Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
H ades
I see it the moment it happens. The death of hope. The light that flickers from her eyes, dulling the life . The settling into—the perceived acceptance—of her assumed insanity.
She collapses into herself, her knees hitting the cushion of the bed. She looks delicate beneath the fabric of the shirt I changed her into. My shirt. One with buttons that stretch taut at the top as the shirt falls to bare one pale shoulder that shudders violently on an unhinged sob.
Her hands twist into the soft material of the sheets. The threads weaved from the weeping heart of the small violet buds that bloom at the tip of each needled limb covering the trees that dot the Grove of Persephone.
They bloom only twice a year. Once when she would come to me—to the Underworld. And once when she would leave.
Once to weep with joy and once to weep with grief.
I move fast, not bothering to slow myself to human speed. The secret has been unveiled. Hiding from her now would only serve to harm her.
She gasps when one moment, I’m on the other side of the room where the shadows meet the raining starlight, and in the other, I’m not only in front of her but touching her.
She blinks wide, emerald eyes at me. They glisten with tears that threaten to score the very heart that beats in my chest. I firm my hands on either side of her face, forcing her gaze to mine when she dares to look away.
Firmly, I tell her, “You are not insane. You have not lost touch with reality or your mind. Not once.” A tear falls from her eye to glide down soft skin. “Every time you thought you were losing your mind, it was real. Every vision was a memory. Everything you saw—Poseidon in the sea, the fire in my eyes— is real.”
“Oh, my God,” she mumbles, but I can hear the hysterical disbelief that clings to her words. She doesn’t believe me.
She thinks this, too, is in her mind. Only time will prove her wrong.
Time that, if she is brave enough to gift me her soul, we will have an eternity of.
Still, I quirk a grin as I warn her, “And every time you call to your God, it’s me who hears. Me with the power to answer.”
The flush of pink in her cheeks is delicate, but the shock I taste in the air between us has me tipping my head curiously. She breathes, “Leuce said something along those lines.”
Her glistening eyes lift to the brow I arc. “What, exactly, did Leuce say?”
I hear her thought in my head as clearly as I would if she’d spoken aloud. God, this can’t be real.
“It is very real, Persephone.”
Her eyes widen. Her lips, with just a little more color than before, part. Oh, my God, I need a drink.
“Wine or something stronger? Whiskey, perhaps?” I don’t dare offer her Charon’s brew. Some things even Gods don’t come back from.
She lurches in my hands, but I don’t let her escape me. She whispers, “Impossible.”
“Very few things are truly impossible, little goddess.”
Her eyes shutter closed before opening again. Then they narrow on me.
She tests, God, I’ve always been attracted by the idea of Hades—but something about Ares, God of War, really turns me on. He’s so powerful and virile and…
Even though I know she is pushing me, testing me, jealousy burns inside me. “Careful, little goddess. You don’t want to make me jealous.”
Her mouth drops. She composes herself after some time enough to murmur, “You really can hear my thoughts?”
“Only the ones you direct to me.”
“You?”
“Your God.”
“You’re not my God.”
“I am your only God, Persephone. You are my Goddess. My wife. My Mate.”
“You—you’re—” She shakes her head, slipping from between my hands. I let her scoot back on the bed, grateful when she doesn’t go far. She looks to the side, her eyes drinking in the room, my room, slowly. I watch her, fascinated and fearful of the emotions that play without even a curtain of shadow to conceal them. She is an open book, the pinnacle of honesty. Her eyes tip up to the ceiling, reflecting the falling glow of stars now lit in a crystal sky of electric purple. “I don’t know how this is possible. I don’t know how I am supposed to believe this.”
“In time, the truth will become clear.”
Her eyes slide slowly to me. Noc whines again. Under my shirt she wears, I watch the rise and fall of her breasts with one deep breath. She admits low, “I can’t tell if this is all in my head. If I’ve just slipped so deep into insanity, into some fantasy in my mind to never again wake from. To never escape from.”
“Do you wish to escape, Persephone?”
“I—” Her eyes drift once again to the ceiling, down the black walls of raw mountain, before being called by a gentle, warm breeze to the dark curtains touched with the faintest hue of violet that dance before a sprawling, carved obsidian balcony. They shift again to Noc, and back to the balcony. “I don’t know.”
I lower to sit on the bed, fighting my grin when her curious eyes snap back to me. Noc takes my movement as invitation to jump on the bed, scooting cautiously toward her.
I ask, “What would make you want to stay?”
She smirks. “Maybe I would want to stay if this was more than my overactive imagination. If it was, indeed, real.”
“The Underworld is a very real place, little goddess. It is filled with very real souls who have lived and lost and loved. Who continue to live and love within the safety of the cities of this realm.”
She blinks, then blanches. Her pitch rises with every word. “Am I—did I—am I dead ?”
Her utter horror at the thought makes me grin. Humans, and their boxed idea of death .
“No, Persephone. You are very much alive and well.”
“Then how can I be here? If it’s true and this is really the Underworld, then only the dead may enter.”
“The dead and those possessing the immortal souls of Gods and Goddesses. Also, those whom I specifically invite into this realm.”
“And you invited me?”
She’s in denial of the immortal soul of the goddess that lives within her.
She won’t be for long. “Your soul has always been permitted entry into the Underworld.”
She shakes her head, as though trying to shake off the insanity of it all. It won’t work, we both know it, but it’s interesting to watch her try.
“So, I’m not dead, then?”
“No.”
Her brows draw together in a deep frown as she pulls the corner of her bottom lip into her mouth, latching onto it with her blunt little teeth. She sucks it in thought. She’s riveting in all that she does.
She releases her lip to ask, “I can’t remember anything before—before this. I was—I was at the house with everyone. In—in bed.” Her nose scrunches with concentration. Noc nudges her hands with his nose. Absently, she pets him. “Willa was snoring…”
I watch her struggle with memories that won’t come. Not yet. Although her soul is that of an ancient and powerful goddess, her mind and body are entirely human. And the human mind is a fragile, fickle thing. It dislikes change and, contrary to their obsession with fantasy in fiction, the human mind abhors the fantastical when it contradicts reality to such an extreme. It is not abnormal for it to entirely wipe away memory in favor of what it perceives as sense. In favor of comfort.
Her eyes lift again to mine. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened after that. After I was in my bed next to Willa. I just know something happened.”
Oh, something most definitely happened. Fucking Demeter happened.
I could tell her, could reveal the truths that would force her mind to face the reality of her recent past. Perhaps she could enlighten me to that which occurred in the moments before I arrived with Cerberus. Perhaps she knows what it was Demeter wanted with her in the temple where one of the Underworld’s most famed portals once stood.
Or perhaps it would be too much too soon.
I rise from the bed, extending my hand toward her. “Come. I’d like to show you your new home.”
I think she is going to refuse me, but she surprises me when she pulls her hands from Noc to place her hand in mine. She rises, moves to the edge of the bed, and pauses before me. She isn’t much taller than me like this, tiny little goddess.
I tip my head back just a fraction to meet her eyes as she speaks, “I don’t know if this is real or if I’m just dreaming. Maybe I’ve slipped into the prison of my mind, and I’ll never escape. Maybe I’m in a coma.” Her lips tremble, just a bit, but her eyes stay fixed on mine. “Either way, I’m happy that wherever I am, I am here with you.”