Chapter 13 The Second Day #4
But there was nothing Elke could do for me. I dragged myself back to the diggers. Twelve more of them had lain down since I’d left them. I yelled at everyone to get back to work. I even grabbed a shovel myself, no matter what Hades had said. It was the only way to get anything done.
By some miracle, though, by the end of the period of time that everyone seemed to think of as “a working day,” we did have at least a large part of a shaft running in roughly the right direction.
I hated the idea of ceasing work, but it was no use; the godlings were clearly done and could no longer be corralled, and even I was losing steam after two full days without food.
Elke shepherded me back to the bedchamber.
She left me to my groaning stomach and my thoughts.
Hades wasn’t there.
I found myself disappointed. I had wanted to yell at him for saddling me with such an impossible job. The sick bastard probably wanted me to fail. He was probably just teasing me with hope before he fed me to his monster-god. It probably made the meat taste better.
The pile of gowns was still on the bed. I smoothed them out and laid them on the floor in a neat stack, on the far side of the bed from the fireplace, next to the bookshelf.
Then I looked down at myself. After a day of digging and yelling and stressing the fuck out, the sleek black clothes were wrinkled, smelly, and badly stained.
I found myself wishing I had taken Hades up on his earlier offer of a bath.
I stripped off his clothes. It seemed a shame to place them on top of the beautiful gowns. I folded them instead into their own neat pile and wiped as much dirt from my hair and face as I could. I looked down at myself again, at my naked body this time.
I thought I could see my stomach rumbling.
And I realized I was going to die.
Who was I fucking kidding? I couldn’t make it another whole day without food.
Already I felt faint, like I was going to collapse.
I steadied myself against the edge of the bed.
No, I couldn’t afford to be this vulnerable.
I had to get dressed before the Prince arrived.
The only set of pajamas was the white negligée, which I had smoothed out on the pillow that morning.
It went over my head easily, slipped over my breasts and thighs like water. But I couldn’t appreciate it.
I sank to the floor, my head cradled in my hands.
Faintly, I heard the door open. “Persephone?” Hades’s voice said, suspiciously. He couldn’t see me. I was on the far side of the bed. I thought about just staying down here, hiding, dying in peace. But no. He should at least have to look at what he’d done. I waved weakly.
Hades’s voice cracked. “Persephone!”
He sounded terrified. Probably because he was about to lose his precious sacrifice to starvation.
“It’s fine,” I rasped. “I’m fine. Just hungry. I just need a minute.”
I did not just need a minute. My vision was starbursting. I couldn’t see. I put my head between my legs, breathing hard.
Hades’s footsteps pounded away from me. The fucking bastard, leaving me like this. I lowered myself onto my stomach, pressed my forehead to the cool stone floor. That helped a little. I took a deep breath.
One more day, I tried to tell myself fiercely. You just need one more day. You can make it. You have to.
But I couldn’t. I was too hungry.
Then Hades’s boots sounded again on the floor. I felt the vibrations through my skin. He knelt beside me and placed something on the floor beside my head. An earthenware bowl.
“No,” I said. I tried to turn away.
But he grabbed my neck, keeping me in place.
He helped me to a sitting position, leaning me back against the bed.
“It’s just water,” he said. “It’s from my father’s spring, which originates even deeper underground than the Gestorbunlund goes.
We didn’t cultivate it, and it’s not from the Monarch. It won’t trap you. Drink it.”
Water.
It didn’t seem possible that I had enough liquid in my body for this, but my mouth began to salivate at the very word. The very thought. I looked at the earthenware bowl. It was sweating with condensation. I began to sweat, too.
I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to be able to resist.
The words cracked out of my mouth: “You promise?”
I hated myself for even asking. But Hades only said, “I haven’t lied to you once, goddess, and I’m not lying to you now.”
Relief flooded my body. I fumbled for the bowl.
The water was crisp and clear. There had to be a gallon of it. I drank so fast my stomach spasmed.
I felt Hades’s eyes on me as I drank. My cheeks grew hot, but I couldn’t stop. It was the same crisp, silty water from this morning; I felt like I could never get enough of it. It was all I could do not to lick the inside of the bowl.
Finally I lowered the bowl. The water didn’t make me any less hungry, but it filled my belly and cleared my head.
I wiped my lips. I met Hades’s eyes. My stomach was hot with embarrassment — how could I have lost control like that in front of him? — but I kept my stare as defiant as I could.
Hades had been, once again, staring at me. Like he had at the graveyard.
I almost whispered, Gestorbunlund, chaosgotten, Lümerlund.
