Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
P ersephone
The scent of fresh baked goods and something sweet rides the sound of celebration that spills in from the open balcony doors. Cheers and songs drift from the city below to poke and pull at my curiosity. Beside me in the massive bed, twisted in a tangle of silken sheets, Hades sleeps. It’s the first time I’ve seen him sleep so deeply; the lines of his usually hard face entirely swept away by a peace he hadn’t known in the Earthly realm.
Still, as though tethered to me, he is woken by my absence before I even make it to the balcony. His deep rumble stops me in my tracks. “Persephone?”
Glancing over my shoulder, I find him sitting in the bed. My heart skips. My breath catches and my belly twists just like the sheet that currently twists around him to offer me peek-a-boo glimpses of hard, perpetually tan, skin.
God, he’s sexy as hell.
The thought is there in my mind before I’ve had a chance to censor it. His lips pull into a lazy smirk that only twists more knots in my belly.
Before he can speak, I mutter, “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Hades laughs. But he doesn’t just laugh. He throws his head back and roars. The chords of his thick neck tense with the movement, as the rock-hard muscles of his torso shift under the violence of his very obvious humor.
Turning to face him fully, I wait, one hip cocked, hands planted on the flare. He finally regains his composure enough to look at me.
Silly God.
He lets out another sound, but this one is new. Something I’ve never heard from him before. Something I want to hear again. It’s as close to a giggle as I suspect I’ll ever pull from him, and it’s painted in pure delight.
It’s beautiful. He is beautiful. And if I am to believe the insanity that has become my reality, he is mine.
Every ounce of teasing laughter that lived in the moments before is burned away by the fire in his gaze as his eyes drop from mine to roam every inch of on-display flesh I’ve left exposed for him. Which, honestly, is everything.
After he fucked me senseless in the bathing pool, he’d taken me to another magnificent, if considerably smaller room adjoined to the bathing room, to rinse us off under a fall of water that appeared to fall straight from the stone of the mountain, already decadently warm. Then he brought me to the bed where I drifted quickly into sleep.
Now, the way he’s looking at me makes me think we’re in for round two.
Another loud celebration cheer snags my attention, though.
Hades answers my unspoken question. “Asphodel City.” The next comes somewhat reluctantly. “They are celebrating.”
Well, color me intrigued. “What are they celebrating?”
Even though my body is entirely naked, his eyes linger at the small, curious smile that curves my lips. That smile falls when he answers, “You.”
I’m confused. My thumb lands in my chest as I feel my brows arc high. “Me?”
He nods. “Yes, Persephone. You.”
I shake my head and, shamefully, sputter, “Wh—why would they be celebrating me?”
Hades rises fluidly from the bed. He pulls the sheet from the tangle, but it dangles from his large hand as he moves, entirely unbothered by his own nakedness. I can’t help but take in every inch of him, including the inches that stand erect between his legs, bobbing with every step he takes toward me. He wraps me in the silken fabric that is both warm and cool, before guiding me with his large body to the balcony. Once outside, Hades lowers himself onto a patio lounger, tugging me onto his lap. Even as he settles me against his broad chest, I can feel the thickness of his desire against my spine.
I wiggle. He hisses a breath into his lungs. “Ignore it.”
“That’s kinda hard .” I snicker at the play on words.
Hades sighs, but it’s full of amusement he can’t hide. He pulls in breath to say something, but a loud cheer from the city below interrupts us, drawing our attention to the very raucous celebration.
“You said they are celebrating me,” I hedge.
“Yes.”
“I just don’t understand why. How do they even know I’m here?”
“The entire realm knows you are here.”
“But—”
“It can sense you. It knows you.” His large hand palms my belly, dragging slowly up my torso to still between the valley of my breasts. I may be laying atop him, but my body is quite literally within the cage of his. His thick thighs bracket my own while his arms may as well be bands of iron wrapped around my torso. The heat from his bare chest bleeds through the silk sheet he’s enveloped me in, and I can feel the steady thud of his pulse. Hades’ lips tease my temple. “The Underworld knows your soul.”
“But how?” The words are a mere whisper. A fissure of curiosity untethered from the very soul I harbour. I desperately need it quelled.
