10. Hades
Hades
H e was shaking.
He was shaking uncontrollably, and I had no idea how to stop it.
“My love! My love!” I shouted, but my whole world started spinning out of control so fast I couldn’t even hear myself. “Sandro!”
He didn’t respond. He continued to shake, and then foam appeared in his mouth and blood in his eyes, and the more I shouted his name, the worse he seemed to get.
“What in the forsaken chaos—Sandro, can you hear me?”
But of course, he couldn’t.
He couldn’t hear me, see me, or respond. He was slipping away from under my very fingers with every passing moment, and for all my power, I couldn’t stop it.
I was king of the dead, after all, not king of the dying.
“Sandro! My love!”
The shaking stopped.
I stilled, watching him, my breath as worn as my muscles.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how our reunion was meant to be. Not after waiting for him to return to me for so long.
His eyes rolled back, and he took one last breath, and I knew I’d failed him.
I knew I’d failed him because his spirit rose, pale, blue, and transparent, and he looked back at me with knotted eyebrows and a gaping mouth.
“No!” I shouted.
This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t be losing him. Not now. Not ever. Not after all we’d been through to get back to each other.
The more the horror of what had happened hit me, the tenser my body got, the hotter my muscles burned, and the harsher my skin as if someone was trying to flay me.
The fire built from inside me, hot and destructive, and it rose with my voice into a blasting roar that scorched every corner of the bedroom, leaving behind a darkness as black as my heart’s.
The force left my body weak and my head ringing.
I stared at his human body, the empty shell with its beautiful, intricate designs, and I felt as hollow as it was.
“…did you do? Hades, what…do? I thought…I thought you said…”
He waved his ethereal hands in front of my face, and it was only when I realized he was speaking that the ringing in my ears ceased.
“Hades, talk to me. You lied to me. Did you lie to me? You said you could save me.”
I shook my head, but it felt as detached as my heart the moment he died. He may be here, I may feel him, but the human part of me didn’t feel him anymore. It didn’t feel anything anymore.
I’d only had him for a moment. I’d only had our connection, the one we used to share all those thousands of years ago, for a mere moment. We’d barely just mated when he was taken from me, and yet his absence left me even more hollow than all the time I’d waited for him to come back to me.
“I didn’t lie to you, my…love.” Even saying that hurt now he wasn’t here. “This was supposed to work. It wasn’t supposed to kill you. You…you weren’t supposed to… It should have worked.”
“Well, clearly, it didn’t, wanker! You lied to me. You killed me.”
I shook my head. I loathed that he thought I could ever hurt him, that I would ever dare even think of doing this to him.
“You don’t understand, my love. I wouldn’t?—”
“No!” he snapped. “ You don’t understand. You lied to me. You lied to my family. You’re lying to yourself. And now?—”
His spirit started to lift, to move away from me and his dead body, and I could only watch in horror.
Was this pain never going to end?
“What’s happening? What are you doing?”
“I’m…I’m not doing anything, my love. Your…spirit…” My words jumbled together, and I choked on my saliva. “It’s being taken away.”
“What? No. What are you…? No! Put me back. Put me back in my body.”
I shook my head.
“I can’t. I can’t bring the dead to life. That’s not my domain.”
“What do you mean you can’t? You’re the god of the Dead, dammit. Act like it.”
He was right.
I didn’t have to lose him.
Not yet.
I raised my hand, and with as calm a breath as I could muster, I directed my eternal fire of damnation toward him.
Sandro flinched away from it, but it didn’t hurt him. I’d never do that to him. Neither dead nor alive. Even if everything pointed to the contrary.
The flames enveloped him and his spirit started drifting back to me.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, raising my hand to caress his cheek.
He may be transparent and intangible to humans, but I could still touch him in a way. He wasn’t exactly solid like his body underneath me, but I could still feel him. Feel something, even if it wasn’t the warmth he used to have as a living being.
