not want this,” he said, deceptively conversational. “When Aphrodite demanded I bring you to my realm?” She felt a little shake of his head. “I wanted nothing to do with it. Or you.”

His free hand slid up to cover the front of her throat while they faced the chamber where she’d spent her first three days in the Underworld.

“And then I sat here in this place,” he went on, “in the darkness, as I preferred it. With you. I heard your voice. I felt your fear, but little flower, I felt the first stirrings of your lust. And I knew.” She shifted against his chest, the press of his hips. “I knew,” he said, “I was wrong. That I wanted you very, very much.”

The last he punctuated with a roll of his firming erection at her backside. A comparable buzz of arousal was building between her thighs.

“I could lay you down, Persephone.” His voice had dropped an octave. It had her ready to turn and kneel. To shift his chiton and worship him with her mouth again. But Hades was not finished.

“Right there.” He allowed his smallest finger to make a tighter circle around her neck. “Those soft cushions? I could part your legs.” The second finger joined in the firmer grip. “I will make it as sweet as nectar, if that is what you want.”

The words were genuine but saccharine. Somehow, she couldn’t respond. It didn’t seem right. She shifted her weight, her touch coming to rest on his knuckles, just above her collarbone.

“Or”—his middle finger closed with the other two—“we could go elsewhere.” And finally the first finger, his hold on her throat complete. “If gentle and virtuous isn’t the sort of immortal you’re looking for, my love.”

And there he was. Fresh dew wept down the inside of her thigh. There was the dark god who’d helped her answer so many questions she’d had about herself. She couldn’t help the escape of a low noise of want, and it hummed against the fingers possessing her neck.

“Here?” he asked. “Or in my rooms?”

Her eyes flicked to the cushioned platform. She had awakened there, scared and confused, a lifetime of discovery ago. Memories of uncertainty lay on every surface. It was not the place for today.

“Your rooms.”

“Very well.”

The æther swallowed them whole.

✧

Persephone could feel it. Whatever she’d agreed to with the choice of Hades’s rooms, it was beyond mere physical desire. There was something larger, more consequential at play.

There was also an imbalance.

You have come on his cock, but have you looked him in the eye?

Never at the same time, it was true. Despite the show of extracting a promise of obedience from her, the Lord of the Dead had asked permission, in his own way, to take every new step on their path. But had he surrendered control even once?

Never.

And as much as she wanted every depraved thing he still might have to offer, he didn’t appear to be surrendering it now, either.

“Wider.” He rapped at her bare ankle with his sandaled foot.

Imbalance. Ask him. But not now.

Now she stood, bereft of her chiton, at the center of the open floor, well away from the Elaionapothos. She slid her feet farther apart on the stone. Hades tipped a fraction of a nod.

His steps took him in a slow circle, the tip of an idle nail carving out gooseflesh at her waist as he went. When he stood at her back, both hands rose to her ribcage and then slid up under her arms.

Wool brushed her shoulders as he leaned in with his next instruction.

“Arms up.”

They were such simple commands. Yet they made things inside her tighten. They brought that coveted new tingle of fear. Anything. He might do anything.

Persephone raised her arms. They were parallel to the floor and he moved his palms up, coaxing her elbows higher to show he’d meant her hands to be over her head. He brought her wrists together and held them aloft with circling fingers.

A rumbling sound from above tripped a snare of the familiar. She tilted her head back, curious, and her breath caught.

From the limestone ceiling overhead, a stalactite flowed to life. With that crackling liquid motion that defied all explanation, the stone descended in a queasy parody of a growing thing. Just like the bridge over the River of Fire, the bones of the Underworld came at his call.

You’ve come at his call a time or two, as well.

Hades stretched her arms up to meet the living rock. Higher. Higher. She stood on the balls of her feet.

“Be still for me.” And she was.

Fluid stone coursed around her wrists and trapped them together in place of his hand, hardening again as though it had never moved at all. Persephone flexed her hands. Twisted her arms against the restraint. It was solid like no other.

Imbalance.

He traced his palm over the taut muscles along her spine before stepping around to face her again.

