Debauched by Bella Klaus
Chapter Fifteen
Istilled atop Hades with my legs wrapped around his hips, and our heads pressed together. Until this moment, we had been inhaling and exhaling in sync, but his breaths became shallower, faster, more urgent.
“What’s wrong?”I squeezed his larger hands.
“While I kept Persephone starving and confined in that room, someone had told Demeter what I’d done, and she created a famine that killed tens of thousands of humans,”he said in a voice as quiet as the breeze. “I knew Zeus would make me return her.”
I pressed a soft kiss on his lips. “You told me this before, and you said that you’d tricked Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds.”
“But I didn’t tell you what it did to her body.”
My stomach twisted into an array of tight knots. “What happened?”
“Back then, the weather was constant, and there were no seasons. Food was plentiful, and the population grew fast,”he said.
I bit down on my bottom lip. This irrelevant comment had to be Hades trying to stall, but why? In my softest voice, I murmured, “Show me.”
Another image filled my mind’s eye. Hades sat on a similar throne to the one we’d shared, except it was made of an intricately carved stone as opposed to gold. Instead of the room being filled with demons, I spotted Hermes, who wore the same white cloak I’d seen on him before, and a bunch of people in colored robes.
The guards opened the door, letting a white-haired woman hobble down the red carpet. Her features were corpse-like, her eyes milky-white, and the skin around her mouth had shrunk, revealing long teeth and shrivelled gums. Worst of all, she was semi-transparent.
A gasp slipped from my lips. “That was her?”
“She must have fought desperately against the pull to return to the Underworld.” Grief filled our bond, tinged with the ache of guilt. “When I told you that the pomegranate seed had set back our relationship a century, I hadn’t been exaggerating.”
“Hades.”The word echoed through my skull. I had promised not to judge his actions, but the sight of Persephone as a wraith made my insides hollow. In her position, I’d probably want the man who had done this to me dead.
“Is this what prompted her to create the panacea?” I asked.
“No,” he rasped. “It took fifty years to work out that having a garden of her own might make her happy.”
“How did she return to normal?” I asked.
“By staying in the underworld, eating its food, and breathing in the air,” he said. “It took several years to work out a balance of how long she could stay on Mount Olympus without damaging herself. In the end, half a year in the world of the dead gave her the power to withstand spending the other half of the year with Demeter.”
As Persephone reached the throne, she hurled insults after insults at Hades and swore revenge.
“Did she ever attack you after that?” I asked.
“Several times,” he muttered. “Each year, she became more devious and occasionally got close to ending my life.”
“Didn’t she know how to kill a god?” I stared at the wraith, who swiped at Hades, her fingers curled into claws.
“Fortunately, nobody had shared that knowledge until much later,” he said. “Otherwise, Persephone would have succeeded in her assassinations.”
I rested my forehead against his. “So, you abducted her, imprisoned her, and made her dependent on the Underworld to continue living. Is there anything else?”
“One more,” he said with a sigh. “Persephone truly loved her mother. At least until she fell in love with me.”
The vision of the throne room faded away, replaced by an image of Hades standing within the shadows of a huge atrium within an even larger building. Light streamed down from a vaulted roof into a rectangular pool, around which musicians played stringed instruments.
Hades peeped behind one of the tall columns surrounding the water feature toward the back of the room, where servants fanned the occupants of five golden chaises.
Aunt Juno sat in the middle, wearing a golden crown and sipping from a golden goblet. Mother sat to her left on a chaise, her blonde hair piled to the top of her head. Persephone shared the chaise with Mother, her head on her shoulder.
Lounging around them were Aunts Vesta, Minerva, and Diana.
“I don’t want to go back,” Persephone said in a small voice.
Mother rubbed her back. “You remember what happened the last time you tried to stay away from the Underworld?” she crooned. “I hate for you to leave, but I can’t see you waste away.”
Persephone tilted her head up to meet Mother’s eyes. “I’d rather die than spend another day with that bastard.”
Mother tapped Persephone’s nose. “Language.”
“You can hardly blame the poor girl,” Aunt Juno said from the chaise in the middle. “Hades is awfully dull.”
“And he’s a rotten old man,” Persephone added.
The other aunts murmured their agreement. Hades remained in the shadows, watching them all tear apart his gloomy personality and lack of sex appeal. The insults became more and more exaggerated until Persephone burst into peals of laughter.
“You’re right,” she said. “His breath stinks and his manhood is smaller than a pomegranate.”
The aunts applauded, and Persephone sat up to list Hades’ shortcomings. The tirade went on and on and on, the insults becoming pettier, such as his thick eyebrows and copious nostril hair, but the women in the room kept cheering her on. Even the servants and musicians snickered.
I cringed. Both for the Hades lurking about like a creeper and listening to that bullshit, and for the man who I’d married.
“One day,” Persephone said through clenched teeth. “I’ll work out how to kill him, and when I do, I will devour his soul.”
“Wonderful, darling.” Mother brushed her red hair aside and placed a soft kiss on her cheek. “And I’ll research his weaknesses from over here. If I find anything, I’ll send a message.”