He was like a blast of air. I could feel it, I could sway it, but I couldn’t fully grab him.
“I promise you, my love, I didn’t betray you. I had no part in this.”
Sandro stared at me, leaned into my touch, and licked his lips before the tears ran down his face.
“I believe you. I think.”
His voice was low, dejected even, and I couldn’t fault him for that. After everything, all my promises, I had still failed him. I was too late.
“Now what?” He looked down at his human body and sighed.
“I…I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I wish I could heal you. That I could bring you back to life, but?—”
“Not your domain. Yeah, you said.” Another sigh.
I shouldn’t be the source of his depression. I should be making him feel loved, happy. Alive. I’d failed my duty to him like I’d failed him all those years ago when he’d been taken away from me by his cruel, terrible mother.
“Wait. You…you may be unable to bring me back to life, but I know someone who can.”
I remembered him mentioning a healer.
“You told me you already tried them, and they weren’t able to save you.”
Sandro shrugged.
“But that time was about my illness. Maybe he can heal my…well, my death.”
I was all out of ideas. And maybe he was right.
“Where is he? Who is he? I’ll go get him. I’ll get him here and get him to…try.”
“Tomasz. Tomasz Nowak.”
That name.
I knew that name. In fact, it was only recently that he had died but brought himself back to life.
He may not have belonged to me and my kingdom, but I knew of all the dead. Even those who had reversed their predicament.
“I’ll go get him now.”
“I’d be careful. His boyfriend is?—”
I raised my hand and shook my head.
“I don’t care who his boyfriend is. I can deal with him. I can deal with both of them. Now, you stay here, and I’ll be right back with the healer.”
I started to call forth my flames but paused.
I couldn’t leave him alone. I would only be gone for a moment, but…
“Here.” I leaned forward, unhooked the Night Crown from his human body, and turned to put it around his spirit.
As soon as it touched him, it took his ethereal form, and the stone in the middle of the pendant crackled as it encompassed him with its magic.
“Just in case they come,” I told him.
He looked at me as he stroked the chain.
“Just in case who comes?”
“The Wraiths. The shadows that claim unjudged souls.”
“Oh. That’s right.” He sighed, and his head dropped to his chin.
“It can’t protect you for long, but it should be enough until I’m back.”
“Why don’t you bind me to something?”
I shook my head.
“If you become a ghost, there’s no coming back. That I know for sure. I won’t be long.”
I didn’t linger. I couldn’t afford to. The more time passed, the less chances Sandro had of being brought back to life by this healer.
I breathed deeply and let my flames wrap around me, feeling the weight in my heart at leaving him behind. At what would happen if I couldn’t save him.
No. I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. There was still hope. And his name was Tomasz.
My eternal flames knew where to take me, and that was exactly what they did. When I stepped out of them, I found myself in a bedroom, two naked men lying in bed on top of one another.
A big, muscular man on the bottom and a young, freckled man straddling him, one’s cock deep inside the other’s ass.
“What the—” the bulkier man shouted.
“Tomasz Nowak?” I asked, and from how the younger man flinched, I could tell he was the one. “You’re coming with me.”
I tried to sound cordial about it, but only a growl came out when I set eyes on the boy who had cheated death.
“Like hell he is!” the other man said with a huff, and he pushed Tomasz off him, his muscles flexing as he readied to launch at me.
“I don’t have time for you.” I waved my flames and they pinned him to the wall.
“Don’t you dare touch him. You hear me? You don’t know who you’re dealing with!” the man growled.
“Neither do you, big guy.” I turned my attention to Tomasz, and he backed against a wardrobe.
“Who—” He looked so terribly innocent backed against it, as naked as the day he was born, with wide gray eyes trained on me.
This? This was the man who had cheated death?
“Who are you?” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he asked his question, and I grinned.
“Your worst nightmare!” I grabbed him by the wrist and allowed the flames to wrap around us. And as his lover struggled to get free, I took us back to my love.