“Villain.”

She meant it as both curse and jest, but it was hard not to sound breathy with her raised arms stretching her lungs.

Hades closed the distance between them and took her jaw between thumb and forefinger. “And?” He raised a challenging brow. “You love it.” The accompanying smile was cruel and everything she needed. It was the last thing she saw before he claimed a rough kiss.

Black eyes bored straight through to the truth of her when they parted from the kiss, and she knew her troubles had only begun. His hand withdrew from the folds of his chiton, coal-dark fingers curled into a fist.

“There is no jewel capable,” he said, “of refining the perfection you are.”

He turned his wrist and let go the trap of his fingers. Glittering on the open palm were three tiny golden bells, each was attached to … something. Hades took one up between his fingers.

“But they may serve to augment”—and here he came, whisper close again—“those states which have brought us to understand one another.”

Her lack of power had her pulse flying. He wasn’t making any sense.

“My Lord, I don’t—oh!”

Her eyes flew to the bite. The smallest of gold clamps latched onto pink flesh, and her left nipple thrilled under the intense, unabating pinch. One of the bells dangled from the source of her shock by a delicate chain, swinging against the lower curve of her breast.

“Pain,” he said when she looked up at him, open-mouthed. The clamp’s twin caught her other side and she let out a helpless yip. “Pleasure.”

The bells tinkled with the increased rise and fall of her chest.

“When you make those sounds for me, Goddess”—he tugged on both chains at once and she gasped—“your beauty becomes almost too much to bear.”

She could do nothing but watch him and suck in air. Twin blossoms of unavoidable sensation radiated from her nipples. It hurt, but there was something else.

And then she remembered the third bell.

Hades already sat on his heels. Her parted legs hid nothing. The kneeling god found what he wanted. She closed her eyes. Bit her lower lip.

Tiny jaws nipped into place and the Daughter of Olympos swore. The sensitive pearl at the peak of her sex cried out for relief, and there was none.

Persephone was on fire. Three condensed points of pressure funneled her awareness down to an intense focus. The pain subsided after a moment, but only until she realized she’d forgotten to take a breath.

He gave the dangling bell a flick as he stood, and the goddess rose even higher on her toes.

She met his eyes, both sure and not. Was he unpredictable? Or did she already know?

Without looking away, he slipped off his clothing and sandals. A naked foot pushed them out of the way, and the Lord of the Underworld stood bare and powerful, like the shameless god he was. Nothing marred his glory save the thin leather strap that had belted his chiton, now doubled in his fist.

She could not keep her mouth closed.

He stepped to close the gap. Drew the folded leather down between her breasts. Over her belly. She tried to repress a shiver and failed. The golden bells sounded at the movement.

“This is not a punishment,” he said. “Do you know why?”

She blinked wide eyes at him. A polarity of bitter delight and delicious torment throbbed in time with her pulse at each of the clamps he’d placed with such intent.

Here. This was the place to which she’d never believed she would come. His words from their first time atop the Elaionapothos haunted her, and Persephone did know.

This is not a punishment.

Part of her stood by in awe as the impossible words left her mouth.

“Because I’m going to ask you for it.”

She watched his chest expand now, as her admission quickened his need, but he said nothing. Did nothing.

Except raise a single brow.

He wants to hear it.

“Hades, I”—she swallowed, preparing to hear it, herself—“I want you to …”

Such patience as he waited for her to come to it.

“I want you to hurt me.”

His eyes closed for a moment, and she saw his jaw flex. Knuckles tightened around leather. He sealed it with a single, slow nod.

Fates, what have I done?

As Hades slipped around her, he laid the most dangerous words in a whisper at her ear: “Feel. Everything.”

The curve of the belt licked a slow caress between her legs. Her heart thudded away in her chest. He slid a palm in lazy, smoothing strokes over the backs of her thighs, her defenseless cheeks.

Then: nothing. Cool air on her skin. Silence in the room.

What is he do—

Thwack!

