Hades called on his magic, and Pirithous gasped, then moaned, the pain of his wound shuddering through him. When he saw Hades, he began to whimper.
“I brought you back to life so I can tell you that I will enjoy torturing you for the rest of your eternal life. In fact, I think I will keep you alive so you can ruminate in your pain.”
Hades snapped his fingers, and a chasm opened beneath Pirithous’s body. As the Earth fell away, he took pleasure in the sound of the man’s screams echoing as he fell to Tartarus.
“Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, see to Pirithous,” Hades ordered. The three would guard him until he could take over. They bowed and vanished, and Hades was left to care for Persephone.
He released her from the coarse bindings Pirithous had used to restrain her, noting the redness on her wrists. As he knelt before her, she fell into his arms, and he gathered her to him, teleporting to the Underworld. Once in their bedroom, she burst into tears, and he felt helpless to do anything but sit with her and hold her and let her expend every ounce of her fear.
“I’m so sorry,” Hades said as he rocked her. “I did not know. I’m so sorry.”
While he held her, he felt like breaking too. He could not control the beat of his own heart, could not stop his stomach from twisting or the nausea from climbing up this throat. He was angry for so many reasons, but at the end of the day, he was devastated that she had not been safe, that there was a possibility she would never feel safe again.
He did not know how long Persephone cried, but there came a time when she quieted, and when she pulled away, she took his heart with her.
“I need to scrub him from my skin.”
Hades said nothing because he feared what he would say and instead took her to the baths. Once there, he sat apart from her while she undressed and entered the hot pool. He watched as she washed every part of her skin until she was red from head to toe, and all he could think was that he had touched her there—everywhere. By the time she finished, his hands were fisted so tightly, his nails had cut into his palms.
He only healed them when she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He was grateful for her closeness and held her tight.
“How did you know I was missing?” she asked.
“Your coworker, Helen, got worried when you didn’t come back from the basement. She went to search for you and found the journals.”
When he thought of them, he wanted to kill Pirithous a thousand times over—and he would. He had no tolerance for abusers of women and children, and the fact that Persephone was involved made it even worse.
“She didn’t know who to tell. For better or worse, she told a security guard. Zofie had been patrolling outside when she was notified, and she realized she’d watched Pirithous leave with you—in a tilt truck. When she told me, I sent the Furies. You had already been gone so long…I wasn’t sure what I would find.”
“He was a demigod,” she said, her voice quiet. “He had power.”
Hades’s earlier observation had been right, then. He grimaced.
“Demigods are dangerous, mostly because we do not know what power they will inherit from their Divine parent.” Not to mention many demigods did not know their parentage, and it was not always apparent even after their powers developed. Hades could not help thinking about Ariadne’s comment, that Theseus had gathered an army of demigods—soldiers, she had called them.
Pirithous was just one example of how little they actually knew about demigods—including their numbers, their powers, their capabilities.
“What was Pirithous able to use against you?”
“He put me to sleep, and when I woke, I couldn’t use my magic. I couldn’t focus. My head…my mind was in turmoil.”
Hades’s brows lowered. “Compulsion. It can have that affect.”
It took a lot of training to keep from being compelled too. Persephone would have had no chance to fight it.
After a moment, he asked in a quiet, rough voice, “Tell me what happened?”
She studied him for a moment, looking very troubled. Perhaps she worried over what he would do once he knew the full truth, and she had every reason to, because he was not stable at the moment.
“I will tell you if you will promise me one thing.”
Hades studied her face, waiting.
“When you torture him, I get to join you.”
He hugged her tight as he swore, “That is a promise I can keep.”
* * *
It might have been a promise Hades kept eventually, but it was not one he would keep tonight. Once Persephone was sleep, he teleported to Tartarus. Pirithous had been taken to his office and tied to the same chair he’d used to restrain Persephone. The stake that had left him lifeless on the floor in the Upperworld was still embedded in his chest, and with each breath the demigod took, he whined.
