If I didn't think too much about the fact that I was trapped underground with a load of well-dressed murderers, then I was OK. But as soon as the knowledge that I couldn't leave worked its way through any positive thoughts I tried to fill my head with, the room seemed to close in around me again. If I was at home and my surroundings got overwhelming I would do what anyone would do - go outside. Get some air. Air. Just a few breaths of cold air to clear my head. But even something that simple was unattainable.
'Stupid, stupid place,' I hissed aloud. 'How the fuck does anywhere not have an outside?'
'I told you, there is an outside. You've been out in it.'
Hades voice made me jump, and for a split second I thought it was in my head, but then dark smoke rippled in front of me.
'Yeah, on a fucking invisible bridge! What kind of asshole invents one of those? And it's shitty outside, there isn't anything growing, or even a breeze!' I barked the words before he could materialize fully, feeling braver when I couldn't properly see him.
'We don't need a breeze,' Hades replied eventually, a touch of defensiveness to his tone as the smoke stopped rippling, his humanoid form complete. There was no slithering sound to his voice.
'Well I do,' I muttered, casting my eyes down and staring angrily at the floor. A pulsing beat had begun, the melodic orchestra replaced by music far more reminiscent of my home world.
'You are upset?' Hades asked me eventually.
'Yeah. Yeah, I'm upset.'
'Why? You are doing well.' I looked up, searching the smoke for his eyes, as hot tears began to burn the back of mine. Frustration was causing them, and I cursed my body. Tears wouldn't help me, just make me look more weak.
'Who is she?' I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
'Who?'
I gaped at him.
'Who? Who the fuck do you think? The woman you all nearly killed for entertainment!'
He turned, looking towards the hourglass.
'I don't know,' he said eventually. My mouth fell open, my stomach roiling.
'You don't know? Would you have cared if she had died?'
'No. I do not know her.'
I shook my head, the last of any tolerance I had for this place fleeing me.
'What is wrong with you people? How can you be so self important, so callous, so.... murderous?'
The smoke flickered, and I saw a flash of silver. When he spoke, the iciness was back, and images of snakes poured into my head, my skin crawling.
'You are speaking to the King of the Underworld. Lord of the dead. Ancient and all-powerful and witness to deeds you can't even imagine.' I shrank back against the column involuntarily as the smoky form grew. 'If you had lived through what I have, if you had seen the things my fellow gods have done to each other, have done to those around them... You would hold a different opinion.'
I stared at him. He was blaming the other gods?
'So you aren't as barbaric as them?' I whispered.
'Oh yes, Persephone. Yes I am. In fact, I'm worse than most of them.' Eris's words flicked into my head. 'You haven't met anybody as fucked up as me yet. With one exception that is, but you're competing to marry him.'
'Why? Do you... enjoy death?' I barely got the words out. I knew I didn't want to hear the answer. Hades flashed solid so quickly my brain hardly registered it.
'I never asked for this role. But it is mine. And I will fulfill it.' What did that mean?
'That's not an answer.' There was a long pause, and I swear he must have been able to hear my pounding heart over the music.
'No,' he said eventually, his voice quiet and the anger lessened. 'I do not enjoy death. But it is my world. It is who I have had to become. If I were as sensitive to it as you humans, I would be a very poor king indeed.'
I frowned, straightening against the column slightly.
'You humans...' I repeated. 'But I wasn't human before.' The claustrophobia pressed in on me again, that feeling of being separated from a part of my own self building inside me. 'I can't have been as indifferent to death as you are. I can't have been.' I could hear the pleading tone to my voice, and I realized at that moment what I was so afraid of, what I feared even more than him and this world.
What if I was once like these people?
This is where I was from, this man was once my husband. Did I ever find entertainment in people's suffering? I felt sick as I stared into Hades' face, and a single hot tear leaked from my eye, sliding down my cheek.
Suddenly, the smoke leapt out from where he was standing, and the next thing I knew I was in a black, hazy bubble. I looked around myself quickly, aware that I could no longer hear the music, or anything else, nor could I see beyond the thick smoke barrier surrounding us.
'What-' I started but my words fell away as I laid eyes on Hades. It was him. The real him, under the smoke. My breath caught and desperation filled me as I stared at his face, into his swirling silver eyes. Home. He was home. He was mine.
I shook my head, trying to clear the words ricocheting around my brain.
'You were never cruel, Persephone. You were fair and kind and I...' he trailed off, hopeless sadness pouring from his beautiful face. I stepped towards him before I could help myself, and he lifted his hand to my cheek. Ever so slowly, he brushed his thumb across my skin, wiping away my solitary tear. Electricity shot through my body at his touch. His touch was warm, and for some reason I had expected him to be cold. Frustration welled inside me again. I knew so little, and I needed more.
'I hate this place,' I whispered and he flinched. 'Please, please make me understand how this was once my home. Because I know it was. I know you were.'
'It wasn't always like this. It was before you came, and it was again after you left. But when you were here...' His eyes bore into mine. 'You brought light, and life, to a place where I thought none could exist.' He spoke hoarsely, and his words crashed through all the mental armor I'd built up since coming to Olympus.
He loved me. I could see it in his face, hear it in his broken voice, feel it in his electrifying touch. All this time, all those years alone in New York, and someone, somewhere, loved me this much. And I never knew.
Twenty-Five
I stared at Hades, my mind spinning. He was a god. King of the Underworld, Lord of the dead, and he'd just wiped a tear from my cheek.
'Light and life,' I repeated, my stomach feeling like it was filled with butterflies. 'Are those things you wanted here, in this place?'
'Not at first. I just wanted you.' Desire skittered through my core at his words, and I saw his eyes flash with something new. 'Damn Aphrodite,' he muttered. I raised my eyebrows at him and he sighed. 'Her music, her power. She always does this at balls, and the smoke can only keep so much of it out. She's powerful.'
'Love is powerful,' I murmured. The side of his mouth quirked up.
'See? That's her power. Making us both... soft.'
'Soft?' That's the last word I would have used to describe him. He was wearing the same clothes as he was before, jeans and a black shirt open at the neck. His skin glowed, and I wanted more than anything in the world to touch it.