The leather snapped a line of nettles across her backside. She jerked forward on her toes with a yelp, and the infernal bells danced. His hand returned, the soothing motion a mockery where it burned across the path of the belt.

Thwack!

Persephone cried out again, but his hands were at her waist. She could feel the weight they supported as he knelt.

And then there was his mouth, following in place of the leather, smoldering over the signature of his cruelty. He stole a stray lick between her thighs, and she whimpered, unable to cope.

“Persephone.” A command.

“Hades?” Were those tears wetting the corners of her eyes?

“Beg.”

The word choked her, but not more than that thrice-damned voice of his. The one that vibrated through to her core and made her into a senseless creature. She knew she would do it the moment it left his mouth.

Persephone leaned her head back, blinking. He would not see her weep. Not yet. Her eyes traveled the restraining column of stone down to the twinning of her captured wrists. He possessed her entirely now.

She could feel him rise to his feet again at her back.

“Beg for what you want, Goddess of Mine,” he said, “and I will give it to you.”

She did not know who she was anymore.

“Please.”

Silence stretched and there was nothing.

Not nothing.

She wanted it for herself. All of it.

“Please, Hades.” Her voice wavered. “I want to feel it. I want to hurt for you.”

There was a growl behind her and Persephone tensed, but no more than cool air kissed her flesh. And then she knew.

Your pleasure belongs to me now.

His purring words from yesterday were the truth of it. It was not about her, or what she wanted.

“My Lord, I am yours.” Did the stone under her feet move? Or had she gone mad? “My pain is yours. Please.”

“Yess. Mine.”

The god who would court her for a wife began to paint her backside with fire.

Thwack!

He striped her cheeks and thighs in a steady rhythm.

Thwack!

And she shook under his strokes. The bells jangled and her skin blazed with every pass of the belt, and Persephone called out with abandon in a place so deep in the Underworld no one could possibly hear her screams.

No one but him.

The rain of blows went on unceasing. Her suffering, however, did not. It reached a point of such infinite density that it simply was no more. And what came flooding in after to fill the void …

Her knees began to tremble. Her breath came hoarse.

The storm was at an end.

He cast the strap aside and moved in to press himself against her back. His skin was a hot brand on her welted flesh and she hissed in acceptance of such a claim. Her neck, shoulders, and outstretched upper arms knew the desperate scatter of new kisses.

“Persephone. So beautiful.” His words were close and rough against her ear. “You wear my marks so well. I—”

He drew her against him, hand on her belly. She could feel him dancing on some blade-sharp edge of thought and action. “I’m—I’m sorry.” Was there a catch in his voice? “I had to. I had to.”

Contrition? Now?

But why?

“Hades, I asked for it,” she said. “Did you not hear me beg?”

For a time, all he did was breathe, his face buried in the crook of her neck. Tension abated in his hold, but he made some low sound of warning. Of a beast, awakening to Spring.

“I did,” said Hades. “By the Fates, did I hear it.”

She sniffled, floating on the last of calm waters before a fall. Dark hands flowed over her curves, cupping her breasts, making the little bells dance on their chains. Fingers dipped between her legs from behind, spreading liquid want.

The blunt, warm head of his erection settled along her furrow, and Persephone sighed. This she knew, this was familiar. She widened her stance what little she could while on tiptoe, ready to sink into the comfort of filling strokes.

Hades moved into position. Began to push.

It wasn’t right.

“Mmm … lower.” She shifted guiding hips.

The softest huff of amusement prickled the back of her neck. “No, love.”

Her eyes came open. She squirmed in her bonds.

“My Lord.”

The stone hook from last night had been a slender thing, but Hades …

“Persephone.” The nudge became an insistent press, the slick of her need aiding him. “Are you mine?”

“Mmhm.” She nodded, brows furrowed together, anticipation stealing her words.

“Then let me in.”

Her breasts rose and fell, nipples at a dull throb as she made to relax.

His.

Hades pushed past her barrier.

Her mouth came open in an O of recognition.

He owned her.

The tight ring stretched wide. She was the eye of a needle through which someone was attempting to thread a rope.

