22. Meg
MEG
I wake up pressed between two bodies I know intimately. Hercules has a big hand bracketing my hip, but from the way they’re moving, they’re making out over my head. Both their hips shift as if seeking each other, except I’m in the middle, keeping them from closing that last bit of distance.
If I had any self-respect at this point, I’d bolt out of the bed and retreat to my bedroom to brood in peace.
I came here last night to escape the demons nipping at my heels, and yet here they are, thrusting their hard cocks against me.
If I leave, will they even pause? Or will they get right to fucking without the slightest bit of hesitation?
I don’t know. I don’t even know what I want.
I’m not fool enough to think their relationship only exists when I’m in the room.
It’s not true for me and each of them; why should it be true for them together?
Expecting that—wanting that—is ugly and horrible and selfish of me.
Hades drags his hand across my side to delve between my thighs. The shock of the touch has my eyes flying open. Hercules breaks their kiss and looks down at me, his blue eyes already gone hazy with pleasure. “Good morning, Meg.”
“I—”
Hades chooses that moment to push two fingers into me. “Did you think we wouldn’t notice you waking up?”
That’s exactly what I thought. I swallow hard. “You were busy.”
“Never too busy for you.” Hercules shifts down to kiss me, and I can taste Hades on his tongue. He barely lets me sink into him before he lifts his head. “You tensed up. Why?”
Is he seriously asking me this while Hades fingers me? I arch up to take his mouth again, but he moves back, staying just out of reach.
Hades chooses that moment to withdraw his fingers and deliver a stinging slap to my clit. “Answer him, love.”
When I craved being the center of their attention, I didn’t anticipate this .
I open my mouth but hesitate. Admitting my selfish thoughts might as well pave the way for them to leave me.
The fear feels a little irrational right now, with Hercules reaching down to lightly stroke my clit and Hades moving to finger-fuck me from behind.
It doesn’t mean it’s not valid or that it won’t leave me so incredibly vulnerable.
“Can we please just get down to the orgasms and stop talking so much?”
Hades’s lips brush the curve of my ear. “No.” He pushes a third finger into me. “Answer his question.”? 2
I can’t think past what they’re doing to me, past the way their presence overwhelms me from both sides. The truth spills from my lips, sharp and painful. “I feel like I’m unnecessary. Replaceable.”
Hercules inhales sharply. “What?”
Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “Hades shares with you what he won’t share with me. He doesn’t shut you out.” God, it hurts to admit that, hurts more than I could imagine.
Hades stops fucking me with his fingers, but he doesn’t remove them. “You’re still hurting.” He sounds…shocked? But surely that can’t be. Hades knows all, even when I want to shove him out a window for seeing things I’m not willing to share.
“I’m always hurting.” My words don’t have the intended amusement in them. They come out stark. True.
I twist to face him and they allow me to do it.
Hercules wraps his arms and body around my back, giving me comfort in whatever way I’ll allow.
His strength buoys me to speak the truth that’s been lodged in my throat for days.
Longer. I look up into Hades’s dark eyes, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, he’s not holding himself back from me.
He’s right here, close enough to touch in every way that counts.
I swallow hard. I may not get another opportunity to get this out. “You didn’t tell me about them. You’ve stopped telling me anything . I’m not a partner, Hades. I’m just another soldier for you to bend to your will.”
“Not that, love, never that.” He strokes his thumbs over my cheeks and they come away wet with my tears. Hades presses his forehead to mine. “I love you. I may not…show it abundantly at times, but never doubt that I do.”
“I love you too,” I whisper. “I just don’t know if it’s enough.
” The same words I said to Hercules are just as true now as they were then.
That’s the worst part of it. Love is supposed to conquer all, but I’ve known that as a lie most of my adult life.
It felt different with Hades, and that used to be something I cherished.
Now, it seems like every move we make cuts each other, no matter how carefully we maneuver.
“Give us time, Meg.” Hercules kisses the top of my head.
Pain lances through me. “You two want?—”
“No.” Hades shakes his head. “Give us time. All three of us.”
I stare up at him. Surely he isn’t saying what I think he’s saying. I lick my lips, striving to calm my racing heart. It’s no use. “The three of us.”