Then Hades said, “You could say thank you.”
I threw the bowl at him. He dodged. It shattered on the wall. He scoffed. “Wow. I don’t know how you humans say thank you, but let me tell you, that isn’t how we do it here.”
“Take me back to the surface, and I’ll consider saying it differently!”
“I’m just saying. You do realize I could have fed you anything just now, and you would have eaten it?”
“Fuck you. I would not have.”
Hades raised his eyebrows. Slowly, from his pocket, he drew that blood-red fruit.
I felt my skin flush. My mouth watered. Gods, I was so hungry. I sat on my hands so I wouldn’t hold my nose against the sweet, tangy scent — or, worse, reach for the fruit. I wanted to close my eyes against the sight, but it felt too dangerous to take my eyes off the Prince.
He murmured softly, “Just admit it. You’d do anything I wanted, wouldn’t you?”
“In your dreams,” I spat. I was nearly trembling.
I hoped to the gods he couldn’t see. I was painfully aware of my own nipples, hard against the sweet silk fabric of the nightgown.
It was the cold, I told myself. It was fear, I told myself.
I felt his gaze flick down to my breasts.
My stomach. The darkness between my thighs where the silk pooled, hiked nearly up to my ass from where I’d sprawled, starving, on the floor.
“Indeed,” he said. “I am going to have to chastise Elke for giving you that outfit.”
“It’s your fault. You said I needed pajamas.”
He hadn’t moved, but he was so close. The underground air was chilly, but Hades’s large, hard body was hot.
I couldn’t help imagining him pressing against me, the way he’d carried me through the tunnels.
Warming me up. His breath ghosting over my breasts through the fabric.
His weight on my pelvis against the stone floor, or, better, atop the soft rug in front of the fire…
“Do you want it?” Hades whispered.
“Of course I want it,” I snapped. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to take it.” I didn’t know whether we were talking about the heavy red fruit, or. Or something else.
Then he put the fruit back in his pocket.
I almost keened when it disappeared. It was all I could do not to clap my hands over my mouth. I was so fucking hungry.
Hades stood. “Okay, then,” he said nonchalantly.
His cock was hard.
If I sat on my knees and leaned forward I would have my mouth on it.
“Gods,” I whispered. It was huge. Fuck.
My mouth watered again, for a very different reason this time.
Was I imagining it, or was Hades angling his hips toward me?
I was almost afraid to look up at him.
So I didn’t. “Put that thing away,” I said haughtily. “I want nothing to do with it.”
“Well, you can’t blame a person,” Hades said stiffly. “I walked in on you sprawling on the floor half-naked in lingerie with your ass in the air. It gets a person going. If you don’t want people to be attracted to you, maybe reconsider your choices.”
My stomach sparked. “Are you saying you’re attracted to me?”
“In physical form only, I assure you. Certainly not the personality.”
“Get a life.”
Hades huffed. (He was still erect, though. I resisted the urge to reach out and touch his cock. I knew somehow that if I did, it would be just as rock-hard as it looked, and he wouldn’t be able to help collapsing into me, I knew it, and once I had it in my hand I wouldn’t be able to stop —)
He turned away from me. His self-control was phenomenal.
Unless I was just lying to myself.
Again.
He went over and collected the pieces of earthenware bowl, meticulously. He placed them in a neat pile by the door for Elke to gather the next day. Then he lay down on the carpet. “Well, goodnight.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s it? We’re just going to bed now?”
He rolled to face me. His eyes were bright. “You want to do something else?”
It occurred to me that if I was going to die, then banging the Prince of Darkness wouldn’t be a bad way to spend my last hours.
But I said haughtily, “No,” and climbed into the bed. I settled myself under the covers. At least now he couldn’t see my nipples anymore.
The silence was unbearable.
Then I said, “Yes.”
I heard him shift. Raise his head. I could not hear him breathing.
I cleared my throat. Hated myself for being such a coward. But I’d hate myself more if I kowtowed to my kidnapper.
So instead of saying, Get up here and take your clothes off, I said, “I want to talk to you about the irrigation project.”
His breath started up again. “Erotic,” he said. But I could sense his shoulders loosening. There was a light thump as he laid his head back on the carpet. I sat up and looked at him. He asked me, “How did it go?”
“It fucking sucked. How did yours go?”
“It fucking sucked,” he admitted, and then we both laughed.
We both shut our mouths at once, staring at each other.
Hades said, “Well, then. Glad we got that figured out.”
I lay flat on the bed, facing the ceiling. He rolled back to the fire.
Just come up here, I wanted to say, this is stupid. But I didn’t.