Chapter 5 Eternal Bride
Not bothering to linger in front of her door this time, I decided to get the headache over with and immediately knocked. “Persephone? We need to talk.” My tone was a mix of both command and gentleness.
“I have nothing to say to you,” she shouted back, her voice muffled like she had her face pressed against something.
“Open the door or I’ll come in myself.” The urge to beat my head against the door in both frustration and the impending dread over this conversation was monstrous.
Persephone guffawed, and I could hear silk sheets shifting. “If you’ve been able to come in here at will, why haven’t you already?”
“As a courtesy,” I answered through gritted teeth. “Open the door.”
After an exaggerated sigh, thudding footsteps led to the door, which was then haughtily swung open. Despite Persephone’s hair in disarray, the dark circles under her eyes, and most of her tanned skin already turning pale, she still managed to take my breath away by her beauty.
“What?” She spat, giving me a seething glare.
Then there was that mouth. Its venomous tone was enough to haul me back to reality despite her pretty distraction.
Not asking for an invitation because this was still my home, I moved past her, throwing out a stiff arm when she tried to shut the door on me, and easily overpowering her.
“What are you doing? You said we needed to talk. Conversation can just as easily happen from a hallway.” Persephone slammed the door, attempting to get a rise out of me, but I wasn’t flinching.
“Have your minimal days down here made you lose all sense of civility?” I motioned to one of two lounge chairs surrounding a circular white marble table with golden filigree. “Have a seat.”
“I’d rather stand.” Persephone crossed her arms, and no sooner had the words left her mouth than I lifted my hand, guiding my smoke magic to make her sit.
Persephone gasped, pink flushing her neck, her nails digging into the armrests. “Did you just—”
“You will be allowed back to the surface,” I interrupted, locking my gaze with hers.
Happiness brightened her face, a glee I’d soon have to squelch with hard truths. A wide smile pulled at her lips, and her eyes glistened. Persephone went to stand up, but I flicked my hand, keeping her put. “What are you doing? I need to gather my things, need to—”
“There’s more to it, darling.” I kept my voice as even as I could.
The smile faded into a deep frown. “What do you mean?”
Turning my back to her, I paused a moment to scan the room—the bed was unmade, several items were strewn haphazardly on the floor, some of them broken.
The drapes had been torn from the rods and left in a heap.
“You may return to the surface for six months, but back to the Underworld for the remaining six months.”
“What—” She breathed out, her arms going lax on the chair. “—you said I could never go back to the surface. How am I given an allotted time? Why can’t I go back then?”
Appearing in front of her, I let my canines grow to half their actual length, following it up with a subdued growl. “You broke the rules, Persephone. There is no way to get around the consequence. You should be happy you’re getting that time at all.”
She’d appeared frightened of me at first, leaning away in her chair. It transgressed into sadness and then anger. “You don’t have to be so cruel about this. To me.”
“Isn’t that how you see me, darling?” Moving forward, I rested my hands on the armrests, caging her and clacking my claws against the wood.
“I’ve been nothing but kind to you since I brought you down here.
I was understanding of you when we realized you were stuck here.
And what did I receive in return? Hate and disdain.
” She’d pressed so far into the seat away from me that she made the chair legs squeak, but I pulled her back to me.
“Why should I be expected to show such kindness, hm? It’s exhausting. ”
Tears formed in her eyes, glistening like spent star dust. Persephone defiantly lifted her chin, her gaze lingering on my robes before lifting to my face. “Are you done? Or can I now be alone in my room for the next six months?”
“No, I’m not done. Because there’s more.” Standing, I made my ember wings peek out and the fiery crown atop my head blaze brighter.
Persephone’s defiance turned petrified, and she gulped. “What?”
“You are to become Queen of the Underworld. You’ll be taking on duties and responsibilities.” I steepled my fingers and ensured our eyes met. “And wed to me.”
Her entire body shook, and she launched from the seat. “No. No, I refuse.”
Zeus’s words played over and over in my head. I despised that I’d have to relay the same threat to her, knowing she honestly had no choice, but she had to understand this was the best scenario for her. “You can’t refuse, Persephone. Either you become queen or spend every waking day down here.”