When Hades finally came face-to-face with him, he lashed out, kicking the stake farther into the man’s chest. Pirithous gave a pathetic cry and began to wheeze as blood spattered across the floor and dripped from his mouth.
“You touched my lover, my fiancée, my future,” Hades bellowed. “An unforgivable crime.”
“It’s not my fault!” Pirithous gave a gargled howl.
“Not your fault?” Hades repeated, the fury burning his blood. “Go ahead and tell me how it wasn’t your fault. You stalked her. You wrote horrible things about her. You abducted her. You. Touched. Her.”
He was raging, and once more, he kicked the man in the chest. This time, Persephone’s stake went right through him and fell to the floor, though Hades managed to hold on to the man’s life thread. He would not die yet. He would face immeasurable pain, and despite the pleasure Hades would take from inflicting it, he knew it would not atone for what this man had done to Persephone.
“No,” Pirithous moaned, his words barely intelligible. “Th-Theseus said…we… Theseus said…”
“Theseus?” Hades repeated, his body stiffening at the sound of the demigod’s name. “Did you say Theseus?”
Pirithous nodded.
“He…was…friend.”
Hades took a moment to collect himself, then used his magic to heal the demigod. It would be hard for him to explain himself with a mouth and throat full of blood.
“What about Theseus?” he demanded.
“We made a bet,” Pirithous explained, his voice high-pitched and keening. “To carry off goddesses. He said…he said we couldn’t get in trouble because of Hera.”
“You made a bet to carry off goddesses, and you chose my goddess?” Hades asked.
“It was Theseus who suggested it,” said Pirithous. It was as if he thought he shouldn’t be punished because it was not his idea, though Hades wondered why Theseus had put Pirithous up to this. Had he merely wished to see what happened when someone fucked with him? Or had he done this as a type of revenge?
Either way, Pirithous would not be the one to suffer for what happened tonight, though he would be the first.
Hades used his magic to summon Persephone’s stake from the ground, and as he hovered over the demigod, Pirithous began to wail.
“She was not yours to take,” Hades said, and he jammed the stake into the man’s neck. As he jerked it free, he seethed. “She was not yours to touch! She was not yours! She was not yours!”
As he raged, he shoved Persephone’s stake into the demigod’s body, bathing in his blood, and he only stopped when he had lost his voice.
Chapter XXX
The Start of War
Hades’s stomach knotted with anticipation. Tonight, his nonprofit, the Cypress Foundation, was hosting a gala to illustrate the impact of his charity work. Among them was the Halcyon Project, which held a special place in both his and Persephone’s hearts. Without her, it would not exist. Everything he poured into it was inspired by her. It was also a project Lexa had worked on before her death, and he had something planned to honor her legacy.
It was just one reason he was unusually excited about tonight’s event. The second had to do with the black box in his pocket. As he stood outside his bedroom door, he took it from the inside of his jacket and looked at the ring. Nestled in black velvet, it gleamed, and by the end of the night, it would glitter on Persephone’s finger, a symbol of their commitment to each other.
Once more, his chest felt tight with nervous energy. He took a breath. He could do this—she had already said yes.
He closed the box and returned it to his pocket before entering their bedchamber, where he found Persephone already dressed for the evening in a red off-the-shoulder gown. While the top was lace, her skirt was made of layers of tulle, and he could not help thinking that Hecate had chosen it specifically to make things difficult for him.
“You look lovely,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, a flush creeping over her cheeks. “So do you. I mean…you look handsome.”
He chuckled at her nervousness, though he couldn’t deny he felt the same, and it gave him some comfort that even after everything they had been through, they could still feel this sort of flustered excitement.
“Shall we?” He offered his hand and she accepted, allowing him to pull her close and teleport to the surface, where Antoni waited for them outside Nevernight.
The cyclops smiled when he saw them and opened the door to the limo.
“My lord, my lady,” he said. “Looking divine this evening.”