Instead of stepping out of the shadows as the man I knew would have done, Hades teleported back to Hell and brooded in a dark room.
“What happened after that?”I asked.
“She continued to despise me,”he said, his voice surprisingly light considering the upsetting scene. “But I listened in on hundreds of those vile conversations, each time building into a rage.”
“Can you at least see why she was so upset?”I asked.
“I can, now,” he replied with a harsh laugh. “But these insults behind my back continued long after we had reconciled our differences, and long after we’d fallen in love.”
My stomach tightened. Part of me wanted to see the progression of their romance, but we didn’t have the time to linger. Not when the purpose of sharing these memories was for me to connect with Persephone’s motivation for producing the panacea.
“Did you ever confront her?”I asked.
“Many times,”he growled. “But she told me it was hard to admit to Demeter that I made her happy.”
“Gosh,” I murmured. “It’s hard to know what to say because I can’t imagine being so two-faced for such a stupid reason.”
“I nearly fell into my old pattern after taking you from the courtroom, but when you killed those two demons, I realized we had to do this differently.”
“Why?” I asked.
“That was the moment I realized you would be more than the woman I loved,” he said. “You wielded the power of Zeus, you were resourceful, and you could help me protect the Fifth.”
“That’s when you saw me as an equal?”
“I never saw you or Persephone as lesser beings,” he murmured. “Underneath her sometimes prickly exterior, she was a nurturer. You should have seen her with Caria.”
“And me?” I asked.
“You’re so much more,” he said, his voice lilting with a smile. “Warrior, lover, ally, friend. The connection we’ve formed has been deeper than I could ever have envisaged.”
“So, that bargain you made with me paid off.”I squeezed his hands and pressed a soft kiss on his lips.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear you complaining to the Fire Queen about having seen my cock.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. Maybe I hadn’t changed so much after all. “You listened?”
“You know what they say about old habits.” His laughter filled my head.
I snorted. “It’s not like I could say you’ve got a small dick, especially since you already flaunted your huge erection in Queen Mera’s bedroom.”
“Let me try one more thing.”He released my hands, drew back and pressed his palms on the front and back of my head.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“This is the longest we’ve stayed connected, and I thought I caught a glimpse of black string in your mind.”
My brow creased. “Does it represent something?”
“Only that it shouldn’t be there. Can I pull it out?”
I shuddered. “Please.”
I felt a dull tug at the back of my consciousness, and images spilled out. Most of them mirrored what Hades had shown me before, but they were from Persephone’s point of view. My breaths turned shallow. I had no idea if these were memories or my imagination.
“Are you all right?”Hades asked.
“Keep going,” I whispered into the bond. “I think I’m remembering something.”
“Good.”
With a few more tugs, even more recollections filled my mind. There were too many for me to grasp and cascaded though my consciousness like a tidal wave threatening to pull me to the bottom of the sea. I swam against them, trying not to drown, but everything went still.
“Kora?”
“I’m all right,” I said, my breaths ragged. “But there are too many memories for me to process.”
“Your Majesties?” Healer Iaso’s voice pulled me out from being submerged. “I would advise against unleashing thirty thousand years’ worth of experiences at once.”
Hades released his hands from my head, withdrawing his warmth. My entire body sagged against him.
“How did you manage to do that?” I stared at him, my eyes wide, my pulse pounding between my ears.
“You’ve reunited your soul with your body.” Hades’ eyes were penetrating, as though he was trying to sift through my mind to see which of my memories he’d unleashed. “The younger vessel didn’t have anything of me in her head.”
“Of course.” I blinked spots from my eyes “Thank you for this. It’s going to take a while, but at least I have something of my past.”
Healer Iaso cleared her throat.
I turned to her and asked, “Shall we begin on the panacea?”
The dryads emerged from behind a clump of banana plants, with one of them holding the bowl of pyramid-shaped seeds, and the other with the pot of sandy soil.
After she placed the pot on the ground, I sifted through my memories of the garden and found one of me sitting cross-legged in front of an aloe vera plant with my fingers clutching its serrated leaves. Blood streamed from my hands as I pushed my magic into it, making me realize the missing ingredient.
I shook off that thought. The blood of one god was poisonous to another. There was no way I could infuse a healing plant with something I needed to give Hades.
He placed a palm on my back. “What’s wrong?”
I told him through our link, adding, “What if Persephone made it poisonous?”
Hades didn’t reply for a long time. I was about to ask what he was thinking about when he sent me an image of the first time he’d been invited to her garden. “She had fortified the wards with her magic so that nobody could enter without her permission,” he said, his voice bitter. “It was more beautiful than the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.”
In the memory, Hades walked side by side through the paved paths of a wild garden bursting with more color than an impressionist painting. A thick bramble rose from within the flowers and scratched Hades’ arm, its thorns releasing a green venom.
Hades stared from the wound to the flowers, where the bramble had disappeared, but Persephone took him by the wrist and offered him something that would help.
He followed after her, still glancing over his shoulder into the tall flower bed, only stopping when Persephone sat him on a rock and stroked his cheek.
As she walked to the panacea plant, Hades stared at her ass, seeming mesmerized by the thinness of her gown.
My lips formed a tight line. “She was distracting you.”