“Yes.” He looks deadly serious for once. No amusement. No cruelty. Just Hades. “We could be a true triad.” His lips quirk. “At least we could if we get out of each other’s way long enough to make it happen.”
What he’s saying, what they’re both saying…
Surely it can’t be that simple? I’ve seen plenty of successful poly relationships in the Underworld, but we’ve never tried it ourselves.
Yes, we’re open, but that’s different. It’s always just been fucking, with Hades and I circling each other the only constant. “What about your revenge?”
“It will take shape regardless of what happens with us here now.”
The words are right, but something is off in his tone. Maybe he distrusts this perfect solution as much as I do. I run my hands over Hercules’s arms where he holds me. “This can’t be the life you wanted. To chain yourself to us.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about what I want?” Hercules gives me a squeeze. “What I want is you. Both of you.”
“You hate us.” Why can’t I let this go and just accept it? It’s easier to let lust and love have their way than to pick apart their solution, but I can’t seem to stop. “You’re furious at us for lying to you, for trapping you.”
“Yeah, I was.” He chuckles against my hair. “Maybe I’m still kind of pissed, but you were right before: I have no one to blame but myself.”
He’s too good. Too pure. We’ll tarnish him.
It might take a few weeks, months, years, but eventually he’ll lose that shine and start compromising the values that makes Hercules the man he is.
? 3 He won’t be able to avoid it, not if he wants to survive this world.
It hurts me to think about, but telling him to go would hurt too. “This can’t possibly work,” I whisper.
“We won’t know unless we try it for real.” Hercules runs his hands over my body like he’s trying to soothe a startled animal. “We can do this. There will be some bumps along the way, some mistakes, but we can make it work with a whole lot of communication.”
I reach up and tentatively touch Hades’s chin. He’s staring at me like he can read the doubts on my soul. I can’t seem to stop shaking. “This is a trick.”
“No trick.” He covers my hand with his, sealing me to him. “This is…an alternate route.”
An alternate route. As if it is really that simple. “But?—”
“Megaera.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t have to for me to know I won’t like what he’s about to say. “I am not Declan. After all this time, you should know that. I won’t treat you as carelessly as he did. Ever.”
Hercules tenses. “Who is Declan?”
How dare Hades spill forth my darkest shame like that?
His eyes are still tender, but there’s a challenge there now too.
He’s willing to compromise his vengeance, to offer a part of himself up on the altar that could be this new relationship.
Am I willing to do the same? I close my eyes and let the soft sound of their breathing soothe me.
I’m scared. I’m so scared. “Declan is the man who convinced me to bargain myself away to further his own goals. He wanted something only Hades could provide and so he convinced me to make a deal on his behalf. My freedom for his ambition.”
Hercules’s shocked inhale is too pure. “You took that deal?”
“I had my reasons.”
I open my eyes; I can’t help it. Hades is looking at me just like he did that first day, all warmth and danger and a sweet possession that calls to every part of me. I lick my lips. “Do you remember the first thing you said to me upon sealing that bargain?”
He strokes the back of my hand. “That you are destined to be a queen, not some man’s pawn.”
Hercules is still tense behind me. “You let her sell herself for some piece of shit. What the fuck, Hades?”
He lifts his gaze to the man behind me. “I’d think you would know by now that I’m not a good man, little Hercules. I wanted Meg from the first moment I saw her, and when she offered herself to me, I took her.”
Hercules huffs out a breath. “Yeah, I get that. That’s not my problem, Hades. You let that bastard profit off her sacrifice.”
“Ah. That.” Hades presses a kiss to my knuckles and releases me. “Would you like to tell him, love, or should I?”
It’s been a long, long time since I thought about Declan or the beginning of my relationship with Hades—at least before Hercules came into our lives.
He didn’t fuck me that first year I was under contract with him.
He simply trained me in everything from kink to the politics of Carver City.
There were nights where we’d talk for hours after a scene, and I felt like I’d found another part of my soul I didn’t know I was missing.
It strikes me that I have that same sensation with Hercules too, albeit in a very different way.