There were soft words as he took his time. Whispered kisses and shushing while he worked himself inside. She stood on the tips of her toes, but there was no ease to be found. The Lord of the Dead claimed his ground by measures and Persephone knew every breath and pulse of their joining.

Eternity came and went before she felt the thatch of hair at her parted cheeks. She’d taken every bit of length he had to give.

There was a time of adjustment as he held them still. She could hear the rush of his hard-won restraint, steaming in and out through his nostrils. She wanted to let herself go; to attune to the way he filled her, but the brilliant ache was inescapable. No matter how long she stood there, trying to drain herself into a state of surrender while he waited, there was nothing for it. The way his cock held her open felt endlessly precarious, a lifetime teetering at the edge of a cliff.

He began to move, and it was slow. Excruciating.

The length of him drew all the way out, before he labored once more at pushing it home. New sensation threatened to drown her, and Persephone gasped for air.

His fingers dug into her hips and she felt the tight grip he had on his own reins. Everything was the opposite of comfortable; she wanted to writhe and shift. Her hands bound in stone. The unrelenting fullness wedged into her bottom. The hungry vacancy where his cock should have been. The wicked insistence of the clamps and cool air teasing the wet havoc between her legs.

Every sensation thrilled and clamored at once, and Persephone hovered in a giddy heightened awareness. His tentative movements were a path toward madness for them both.

This cannot be what he wants. To hold back?

No.

“Hades.”

“Mm?” Concentration curbed his words.

“I’m not a doll.”

He came out of it. “What?”

“You’re not going to break me.”

He stilled, pulsing within her, and set his forehead against the back of her neck. His warning came ground between teeth. “You do not understand what you ask.”

“I do.”

“You do not.”

“I do!” she said, jerking with the force of her protest. “I want what you have to give.”

The god was quiet, but she knew he listened.

“Give me your pain, Hades Clymenus. And I will hurt for you.”

His nails were carving half-moons into her skin. She decided to be more direct.

“Fuck me.”

Silence behind her, heated throbbing below.

“Hades!”

“Forgive me,” he whispered and drove himself home.

He was not gentle. He was not kind. He was the rough god she needed him to be.

His cock speared at her, unrepentant, and charcoal hands hauled her back at the hip. Her feet came off the ground.

Persephone called out his name again and again, arms stretched far overhead, to the furious tune of jangling bells. With each violent thrust, he shed another layer of remorse, and relief throbbed, just out of reach.

“Please! H-Hades!” The cry came choking out as she bounced on an erection hard as the stone imprisoning her hands.

And he knew. The dark god knew and had mercy.

He let her feet touch the floor.

With only the slightest pause in the urgent siege of his hips, he fumbled a hand around to the jouncing golden bell between her legs. The jaws of the clamp came open and he sent it tinkling across the floor. Stinging heat flowed into the vacancy left by pressure, and all sensation narrowed to a blue-white focus even as he resumed his assault.

And then Hades brought his fingers down to massage at her swollen nub.

It was too much.

He was everywhere, making her sing, making her hurt. She painted the chamber with feral sound and went flying over the edge.

Between cursing and shuddering, she could no more than ride the current. Her muscles flexed. Pulled taut. That immortal cock never ceased to punish and reward.

“Hades! Sýzygos! Yes!”

Whether it was the impact of the name or he was already there, Hades erupted with her.

He planted himself deep. Completion spilled inside her, pulse after hot pulse, to disastrous perfection. He remained, emptying it all in a scalding purge, his breath hissing in and out through his teeth.

They stood there, joined, filling their lungs in the silence. Perspiration beaded her brow and the small of her back and her mind floated in blessed emptiness.

The withdrawal came as a shock, slippery and wrong, luscious and horribly right. The stalactite retreated into itself, leaving her arms to fall at her sides. Hades caught her up in an instant, lowering them both to the floor where she could crumple against his chest, head lolling, extremities limp.

One at a time, he removed the two remaining clamps and their dangling bells and tossed them aside with the third. The blood returned to the aching tips with a vengeance, and his thumbs stroked to soothe, though that was a torture in itself. She wanted to swear, but the best she could manage was a raw groan.