The spring goddess wrapped her arms around herself, those impending tears rolling down her cheeks now and mutilating my blackened heart. “What are you trying to say?”
Floating closer to her, I settled the wings behind me, momentarily relishing how her gaze appeared mesmerized by the embers for a beat. “Those six months you’re allotted are only if you become queen.”
Persephone’s shoulders hunched forward, and she hugged herself tighter. “I—” Her lips parted, and the sheer hatred for me shone so profusely in those sapphire eyes. “I—” She started again, but still no more words followed.
“Get some rest. You don’t have to decide tonight.” Turning away from her, I made for the door, pausing with a last glance at her over my shoulder. “But know that becoming queen is your best option. There’s no getting out of the Underworld, Persephone.”
She didn’t respond to that and gave her back to me, her shoulders bouncing as she began to sob.
Frowning, keeping my jaw tightened, I floated through the door to leave her be until tomorrow.
It’d been tolerable the past few days of no longer hearing her weeping through the night.
Hearing it again drove a spike through my chest, attempting to chisel at the protective stone.
No good would come from sugar-coating any of it.
It was a harsh truth and even harsher reality. Kindness would only create a facade.
I’d spent the better half of the night welcoming souls to the Underworld, siphoning them from Styx and allowing them freedom to roam as ghosts for their afterlife.
I had just bound a mortal man to a fiery wheel for eternity as his eternal punishment in Tartarus when Cerberus’ warning howls alerted me.
Porting to him, I found my canine companion growling with one head, snapping his jaws with another, and the third had its ears drawn back as if he wasn’t sure what he was doing would get him in trouble.
Persephone hung from her room’s window, grasping to the tied-together linens from the bed.
She kicked at Cerberus, screaming bloody terror and trying to climb back up.
Sighing, I rubbed my temples and floated closer to the scene unfolding before me. “Persephone, my dear, may I ask what you are doing?”
Cerberus let out a disapproving huff, his breath sending Persephone’s golden locks pluming skyward. “I thought I could—” Grunting, she clung to the sheets, shrieking when she started to lose her footing and the distance to the cave floor was several meters.
Watching her fingers slowly slip away from the linens, I appeared in time to catch her, and she landed cradled in my arms. With Persephone this close to me and not defiantly spitting hateful words at me for condemning her, it made my damn chest tighten to the point of celestial suffocation.
Persephone sucked in a breath and blinked those big blue eyes at me. “Thank you.” When she realized I was holding her, that I’d saved her from falling, her gratitude was short-lived. “Put me down.”
Doing precisely as she asked and because she didn’t have the decency to say please, I let go, and her ass flopped straight to the floor. Given she was a goddess, she wouldn’t have broken anything—physically anyway.
Persephone let out a frustrated screeching growl, her hands lifting from the moist floor before scrambling to her feet. “What is wrong with you?”
“Would you like me to list them off?” Raising my brows at her, I floated to Cerberus when she didn’t respond. “Good boy,” I cooed, scratching his chest and making his back leg bounce.
“Good boy? He tried to bite one of my limbs off,” Persephone declared.
Cerberus growled at her for that.
“He was only doing his job. Which tells me that you were trying to escape.” I hadn’t been looking at her, but turned now, still petting my dog. “How much clearer do I have to make this before you understand the predicament you’re in?”
“The room had a window, and I refuse to believe there isn’t a way out of this place. So, I thought—” A crease formed between Persephone’s eyes, and she palmed her face. “I don’t know what I thought.”
There were means of escaping, hence Cerberus’ purpose, but most never made it that far, and if they did? Thanatos would find them a breath later, or worse—Zeus would. And for that, she would never know of it.
“I’m curious. After you successfully made it out of your window, were it not for Cerberus stopping you, what was your plan after that?
” It was genuine curiosity, but also a question to make her realize her rash decision-making could and would get her into deeper trouble than she’d already dug herself into.
“I don’t know,” Persephone spat, throwing her hands haughtily to her hips.