“Yes,”he growled.
Persephone broke off a leaf and sauntered over to him, her beautiful features warmed by a smile. Green liquid oozed from the panacea leaf, which she drizzled on his wound with the same loving attention Hades had paid me in Persephone’s garden when I’d gotten attacked by a plant.
I held my breath, waiting to see what would happen next, but the venom streamed out from the cut, which healed itself.
Persephone stared from the pristine skin to Hades’ eyes, her features stricken. I swallowed hard. She was disappointed that he hadn’t died.
Pain flooded our bond, both from me at the realization of what my former self had tried to do, and from Hades. “This is a new revelation,” he said. “I thought she had been mortified about the thorns.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“About seventy-five years into our relationship,”he replied.
“Before she fell in love?”
Hades nodded.
I hesitated for a few moments before plucking up the courage to ask, “What do you want to do about the panacea?”
“Use your blood,”he said. “If that’s the missing piece that will restore my health—”
“Wait.” I placed my hand over his. “What if this backfires?”
“Explain.”
“She made panacea as a weapon to use against you, but I love you with all my heart. If I pour my affection into the plant, what if that turns it into something else.”
Hades cupped my cheek with a warm hand. “You’re a goddess. As long as you’re thinking purposefully about your creations, nothing will go wrong.”
“Your Majesties?” The healer positioned herself behind the dryads. “We are ready to commence.”
“Do you have a knife?” I stared into her lined face. “The seed needs a drop of my blood.”
Her features loosened with a surprised gasp, and she slipped her hand into the pocket of her cloak and extracted a small scalpel. I pricked the tip of my finger and poured a few drops into the soil.
“Why not on the seed directly?”Hades asked through our link.
“I can’t bring myself to take the risk. The roots can suck up the blood and turn whatever is poisonous into healing power.”
Hades didn’t reply, and I pushed my magic into both the seed and the soil, letting the plant grow to full size. This one looked identical to the previous panacea I’d grown, except the power radiating off it vibrated against my skin.
Healer Iaso broke off a leaf and drenched it with white power, which stripped off its thick rind and exposed the gel. Her magic turned the green substance liquid, and it dropped onto the floor in the form of IV bags.
“Wonderful work.” She walked to Hades’ current container of panacea and was about to swap it for the darker one. “This will be even more potent than before.”
“What if he reacts badly to this batch?” I asked in a small voice.
“We still have plenty of this morning’s panacea,” the healer replied with a frown. “Do you have any cause to worry?”
“None whatsoever,” Hades said before I could speak. “Continue with the new batch.”
I gulped. After everything he’d shown me, I was surprised that he had any faith in me at all. The old Persephone had shown him nothing but contempt.
Even though part of me understood why she’d been so resentful, even though these were the early days of their relationship, I couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t worth two thousand years of pining.
Healer Iaso turned to Hades. “Please lie on your back so that Her Majesty can deactivate the pollen.”
Hades lounged on the bed of moss and cracked open an eye. “Do I need to do anything?”
I shook my head. “The process is quite simple, but I’d like to keep the pollen in a jar in case we need it for something else.”
The healer reached into her cloak and extracted a glass container. “I’d be happy to levitate the plant matter as soon as you extract it.”
“All right.”
I went through the same process as before with the convicts, first commanding the pollen to stop consuming Hades’ lungs and then pulling it out with my magic. As it streamed out through Hades’ parted lips, Healer Iaso collected it for me in the jar.
He jerked forward, coughing out a spray of blood that made my stomach tighten with alarm. The healer eased him back onto the moss, and he exhaled a long breath.
“What now?” I asked.
“His Majesty’s magic levels are too depleted at the moment to heal his lungs, but the panacea will do the job for him.”
We waited in silence for several excruciating moments as Hades’ chest rose and fell. While the dryads and Healer Iaso were probably concerned about the pollen, I couldn’t stop thinking that Persephone had made the panacea to be a poison.
When he exhaled a rattling breath that made my heart jump to the back of my throat, I clutched my chest and spoke through our bond. “How is it?”
“There’s no more sensation of ants crawling through my lungs,”he said.
“Anything else?”I clasped my hands and stared down at his prone form.
He was still paler than usual, seeming a little diminished compared to his exuberant self. It was a wonder that he was still going after Mother had turned him into food for a ravenous configuration of roots.
Hades took another breath, but this one was much smoother than the last. My tongue darted out to lick my dry lips. This had to be a good sign. I turned to Healer Iaso and asked, “Can you check on him?”
“Give the panacea a few more moments to do its job.” She turned to the IV bag, which was still nearly full.
“Can you give him some to eat?”
Hades wrinkled his nose. “Have you tasted Panacea?”
I rolled my eyes. “If it saves your life, who cares if it’s bitter?”
He sat up on the bed of moss and pulled me onto his lap. “When I kiss you, I want to make sure I don’t taste of pungent vegetation.”
My heart flipped like a crêpe. “Hades?”
“In the flesh, and feeling infinitely better than before.” He turned to the dryads and Healer Iaso. “Will you excuse me? I would like to reward my wife for her tireless commitment to restoring my health.”