The dark hands collected her now, massaging, petting, smoothing. Bringing damp hair away from her temples, returning feeling to her hands.

“Persephone.” He said her name like a vow. “Goddess.”

She turned her face and brushed his lips in a ghost of a kiss, his fine features blurred through the fringe of her drooping lashes.

“What do you need, love?”

Imbalance. Now you can ask.

“I want control,” she said, fighting the dreamy slur in her words.

“You what?” He, on the other hand, sounded quite sober.

Persephone shifted and wet her throat with a swallow. She needed at a grip on her faculties, or at least the appearance.

“I want to lead,” she said. “I want to choose how we play. See your face. When we come.”

Hades blinked at her and it was clear this was the very last request he’d expected to come out of her mouth. For a time, he only continued to cradle her against him, eyes distant, considering.

Perhaps you’ve crossed a line.

When he met her gaze again, she could see a walling off had taken place, though the lines of his face held no hint of anger.

“Fair enough, my little flower.” A single, dark-nailed finger trailed down over her breastbone. “You can take the lead tomorrow if you answer one question. A riddle, if you will.”

She watched. Waited. It could be another of his traps.

And which of his traps have you hated yet?

“Tell me one secret about myself,” he said, at last. “Something I’ve confessed to no one. Answer me that and the night is yours.”

✧

Demeter’s hair stirred in the ever-shifting winds of Olympos, along with her simmering temper. The dome of the sky overhead was blue as the heart of flame, and Helios, who’d shared information she both wanted and didn’t, rode high overhead in his blinding chariot.

There were many immortal palaces on the slopes of the mount of legend, but it was toward the grandest, the topmost, the seat of the Sky Realm’s throne, that Demeter made her way.

She picked a path through manicured gardens and obscene fountains, excessive colonnades and grandiose fields of white marble. The Lord of the Skies had summoned her, but the goddess would arrive in her time, as did the seasons she governed.

How many of them came crying to you, Zeus? Did the Fair One pout when her pool of acolytes dwindled? Did Ares rage when his armies lost the strength to shift their spears?

She wore a frightening grin at the thought of the inevitable confrontation.

Her display of wrath had served its purpose: she had his attention. Helios had suggested she ‘discuss’ the matter, but to do so upon no foundation would have been pointless. The Lord of Lightnings did not, in her experience, listen to talk and reason. He respected only one thing: power.

She’d given him a reminder.

Her daughter would not languish away in the Underworld if there was anything Demeter had to say about it.

The halls of the palace of Zeus stood open to the sky with soaring white columns bounding the rectangular structure on all sides. The breeze caught the drape of her chiton and plastered the linen to her limbs as she mounted the last of the wide stairs to the throne room. When she reached the top, she swore to herself.

Faithless god.

There he was, seated on his throne, Hermes at his side, bending his immortal ear. None of the others were present, and the pair broke off their exchange mid-sentence at Demeter’s approach.

Zeus sat larger than life, as he always did, a bold orange chiton draped around his knees and his gilded crown of oak leaves resting atop the silver-white curls. Broad shoulders and muscled calves were a superfluous reminder of might, as he lounged against the throne of thrones.

Seven steps, each in a different type of stone, rose to the platform where he had placed his seat above all those of the other gods. Each of the Olympians—herself included—had a seat in this place, but none so grand as Lord Zeus. The golden likeness of an eagle, a gift from Hephaistos, sprouted from the right arm of the throne, an array of lightning bolts crafted from tin clutched in its talons; a symbol of the power wielded by the king of the gods.

I loved him for a time. And I was a fool.

“Lord of Thunder.” She made his name an insult and approached at an unhurried pace.

You will remain calm, or this will not work.

“Goddess of the Fruitful Earth,” he said. “You know why I’ve called you here. What is it you imagine you’re doing, Hôrêphoros?”

Bringer of the Seasons.She smirked as he twisted home his point.

“Well”—she strolled now to one side of the hall—“things have been taken from me of late. It is only right I should take back.”