Casually leaning on Cerberus’ side, I sought to dig the knife deeper. “Do you know your way around the Underworld? These cave corridors, I’ll warn you, are like a maze. If you don’t know its layout, you could easily get lost for days.”
Her arms flopped to her sides. “You wouldn’t come find me?”
I gave a nonchalant shrug. “Eventually.”
Persephone frustratingly threw her hands in the air and walked a tightly made circle several times.
Gripping her hair with both hands, she stammered to herself.
It was a bunch of light whispering and so frantic I could scarcely make it out.
Something like, “What else am I going to do?” “I’m stuck. ” “I have no choice.”
“Can we get it over with?” She finally blurted, staring at me with frightened doe-like eyes, her left leg bouncing.
“You’ll have to be a bit more specific, darling. Get what over with?” I knew full well what she’d meant, but given the circumstances that led us here, I didn’t want her to have any more ammunition against me.
“Queen. Make me queen. Just be done with it.” Persephone scrunched her nose and folded her arms tightly to her chest.
“No pomp and ceremony?” Flicking dirt from one of my claws, I sucked on my teeth.
She guffawed and shook her head. “Ceremony? No. I don’t need any of it.
When I envisioned my wedding day, it was set against a vast, flowering meadow, with the sun gracing the union.
My friends were there—my mother. And I wore a pale pink dress with a floral circlet.
It most certainly wasn’t this—” She referred to the dank cave and darkness surrounding us. “—or you.”
My lip bounced, the canines growing in my mouth. “We agree on something then. I never imagined marrying anyone, let alone a woman who looks at me with such hatred you could swear she wished to see my head on a spike.”
Persephone looked away, guilt momentarily pulling a frown to her lips, but she quickly swiped it away, replacing it with that icy glare. She went silent as a wandering soul.
Irritation coiled through me, sending my wings furling to their full length. Her eyes widened, the orange hue from the blazing embers reflecting in her gaze. “Fine.” I curled a hand over her forearm. “Come with me.”
Porting us to the throne room, I positioned us in front of my throne with Persephone facing me. “Zeus,” I roared, my deep voice reverberating off the cave walls. I didn’t need to call out for him, but I wanted her to hear it.
Zeus appeared within seconds, clad in his kingly armor and crown. Persephone gasped at the sight of him, attempting to back away, but I held onto her, keeping her put.
“Well, well, you actually did it, brother.” Zeus propped himself against his spear and grinned at Persephone, his eyes casting to her feet and lifting until he reached her face.
“Not the time,” I snarled.
Zeus gave a curt nod and stood tall with his spear held in one hand. “Persephone, do you wish to be Queen of the Underworld?”
Persephone whimpered, the tip of her nose turning pink from building tears. She nodded.
“I need to hear you say it, spring goddess.” Zeus arched a brow, waiting for her.
Persephone sucked in a shaky breath before forcing out, “Yes.”
A satisfied smirk slid over Zeus’s lips, and he banged his spear on the ground. Lightning circled his arms and blazed in his eyes. “Done.”
Persephone stumbled backward and would’ve tripped over a stone were it not for my grip on her.
Her breathing became heavier, and she peered at her stomach.
A flowing, sparkling pale pink dress formed over her body, with small patches of flowers sewn into the fabric throughout.
Atop her head, a vibrant flower circlet formed, made of gold, silver, and bronze.
“Enjoy the consummation portion of the marriage, Hades,” Zeus teased, spinning the spear’s handle in his palm.
Persephone’s now brighter blue eyes widened with fear.
“That wasn’t part of the deal,” I growled to my pig-headed brother.
Zeus chuckled. “Fair enough. But it would be so like you not to take advantage of a marriage.” Shaking his head, Zeus sliced the air, creating a porting window to the surface, and disappeared.
Persephone was in my face, pointing and borderline hysterical. “If you think for one damn moment that I’m slee—”
Snatching her hand, I raised my brows, silently asking her to be quiet. “You’ll be going to your room alone tonight, Persephone. Tomorrow, we start your training.” I let her go and swiveled on my heel.
“Don’t I get a throne?” She asked behind me.
Flaring my wings, I curtly replied, “When you’ve earned it.”