He’s silent for a long moment as the city below exudes life and happiness. Live music drifts through laughter, and I am helpless to do anything but move just an inch closer, snagged by the prison of his arms, to peer through the columns of the obsidian balcony railing at the life below.
“You birthed much of what this realm is today, Persephone.”
At his words, the party below is momentarily forgotten. I twist in his arms to look at him, confusion and disbelief at the forefront of every thought. “I don’t?—”
“I am certain by now you realize that there is truth to every myth, yes?” He’s waiting for a response. All I can do is give him a stilted nod. “The myth of Hades and Persephone is no exception. It is true. I saw the girl, the young Goddess, my niece, in a garden of flowers. She’d been collecting blossoms from the garden, one after another, after another. Of course, I’d known my sister birthed a child by our brother, Zeus, but I’d never seen the child. I had never cared to. The Underworld was a dark and desolate place, you must understand. It was not what it is today. The souls not sequestered to an eternity in Tartarus wandered the dark lands without purpose or place. I wandered. My only purpose was shrouded in death. My entire being consumed by torment.”
He sounds so sad to admit the hideous truths of his past. But I still don’t know what those truths have to do with me now.
I’m so confused, and I would be lying if there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t cling to the idea that all this—every fantastical detail of my time in this magical place—was simply a fabrication of my mind.
Hades continues, “I was an angry God. I had spent centuries in the belly of my father with my siblings, only to be freed by Zeus.” His lip curls at the mention of the God of Thunder, his brother. There is real animosity in the rumble that rises from the deep of his chest to leak into the space between us before he speaks again. “The war that followed was one that nearly saw civilization end. Both human and God. It was brutal. Death was rampant, surrounding me, even before I became the God of Death. Before I swallowed the entity of Tartarus. Before I regurgitated it into the realm we know today as the Underworld.”
“You—swallowed—Tartarus?”
Hades nods. “Tartarus was a Primordial God, born of Chaos. It was not contained by flesh and bone, as the powers the Olympians today are contained. And the darkness of this particular beast was far too dark to exist in the world that had been crafted. From its darkness, monsters rained suffering and torment that spilled onto the innocent. Something had needed to be done. Borders had needed to be made.”
I shake my head. I’m suffering from information overload, and yet I want more. Need more.
I need everything.
“I’m not sure I understand. H—how you swallowed…”
“The Primordial Gods simply are. It all began with Chaos, the first of the Primordial Goddesses. The mother of all. She is matter. It is from her that everything forms.”
“Okay…”
Hades offers a small smile. “From Chaos, Tartarus, Gaia, Eros, Erebus, Aether, and Nyx were born. They are Purgatory, Mother Earth, Love and Attraction, Darkness and Shadow, Light, and Night, respectively. Together, they made the world as we know it. They began as, you might call them, spectral entities. They were the thing that they were. For example, Nyx was night and all that encompasses it. Her form is literally the form of the night, encompassed by midnight, moonlight, and starlight.” He pulls in a breath. “We’re getting off topic. But now that you have a basic understanding of the Primordial Gods and Goddesses, and how we began, you can grasp the events that transpired. These Primordial Gods and Goddesses bore children who were also known as Primordial Gods and Goddesses, but they were second tier, in a way, and they held the ability to possess corporal forms. It was from them that the truly corporal Gods and Goddesses came to be. You would know them as the Titans.”
I shiver, and Hades pulls the sheet tighter around me. His eyes ask me if I am okay, if he should continue. I tell him, “I’m a little rattled.” And a lot confused . “But I’m fine.”
He smirks. “But are you keeping up?”
“Yes,” I lie. I shrug. “Sort of.”
He offers me a clearly forced smile. I relax my head into the crook of the arm that cradles me so that I can see him, even as I mostly remain lying back on his chest.
“The Titans’ rule was not gentle or kind. Keep in mind, humanity has yet to exist. The earth was a volatile place where creatures of violence and bloodthirst roamed, offering, primarily, entertainment to the Titans. They surveyed the beginning and end of era after era before they bore the second generation of Titans.”
“Another generation of Titans?”