“What the—” Tomasz took in the charred surroundings before his gaze landed on my soulmate. “Sandro?” He rubbed his wrist and dropped down to Sandro’s dead body. “Wh-what did you do to him?”
His spirit was still there, squatting beside himself.
“Tomasz! Why…why is he naked?”
“He was in the middle of what we just did,” I said.
“What? Who are you talking to?” Tomasz asked.
His accent was sharp and different from Sandro’s.
“And you couldn’t let him get dressed first?” Sandro asked.
“There’s no time to waste,” I told my lover before I turned to the healer. “You need to heal him. Now.”
Tomasz stared at me defiantly, which only brought the roaring flames out of me.
“That’s not a request. That’s an order,” I snapped, and the healer flinched.
“Hades!” Sandro exclaimed. “He’s my friend. Be nice.”
“What did you do to him?” Tomasz touched his body and snatched his hand back away. “He’s so cold. How long has he been dead?”
“Not long,” I growled.
“Okay, you better start giving me some answers, or my boyfriend won’t be so nice when he finds you. You’ve already pissed him the hell off. What did you do to Sandro? Who are you?”
“I don’t have time for?—”
Sandro’s spirit shimmered, and he reappeared beside me, his hand on my naked chest right where my heart ought to be. He looked into my eyes.
“Please be nice. He’s not an enemy. He’s my only chance.”
I huffed and nodded at my lover.
I couldn’t resist him. Not then, nor now. Not alive or dead.
“He’s my godmate. We were separated thousands of years ago, and he was dying because he needed to be reunited with me. So we performed our mating ritual in order to save his life, but…”
“It didn’t work.” Tomasz looked from me to Sandro’s body, and despite the situation I’d thrown him in, he seemed to understand the severity.
“No. It didn’t.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
My chest filled with air, my mouth with bile. “What do you think?” I shouted.
“Easy, H. Easy.” Sandro soothed, stroking my arm and causing goosebumps where he touched.
“I’ve tried it before. I tried to heal him, but it didn’t work either. Why do you think this time will be different?”
“Because he thinks so.”
“He?” Tomasz asked.
“Sandro.” I turned to look at my dead lover and swallowed a lump in my throat.
This wasn’t going to work. I knew it wasn’t going to work. But Sandro thought it would, so we had to try. After that? I didn’t know what I’d do.
“He…he’s here?” Tomasz turned to where I was looking, but naturally, he couldn’t see his friend.
I nodded.
“Okay. I’ve got…so many questions?—”
“Save them,” I snapped.
Tomasz grimaced but turned his attention back to the dead body before him. He took Sandro’s hand and stroked it.
I wanted to shout at him to stop doing that, to tell him only I had the right to do that, but I knew it would be…counterproductive at best.
The healer leaned into Sandro’s face, and I almost lost it, but before I could do something I’d regret because he dared to kiss him, I realized he was only whispering in his ear.
A whisperer.
They were a rare breed of witches with unlimited power, and I hated every single one of them.
Except Tomasz. If he brought Sandro back to life, I’d hand him my entire kingdom.
Tomasz took a deep breath and whispered again. Sandro sat on the other side of the bed, and Pluto appeared beside him, also waiting for the result.
My stomach clenched when Tomasz started to move and craned his neck to look back at me.
“I’m sorry but…I can’t. It doesn’t work.” His words were almost as inaudible as his whispers in Sandro’s ear, but they twisted my insides so hard he may as well have screamed.
“That’s it. It’s over,” Sandro said and hugged his dog, tears streaming down his face.
“No!” I shouted.
It couldn’t be.
That couldn’t be the end of our story. It couldn’t be. We had waited so long to continue our love story. He couldn’t die when we’d finally managed to reunite.
I didn’t know how to fix this, but I, Hades, king of the Underworld, would die before I let this be the end.
“No! It’s over when I say it’s over!”