Younger and careless in aspect. His hair brushed his shoulders, longer than he wore it now. His smile held a devastating charm that made my heart race.
He offered a pomegranate, its skin dark as blood, seeds glistening like rubies through a split in the flesh.
“Just a taste, my love,” he said, his voice rich and silky on my skin. “To sustain you before I take you home. You must be hungry.”
Though I had such a crush on him, I was terrified of his dark realm. I was naïve, not knowing anything of the world, as Demeter had shielded me all my life. I did not know the laws of the Underworld. I did not understand the binding power of food consumed in the land of the dead.
I ate six seeds. They burst upon my tongue, sweet and tart.
Six seeds to bind me to the Underworld.
He had tricked me. Deceived me. Bound me to his dark kingdom with fruit and ancient law.
I gasped, going still.
The memory slammed into me so hard that I could still taste the sharp sweetness of the pomegranate.
“Is this too much for you, baby girl?” Nero’s voice was a taunt.
“Worry about yourself,Professor,” I threw back, gliding up his length until only the tip of his cock nudged between my plump folds.
He had no idea of the past crashing through me. But I needed him, needed this anchor, needed his cock filling me.
Before I let out a shaky breath, another memory surged.
I was running in a lemon green silk gown, my flaming red hair that marked me across every lifetime cascading down to my ankles.
I raced through obsidian corridors, my bare feet silent on the cold stone, as I fled the dark realm that had become my gilded prison.
Hades caught me.
His hands closed around my wrists, yanking me back against his chest. His voice was dark, possessive, and desperate in my ear.“I will never allow you to leave. Never. You can run to the ends of the earth, and I will find you. You are mine, Persephone. Always mine.”
Many women desired him and coveted the title: companion to the darkly gorgeous king.
I only wanted to go home to the city of the gods. I missed brilliant sunlight and blooming flowers in my everlasting garden. Mom had always pampered me and maids attended me. A bright life without gritty truth, without darkness.
So Hades locked me in a cage.
The bars were black iron woven with gold, beautiful and terrible. The cage was furnished with silk cushions and soft blankets.
He wanted my acceptance. An end to what he called a futile fight.
“You’re my light,”he said, his hand wrapped around my neck, his eyes haunted and desperate.“My sunlight in this eternal dark. I have been alone for too long. I cannot return to that emptiness.”
He tried everything to make me stay. Gifts of jewels like captured stars. Gowns of silk and shadow. A garden cultivated for me, where flowers bloomed without sun. The promise of a throne at his side, feared and revered and loved.
None of it worked.
When kindness failed, he turned brutal.
He never struck me. That was a line he wouldn’t cross, no matter the provocation. But he threatened everything else. Everyone else.
“Stay,” he commanded, his voice cold as death, and he was Death. “Stay, or I will slaughter everyone you love. Your mother. Your friends. Every seductive nymph who ever smiled at you. I’ll burn the fields you cherish to ash. I’ll kill every flower, every growing thing, until the world above is as barren as you believe my realm to be.”
I succumbed then. I stopped fighting. I played the obedient queen.
But only for a time.
