Chapter Two
Hermes
This is a solemn mission. One my father trusted me with over everyone else. It’s also my first mission. A chance to prove to my father I’m worthy of his trust in me, and my place on Olympus.
My sister is being held prisoner in the Underworld, and her mother holds the power to kill every mortal and creature on Gaia by keeping us in this eternal winter.
It’s not a time to play, and as I pull the goddess of magic into my arms, I can practically imagine Apollo’s scorn if he were here.
Cease your games he’d say, trying to smother the smile he always wears when I’m at mischief.
But I wouldn’t stop, not even if he were here watching.
I’m a god of mischief, and I cannot help what I am, especially in front of this goddess with wide grey eyes that have held my attention from the moment I spotted her.
I should feel guiltier for literally sweeping one of the most powerful goddesses under the Aether off her feet. Even my father, who would seduce anything and everything, holds this goddess in the highest regard.
But as I kick off the ground like a swimmer at the bottom of a pool, and Hecate’s grey eyes go even wider, I find it hard to find the guilt. Her surprise puts us on more even ground. The goddess can do many things, some are already the stuff of legend, but she cannot fly.
The wings on my sandals take flight, bearing us up and up, until we’re level with the roof.
The glorious goddess in my arms squirms like a caught fish, angling this way and that, trying to see where the source of flight is. I’m distracted for a moment by the way her raven-black hair flies about her head.
No one told me she’s breathtaking.
Where has she been hiding? Everyone on Olympus speaks the praises of Hecate, the goddess of magic. They tell tales of how her aid ensured our victory during the Titanomachy, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen her.
Certainly, I would remember if she’d come here before. I’d have touched her. Carried her off.
And not just one some rescue mission for my sister.
Finally taking pity on her—her rosebud mouth pinching consternation is too much when I must concentrate on flying us safely—I kick out my leg, letting her spot the flash of gold wings.
“Gift from Hephaestus,” I tell her. She frowns down at the sandals a moment before shaking her head.
“Seems unwise,” she tells me. “How do you stay balanced?”
“The same way as anyone else, I suppose.” I wag my eyebrows, trying to wheedle a smile out of her. “Magic.”
She doesn’t disappoint, and the flash of her grin is as bright as Apollo’s sun. “I should have expected such an answer.”
“You should have,” I agree as I fly us down the mountain side. Boreas tries to blow us off course, but the sandals fly true. It will take more than a spiteful wind to blow them off course.
Hecate, however, might. She tightens her arms around me, pressing her face close to shield it from the wind, and I stutter in mid air as the closeness sends my ichor leaping.
And my traitorous cock hardening.
I lean my hips away from her as best as I can. The skirt of my chiton hides nothing at the best of times, and this is hardly the time to make her uncomfortable.
If only Boreas could send his wind to chill my cock.
I focus on anything but the warm press of Hecate as I fly us down the mountain side. The mission ahead, what we might find down in the Underworld. Apollo’s face if I steal more of his kine.
The last one cools my ardor, but not my amusement, and I’m stifling a grin as we land.
Hecate is quick to pull away. I drink her in greedily as she smooths her hair down and adjusts her cloak. “There’s a crossroads over here,” she says, cheeks flushed. With cold, or with something else?
I shouldn’t be so tempted, so distracted.
“Lead the way,” I tell her, shaking my head to clear it. Not now. Perhaps not ever.
Focus on why we’re here. There’s too much at stake for this.
Fortunately, Hecate’s magic is a fine distraction.
Torches appear in her hands, flame flickering wildly in the wind but never extinguishing.
It illuminates twin shadows on the road, though where they originate from is unclear.
She crosses the torches over each other before slowly drawing them apart.
And the ground yawns open before her, a chasm splitting Gaia apart.
“Follow me,” she says, giving me no time to gawk, though the urge is near irrepressible.
The entry into the Underworld, is gentle, sloping even, but the darkness swallows us up quickly as the world closes the open wound Hecate opened in the earth.
It leaves us with only the glow of Hecate’s torches. Even she is practically shadow with her black hair, cloak and dress. Without those twin flames, I would be lost.
“Have you always done this?” I ask her. The silence is almost as terrible as the darkness, and the need to fill it rises before I can stop myself.
“For as long as I have been,” she replies, and I love the sound of her voice, even when she’s being cryptic.
“Your power is with magic, is it not? I didn’t believe that magic was exclusively a power for the dead.”
She hums, and I duck my head to hide my grin. “No, not magic on its own, but necromancy is.”
“Necromancy?” It’s my turn to widen my eyes. I’d known of her power, certainly, but not every aspect of it.
“Yes, and ghosts.”
I let out a low whistle.
Her reputation was already impressive, her very name spoken with reverence amongst the other gods.
She might be even more impressive knowing her.
“Is there anything you don’t have dominion over?”
A glance over her shoulder at me. Her mouth lifts at the corner. “A few.”
I speed up, eager to walk alongside her. There’s softness behind the dignified goddess, and I determined to bring it out.
We walked along the loamy sands of a river bank.
The waters of the river stirred, dark and deep with little eddies that suggested anyone brave enough to test the waters would be dragged under and never seen again.
Hecate was unconcerned with them, but tension bundled itself between my shoulder blades, drawing them up tight.
Already, I can feel this place draining me, like leeches sucking the ichor from my veins. Father wanted me here. He would not place me in any real danger, but it doesn’t ease my own worries.
His plan is a good one, a sound one, I remind myself. The best way to bring Persephone home to her mother.
And, as I watch Hecate’s long hair swish with every steps, there are other benefits.
Had Zeus known she would come?
It doesn’t matter. He hasn’t laid any claim on her, a rarity to be certain. She’s a virgin goddess, but it won’t stop me from trying. Not with the way she looks at me.