“Yes.” Hades gives a sober nod. “Although these Titans undoubtedly inherited the cruelty of their sires, within them formed something new. Consciousness in a way their forefathers did not bear it.” He tightens his hold around me, as though he fears I may attempt an escape. “Prometheus was born in this second generation of Titans.”
“Prometheus,” I whisper. This is a name I know.
“It was from him that humankind first formed. These humans are what you know today as Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as less popularly, but still documented by modern humans, the Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo luzonensis, Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis, and a few other discovered populations that people today have yet to name or properly acknowledge. Among them, giants. Homo sapiens came much later than many of these populations, but for a while, coexisted with them.”
I interrupt him, “Did you say giants? Like actual giants?”
Hades nods gravely. “I did. There is much evidence of their existence today, although the human governments work tirelessly to hide it.”
“Some believe the Nephilim were giants,” I muse thoughtfully.
“Yes, another piece of history your religion sources from my truth.” He sounds slightly amused, slightly incensed.
I huff. We could debate this endlessly, but for now I am enjoying his story. I invite, “Go on.”
“Like the story of how your Nephilim were formed, the giants that roamed the Earth were the spawn of matings between Titan and human. Again, as depicted in your religion, they were cruel and without remorse. Thankfully, their birth rates were incredibly low, but they lived for thousands of years before the Titans then created the Gods.”
“And you are a God?”
“Yes.”
“You came from the Titans?” If Hades is truly the God of the Underworld and there is bearing to Greek Myth, then he would be the son of…
He answers, “I am the first son of the Titans, Cronus and Rhea.”
My mind flashes back to that moment in the hot tub when Hades had asked who, if a God or Goddess of myth had parented me, would they be. To me, it had been a silly game. But when I’d returned the question, his answer had been immediate.
He’d been giving me truths all along, I realize. I had simply been too stuck within the confines of my mind to notice.
He adds, “I am the last son to be regurgitated by my father.”
We fall into a silence that is cut only by the sounds of revelry in the city below. But my mind is not quiet. Inside my mind, unlimited questions flash one after another after another.
I probe as gently as I can. “How does all that have to do with the myth of Hades and Persephone?”
“Because to understand how I took her, the barbaric ways I claimed her, and the deceitful ways I kept her—you must first understand how I became the God I’d been. It is not an excuse for the way I behaved, the sins I so willingly carried out, but…”
“Tell me,” I beg gently. “I’m listening.”
His chest rises on a deep inhale, but I don’t miss the slight tremor as he exhales. “I was born into a time of Chaos. Creation had occurred with little thought and less planning. Civilizations roamed the planet with beasts.” A chuff of laughter bursts from his chest. “There was no civilization . Not truly. At that point, humanity had hardly formed enough to live in small familial clusters, much less civilization. They scrapped like animals, but there had been potential. So much potential for them.”
He looks so struck with emotion as he tells me about the ancient humans crafted by Prometheus. There is genuine wonder in the dark cavern of his eyes, where the secrets of an ancient and long forgotten history continue to live .
He loved them, the humans. He’d loved them deeply.
“Hades.” I try to twist in his arms, but the firm hold he has on me keeps me pinned in place. I don’t struggle for long, settling back instead. “You loved them. The first humans.”
“Yes, very much. They had such short lifespans, but exquisite minds.”
“What happened?”
“Zeus schemed to study under Prometheus in the ways that he crafted humans. It was from him that homo sapiens were introduced into the populations of the globe. It was because of this, because of his agenda, they were infused with his ego. They quickly became the more powerful of the human species, their minds even more brilliant than those who came before.”
A chill rises in the warm air as though plucked by the shadows of his story in which horrors spill. Goosebumps rise on my skin, and I bite down on my lip as a shuddering breath catches in my throat.
“What happened?” I manage around a dry swallow.
“The great battle between God and Titan began.” His eyes fall closed, scores of ancient pain line his face. “It was a brutal time. A time of darkness and terror.” His eyes open, flames dancing in the dark depths. “I could go into great detail of the battle, but I won’t. All you need to know is that it was long and ruthless, and from it great pains spread.”
“You fought with Zeus?”
