She choked out, “I...did...not...” Or did she? Ever was confused. The last time a boy had tried flirting with her was when she was sixteen, and she could no longer recall the rules.
“If you say so.” His voice was soothing, but his eyes were gleaming wickedly.
Who would have imagined the god of the Underworld could be such a flirt, she wondered dazedly.
“Are you ready, milady? My subjects await us.”
“S-subjects?” she echoed faintly. Surely, that didn’t mean what she thought it meant.
“Yes, and they shall be your subjects, too, once you are officially crowned as my Queen.”
Ever’s knees were threatening to give out again, and this time so was her lungs, which was starting to struggle in its ability to draw in oxygen.
The god of the Underworld was intent on making her, Ever Carlisle, his Queen.
She watched him raise his hand, and the ground underneath them began to shake as the enormous doors began to open.
Before she could think about what she was doing, Ever had already reached for his hand—-
Hades turned to her in surprise.
—-and yanked in back down.
“Wait!” She gulped, expecting the god’s fury or at least irritation but Hades was grinning again. It made him look even more handsome, and for one moment she lost her train of thought. What was she going to do again? And what had she done to make him look at her so?
Seeing her blink bemusedly at him, Hades explained, “You have done something completely unexpected again.”
Riiiight.
Didn’t that mean she was acting crazy, Ever wondered.
Then again, an amused god was always better than an angry god so she wasn’t going to complain.
Clearing her throat, she said carefully, “This, err, thing about your subjects—-”
“Soon to be our subjects,” he reminded her.
Ever coughed. “Yes, well, that’s the thing—-”
Her visible discomfort turned Hades’ face expressionless, and his voice was without inflection as well when he asked, “Are you worried they are all monsters?”
“What?” she exclaimed. “No! Of course not! I’m sure they’re all lovely.”
And for her to say that with a straight face, she either believed that with all her heart – or she was an even more accomplished liar than he gave her credit for.
“I love my subjects as if they were my own children,” Hades murmured skeptically, “but even I would not go that far.”
“You’re trying to scare me, aren’t you?” she said nervously.
“If that is my future queen prefers to think.” Hades’ broad shoulders moved in a careless shrug. “In any case, you must keep in mind that as they will be your subjects, it also means that they will be yours to command.”
Hades turned to face the doors to his kingdom again, but his mind was lost in the past as he remembered how, once upon a time, he had spoken of the same words to another woman.
“Each and every one of them is as much yours as they are mine – and whatever you want, they will make it happen...even if it costs them their lives.”
That had been his wedding vow to Persephone, and he had meant every word, never knowing that the queen he had chosen would choose to twist its meaning...and use it as her god-given right to dehumanize those that Hades had sworn to protect.
Hades and Persephone
The day was still and quiet, and for once the castle of the god of the Underworld did not ring with the sound of innocent laughter from children playing in the courtyard.
High above his kingdom, Hades surveyed his land with bleak eyes, his heart still grieving for the humiliation that his people had suffered because of him.
Even now, the mere memory of what he witnessed made him shudder in renewed fury while the desire to claim vengeance still throbbed powerfully in his veins.
The centaurs had been turned into brainless donkeys, forced to carry on their backs lesser immortals that could never even aspire to possessing a fraction of their nobility and courage. The Harpies, fierce, brave warriors, had been hunted down like they were no different from ordinary fowl.
And the list went on and on, Hades thought numbly. All around him, his people had suffered, and he had not known – because his own queen had deliberately kept him in the dark.
She had plied him with wine and kisses and seduced him with sweet flattery and coy gestures. It was Persephone the way she had been when they first met, and it intoxicated him, so much so he had become deaf to the agony of his own subjects.
If not for Thanatos deliberately crashing the party and reporting to him of the incidents taking place, his people’s agony would have lasted the entire night. But even then, she had tried to stop him from learning the truth, had even threatened to leave him if he followed Thanatos out of the castle.
It was at that moment the spell his queen had woven over him was broken, and Hades began to see Persephone for who she really was. Just looking at her beautiful lying eyes was enough, and he knew, without seeing anything else, that something was terribly wrong.