We come to a gate near the edge of a fork in the river, where the dark waters slice through a river of white, pushing it down like it never was. The gate looms large, stretching up into the grey featureless dome that functions like a sky down here, glowing green in the dim, unfocused light.
There’s no wall, no other barrier, but Hecate leads me through the gate anyway.
I shiver as the power of it slides over my skin.
The world around me doesn’t brighten, so much as come into sharper focus and suddenly I can see what lies beyond the river—rivers really as there are several sprawled out like twining snakes—fields and roads, and all manner of creatures and spirits prowling the other side.
“Oh,” I breathe.
Hecate turns to me with a smile. “Did you think it was empty?”
“I wondered,” I tell her, turning a circle. It was a bustling place. Loud too, from people speaking, creatures snarling, shades wailing, bemoaning lives now over before drinking from the Lethe.
The snarling from before increases just as a beast catches my eye from across the river. It’s large, impossible to make out through the gloom as more than a hulking shadow, but the snarling grows louder, and multiplies, like a pack of wolves.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, but before I can give voice to the foreboding, the creature vaults clear across the river, landing, skidding onto the shore as it bounds toward us.
And then I realize, it’s a hound. A very large hound with three, growling heads, fangs bared. It’s nearly as tall as a house, though its crouched low to better intimidate me, and I take a step backward, and then another as the three heads thrust towards mine, jaws snapping.
Hecate, however, shows no such concern as she steps between me and the overgrown beast. She snaps her fingers and points down to the ground. “Cerberos. Enough. He’s a guest.”
The dog, appeased, bows his heads. Then, right before my eyes, he shrinks, the hulking behemoth replaced with an average sized, if still three-headed dog. He bumps each head against Hecate’s fingers, his tail—bare as a serpent’s—swishing rapidly through the air.
“Much better,” she tells him, scratching behind his ears. To me, she says, “He’s a guardian. He’s supposed to keep the shades from slipping back out, but sometimes, he decides strangers shouldn’t come in.”
“Strangers or Olympians?”
Hecate hums but doesn’t answer me. Instead, she leads me to the shore where a ferry awaits.
A tight, reeded boat, wide enough to sit ten or more shades.
A hooded figure stands there, a pole in his hand.
He nods in deference to Hecate and helps her aboard before staring at me.
Even with the hood, I can feel the icy chill of his gaze.
“And this one?” He asks, his voice a low chill, like the depths of Poseidon’s ocean.
“He is the messenger of Zeus,” Hecate declares. “He is here to seek an audience with Hades, and he is under my protection.”
The cloaked ferryman shrugs his shoulders. “Hades will not be pleased. He doesn’t want anyone interrupting his time with the maiden.”
Hecate’s lips purse. “That’s precisely why I am interrupting him.”
To this, the ferryman said nothing, but he stepped aside to let me board with Hecate, which I took for a good sign.
Cerberus bounds up with us, coming to lie at Hecate’s feet like a lapdog. My discomfort here grows by the minute, with the dread slipping in to replace the power I’m losing, but Hecate seems to grow taller, glow brighter.
She belongs here. As much, if not more than she does on Gaia. I’m swept up in her orbit, powerless in the face of her, and this place.
I adore it, but I’m just as eager to put us back on even footing. I can’t put my finger on why, but I want her attention. I want the look of surprise and wonder on her face from our flight.
Getting close to her—much too close—is only the first step.
I step up behind her, and at the first jolt of the ferryman pushing us off into the water, I wrap my arms around her waist and drag her back against me.
The gasp she lets out is worth it, but the way she leans back against my chest is an even greater gift.
“Are you afraid I’ll fall here too?” she asks, turning her head to peer up at me.
“Perhaps I’m the one who might fall.” My hands slide their way around her, securing her against me, and the rightness of the movement is striking. She fits here, head tucked beneath my chin, her hair tickling my nose. I want to bury my face in it, breathe in its scent.
It’s not why I’m here, but it’s fast becoming a reason for me to exist.
Like a bolt of lightning, or one of Eros’ arrows, the rightness of this goddess in my arms. I’ve come here with a purpose—one I cannot lose sight of—but once that job is done, I’ll be able to do as I please.
And the first thing I’ll do is lay Hecate out on a bed, put my head between her thighs and teach her all about the pleasure a god can give her.
And then I won’t leave that bed and her for months.
The ferryman cuts a course through the river, untouched by the strong currents that would surely drown a shade or even a god. This leg of our journey is coming to a rapid end, but I’m not ready yet. Not ready to resume my duties as soon as we touch shore.
I slide my hand up, letting it drift between her breasts, savoring the little gasp she gives me, that she doesn’t stop me, until I cup her chin. I can’t say if I turn her head, or she’s already tilting, but I lean down and seal my mouth to hers.
She freezes, a hesitation, but then her hand covers mine, and her lips part. I melt into her as she steals my breath with her kiss. My hand splays across her cheek, and I pull her closer, a growl loosing low in my throat.
I want to lay her down right here on the ferry, take her where everyone could see, where everyone would know she was mine.
The ferry creaks, the pebbles scattering as we land on the far shore. We break apart, breathless. Slowly, she smiles at me, like a slice of light in the darkness.
I help her down, greedy for the chance to pull her close once more, to put my hands on her waist.
“When this is done,” I whisper in her ear, “will you let me see you again?”
Her cheeks flush, and I’m distracted by the way she bites her lip, drawing it between her teeth.
And uncomfortably hard beneath my chiton again.
“Promise me, Hecate.”
If she doesn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do. Turn to stone without her gaze, or worse, chase her to the ends of the earth like Apollo did his conquests. I judged him too harshly. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
“You can see me again.”
I grin and kiss her again. “Then I shall. And again after that.”
As many times as she’ll allow me.