His jaw pops as his teeth clench. “Alongside all my brothers and sisters, yes. We fought for hundreds of years, warring to contain the Titans and their ruthless rule. Stirrings of discontent had already begun between the Gods and Titans, when Cronus was castrated and forced to expel the Gods he’d consumed in his quest to ensure his offspring never became more powerful. We slid easily into war. By the time we contained the Titans in Tartarus, which at this point I’d bound to the Underworld, we were a ruthless species not all that different from our predecessors whom we’d fought to save the earth from.”
As his pause stretches into the sounds of celebration in Asphodel City, my mind whirs with new questions.
“What happened after?”
“The Gods assembled. We were assigned, by luck of a draw if you believe it, the realms we would rule. Zeus took Olympus, Poseidon took the Seas, the Ocean.”
“And you took the Underworld.”
“I did.” He dips his chin into his chest. “At first, it was simply my duty, but as the years passed, I fell deeper and deeper into the pits of despair. Resentment was the only taste on my tongue, and it was vile.”
“What happened to the giants? The species of humans Prometheus created?”
“Zeus found them lacking.” Hades smirks. His hand travels from where it rested this entire time on my belly to curl gently around my jaw so that he can capture my eyes with his own. “Tell me, Persephone, in all your studies into the mythology of Greece.” His eyes dance with an amusement that has nerves twisting in my belly. “Did you happen across the great Deucalion flood?”
“No.” I shake my head, brows furrowed even as he grins down at me.
“It is one of the more buried stories of our past, but there if you seek it.” There is a wariness building within me. I don’t know why…until he speaks again. “With the goal to purify the land from that which had come before his creation, Zeus opened the sky to a torrential rain that flooded the land. For months, the waters of Olympus merged with the waters of the seas, claiming all life that existed before. Humans of his choosing, however, had been warned. They had built an ark, much like…”
“Don’t say it.”
Hades laughs. “They were the only surviving humans from the time before. It is with their accounts; history was first written. Why Zeus didn’t end them all to begin anew, I do not know. But I do know he quickly began creating more humans to populate the barren lands.”
“And you?”
“I was sequestered to the Underworld, unwelcome in the Earthly realm.” Tension lines his face, darkening his eyes. “I became the God of Death, a being so feared by the humans I’d grown to care so deeply for, that they refused even to speak my name. When they did, it was in hushed tones of terror that I might hear. That I might reap their souls.”
“Hades…”
“I spent centuries alone and feared, my sacred temples barren. I knew only darkness and despair—only the cries of sorrow that spilled from the souls who found themselves lost to a realm of death. I think—I think I became a mad God, in a sense.”
My heart is aching. Every throb is a pulse of pain for the man who clearly still aches for the history he holds. “Why would you not be welcome in the Earthly realm?”
“Zeus did not wish to share the power. Even Poseidon was sequestered to the seas, isolated.” Under his breath, he mutters, “I assume it is why he took Atlantis as he did.”
“Atlantis?” I perk up at the mention of the lost city.
Hades smiles gently at me. “A story for another time.”
I want to press, but something about the look of stark pain on his face has me staying my tongue.
Hades caresses me gently. “Please understand that I was terribly alone. When a soul—any soul—is isolated as I was, for as long as I was, there is an inevitable madness that forms.” His eyes search my own, begging me to understand. “I longed for more, you understand, Persephone?”
I nod, even though I am not sure I do. I’ve never felt a loneliness such as the kind he describes. I can’t even imagine. Can’t begin to comprehend.
And therefore, I cannot judge.
Lifting my hand to the one that still holds my jaw, I give him a gentle squeeze. “I’m listening, Hades.”
“It was the first time I’d risen from the Underworld in centuries. The light was so bright. The scent of the earth so sweet. But nothing was so bright or so sweet as the girl in the garden. She’d been surrounded by other girls, but I could barely see them beyond her. She took every ounce of my focus. She possessed every thought and desire I could form. She felt like life when all I’d had for centuries had been death. I’d had to have her, the girl in the garden. The little goddess.” His eyes bore deep into mine. I feel stripped impossibly raw. I don’t even think I am breathing. He is peering so deep into me, even the soul I harbour deep within feels ravaged. “I had to have you.”