“I despise your affliction, my king. It troubles me.”
“And yet you lie in my bed,” he answers. The resentment is not nearly as evident as his pain. He wars with himself and it’s obvious.
“Yes. I lie in your bed and in your arms because that’s what I desire. It’s what I want. You, my mother, my father are all so concerned with what you want. What about what I want?” I question.
“I cannot have you only two nights in a moon’s cycle,” he says, his voice strained. Hades’s control slips, and it’s as if I’m watching him descend into madness. The unfairness of what he thinks will happen makes my heart race. I want to defend him from that injustice just as I want to defend the souls of the Underworld from the injustice of having their world collapse. More than I want to defend the souls of the Underworld.
“There will be balance,” I promise him. His hands clench on my waist, then release. He huffs out a breath into my shoulder. “Have faith in me.”
Hades lifts his head, removes his crown, and looks into my eyes. The depth of his pain lies in the darkness of his gaze.
He traces a hand from my waist along my side, his fingertips moving up until he brushes them gently over my cheekbone, then the point of my chin, then my nose. Finally, he cups his hand under my chin and pulls my face close for another soft kiss that gradually deepens until he’s exploring me with his tongue, turning his head to get a closer angle, pushing into me until I’m leaning back in his arms.
Hades could kiss me down to the rug like this. He could stretch out over me and push himself inside me and make me shake and shudder and come all over his cock, and I would let him. I would beg for more.
I do not want to leave with Hecate, but if I do not leave now, I won’t be able to for so long and I don’t know what will happen in that time.
I want to stay here, in this bed, with my king and my lover. With the god who gives me both power and pleasure.
I clasp my hands behind his neck, but only to get closer to him. He would not let me fall. He spreads his hands on my back, holding me as he kisses me.
I try to memorize how it feels. His hands are so warm and strong. His thighs are so solid outside mine. I am pinned by him, kept still by him, and yet I am also safe here. Nothing can poison me or harm me here.
Hades pulls me upright, his mouth still on mine, and breaks the kiss gently.
“You—” he begins, then pauses for a breath. I push my fingers through his hair as he readjusts his hands. They go back to my waist, circling my hips. “You ate the seeds. It is binding.”
He speaks harshly, as if he is angry, but there is a certain vulnerability in his eyes that I cannot ignore.
“Hades.” I lean forward this time. I’m the one to push into his space. I lean my hips farther into the gap between his thighs, feeling the muscles tense around my legs, and put my mouth to his. I lick his bottom lip and explore into his mouth with my tongue. I hold his face in my hands and keep him where I want him so I can feel him there, and so he can feel me as I am—naked before him, in his rooms, away from any prying eyes. Here, I am only his lover. I belong to him fully. I need him to know that I belong to him fully in every realm, even if I have other responsibilities. Know, I think, and kiss him harder. Know I belong to you. Remember how this feels. Remember that I’m coming back. Never doubt that I am coming back to you. I will not give you up. “Hades, you will let me go,” I whisper the spell like a siren. Just as I’ve seen Aphrodite do a thousand times before…
Hades
I cannot be still without her even though I feel numb. There’s a cage around the beast inside of me. I’m not certain how it’s come to this. The events of her departure are hazy. All I remember are her moans as she straddled me and gave me a pleasure that drugged me.
Sleep is difficult at the best of times. I could not fall asleep easily when I was alone in the dark for all those years. When I was a captive. One would think sleep would be an easy way to pass the time, but it was hard to come by and disoriented me more than it comforted me.
It’s difficult to explain. Most beings, souls or otherwise, cannot understand what it’s like to live without life for so many years. Without purpose or meaning or sensation. With only my thoughts of being trapped and alone forever more. One loses a sense of time. Time to sleep and time to wake blur into nothingness. One loses a sense of whether one is awake or asleep when there is no sunrise or sunset to track the time.
I watched her go.
It was like watching the best parts of me disappear out of the Underworld, leaving only that crack in the sky behind. Then that was gone, too. Without her, it feels like nothingness once again. Although there is so much. So much that requires my presence and authority.
I consulted with the guards. I walked with Minox in the halls. I sat at a table and ate, though I cannot remember what.
And then I came to my empty bedchambers.
Staring up at the ceiling, surrounded by her scent that lingers in the silk sheets, it seems as if I merely exist. The firelight is dim above me. I would like to pass some of the hours with sleep, but when she leaves, it is as if I am back in that prison again.
What will be here when I open my eyes?
Not my love, Persephone.
Closing my eyes, I attempt to let my mind quiet.
It fills itself with images of her. Persephone, sleeping on the pillow, her sweet curves tempting me. Persephone, placing the tip of her finger to a rosebush and making the roses black as night. Persephone, both her hands on mine at court. The memories of her are all-consuming, like a drug that makes me crave her all the more.
All I can think is that she is not here. All I can feel is the emptiness of the bed. Tomorrow, when I walk the path, she will not be there, and I will be left with her empty throne next to mine. She will not hold my hand at court. She will not pass judgments.