He scowled and Hermes glanced between them both.

“Did you think I would not find out about Persephone?” she said, before leaning a shoulder against one of the columns. She crossed one ankle over the other and her arms over her chest.

“Our daughter is not a ‘thing’ which someone might take,” said Zeus. “She’s a goddess in her own right. You cannot keep her from a marriage.” He sat back, hands resting on the arms of his throne. His protective reaction was unexpected, but irrelevant.

“And you can sell her into one?”

She pushed away from the stone supporting her and advanced on the Lord of the Skies. Hermes shifted his weight from one leg to another, silent for once in the growing heat of their exchange.

“I sold no one, Demeter.” The bluest of eyes flashed a stormy warning. “I merely approved the suggestion of a courtship. All I receive in return is the slim possibility of a contented brother. Whatever he thinks of me, I do not wish him ill.”

“Ugh!” She wanted to tear her hair, but settled for the poison of sarcasm. “ ‘Your brother.’ I can’t imagine. You need to have her plucked from that pit of his and brought back to me, Basileus,” she said pointing a demanding finger, “and without any of your usual delays.”

“Demeter.” His tone was patient. Infuriating. “She’ll be with him a week tomorrow. Lord Hades has no tolerance for anyone or anything he deems unsuitable for his realm. I do not believe a potential consort would be different. That he hasn’t put her out of his domain entirely by now should tell you they’ve —”

“Filth!” she spat. “I won’t hear it! I refuse to even imagine what horrors that … that beast of a brother of yours has forced her to submit to down there.” Her arms were across her chest again in firm denial. Zeus only raised a silver brow.

“He’s your brother, too, Daughter of Kronos.” Thunder rumbled in the distance.

So much for calm.

They faced off in electric silence, anger arcing from eye to Olympian eye. Hermes attempted to look anywhere else, taking up a sudden and intense interest in the cleanliness of his fingernails.

Zeus ran a knuckle over the bridge of his nose, closing blue eyes in fatigue. She couldn’t help feeling the resentful thrill of achievement.

“Do you know how long it will take,” he said, “between my rain and Helios’s light before we can return the land to its bounty?” She made no reply, waiting. “Months, Demeter. It will be months at least.”

And now let him understand.

“It will be far longer than that, Gatherer of Clouds. Do you think I will allow the earth to be restored while Persephone is prisoner beneath it?” Her volume grew as she spoke. “Nothing will grow. The land will not yield a single kernel of nourishment while the lot of you conspire to deny me my daughter. This, I promise.”

When he drummed impatient fingers, she began to ascend the steps to his throne. “You think I’ve exhausted my ability at a day’s worth of famine?” she said. “The losses of today will seem like the buzzing of a gnat compared to the swarm of deprivation I will bring. The children of men will crumble to the Earth until there is not one beating heart left to worship at your altars.”

A flurry of reddened leaves flew in on the constant wind, a harbinger of the winter to come.

“Demeter, be reasonable,” he said. “What’s done is done. I cannot simply insist he give up his consort, it—”

“You WILL!” Her fury echoed across the hall and beyond its columns. “You will return her, Zeus, or I will undo us all, myself included.”

The Lord of the Skies sighed and leaned to press his fingers against the grim new line of his lips, his elbow resting on the arm of the throne. He gave a slow shake of his head.

“Hermes.”

The Messenger snapped to attention, as though he hadn’t been a fly on the wall for their thorny exchange.

“My Lord?”

“You know your way into my brother’s kingdom. Go and explain to him”—his eyes never left Demeter—“that although he has been promised the opportunity to court an immortal wife”—he stabbed the word home—“and has no doubt already grown fond of her, that now he must give her up again to her worrying mother.” The god finished off his instructions with a note of disgust.

“I leave tonight, my Lord.”

Hermes bobbed a nod and, turning on a winged heel, all but fled from the hall of thrones, no doubt to gossip about what he’d just heard to every immortal ear along the way.

Good. Let them hear.

“Satisfied?” said Zeus.

“I will be,” Demeter said, “once Persephone is returned.”