“Thank you, Antoni,” Persephone said and laughed as she climbed into the back seat.
Hades followed close, inhaling her sweet scent. “And what is so amusing?”
“You know we could just teleport to the Olympian.”
“I thought you wanted to live a mortal existence when in the Upperworld,” Hades said, though to be fair, it had been a while since she’d said anything like that, which made him think she had grown more and more content with the balance of her life.
“Perhaps I am only eager to begin our night together,” she said, and there was a sensual edge to her voice that sent Hades’s blood rushing to his head—both of them.
He raised a brow. “Why wait?”
She shifted, bunching her ridiculous skirt into her hands so she could straddle him, but even as she sank against him, he could barely feel her for all the layers.
“Who chose this dress?” Hades growled as his hands sought her skin.
“You don’t like it?”
Likewasn’t the word he would use.
“I’d really rather have access to your body,” he answered as his palms finally skimmed her bare thighs.
“Are you asking me to dress for sex?”
He smiled and leaned close as he whispered, “It will be our secret.”
He kissed her, and his hands shifted upward toward the apex of her thighs, while hers skimmed down his chest to the button of his trousers.
“Persephone,” he breathed as she freed his sex and took him into her hand. Her palm was warm, and she kept her thumb at his crown, rubbing circles over the come that beaded there.
“I need you,” he growled. “Now.”
He thought she might resist, drag this out until he was feverish and desperate, but she seemed to feel the same because she mounted him, sliding on with a groan that rocked each of their bodies.
“You have ruined me,” Hades said, holding on to her hips, fingers digging into her skin and the gods-damned fabric of her billowing dress. “This is all I ever think about.”
“Sex?” she asked, breathless. She alternated between sliding up and down his shaft and grinding against him. It made his head spin, and he wanted to fuck her harder.
“You,” he said between his teeth. “Being inside you, the feel of you gripping my cock, the way you tighten around me just before you come.”
“You just described sex, Hades.”
He laughed, though he panted too. “I described sex with you. There is a difference.”
They lost themselves at some point, and they came together viciously, kissing and thrusting, and there was nothing to hold on to but each other.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Hades said, and he sought her clit, touching her there until she came apart, and though she had come, she still moved for him, whispering erotic things until his release exploded inside her. In the aftermath, Persephone collapsed against him, and his body sagged with exhaustion and pleasure.
He tangled his hand into her hair and kissed her face, groaning. “Fuck me. I’m like a fucking teenager.”
“Do you even know what it’s like to be a teenager?”
“No,” he said truthfully. He had been swallowed as a baby and born an adult. “But I imagine they are always horny and never quite sated.”
He could take her again if she’d let him.
“Perhaps I can help.” She shimmied off his lap to the floor and wrapped her hand around his cock before he stopped her, hands on her face.
“No, darling.”
“But—” she protested.
“Trust that there is nothing I would love more than for you to go down on me, but for now, we must attend this gods-forsaken dinner.”
“Must we?” she asked, a pretty pout to her mouth that made him want this even more, but they were nearing the hotel where the gala would take place, and this event…it was important.
“Yes. Trust me, you will not want to miss it.”
She held his gaze for a moment, and her hand slipped up and down his cock in defiance, though eventually she rose to sit beside him, and they restored their appearances, which was easier said than done, especially because Persephone kept her eyes on his cock.
“Goddess,” he warned.
She offered a sheepish smile before her attention turned to the window, and he noted how she stiffened at the sight of the crowd that had gathered outside. Though they were still a few miles from the hotel, the sidewalks were packed with people hoping to catch a glimpse of divinity. He reached for her hand, offering a reassuring squeeze. He did not blame her for being nervous at the sight of so many people—so many strangers—and when the limo stopped and the door opened to a blinding wall of flashing lights, he felt her anxiety spike even more.
He exited the car and turned to her, reaching for her hand. He would not let her go through this alone.
“Darling?”