‘It sure sounds it.’
‘Please,’ he says and his voice breaks. His despair startles me. This is not bickering, not a light-hearted, surface-deep argument. This is real. Hurting myself like this is hurting him. I feel the heaviness of his cloak draped across me. I feel the hollowness that has been growing inside of me.
‘You’re right. I don’t know why I watch all this when it makes me feel miserable.’
‘Then don’t.’
‘They know I’m missing, Hades. I have to know if they’re close.’
‘And what if they are? What if they do discover you are here? Your mother can’t come down here. Zeus would never dare risk the fragile peace between himself, Poseidon and me. Even Poseidon would fight to defend you if he thought Zeus was daring to trespass on one of our realms. More likely Zeus would cover it up, and where better to let everyone forget you exist than the court of Hell? You’re safe here.’
‘What if I’m not? What if nothing I do keeps me safe?’
He takes a half step forward, his hands lifting like he is reaching for me before he thinks better of it.
‘Then I will do it.’
I hesitate before offering a condescending grin, pushing my fear down and replacing it with something more manageable.‘That’s cute but I already assumed that if I couldn’t do it then you obviously couldn’t either.’
He laughs, glad at least that my mood has lifted.
‘Then we shall try it together.’ His smile falls. ‘Actually, that gives me an idea.’
‘What?’
‘You won’t like it.’
‘I don’t like much about this.’
His eyes meet mine, the intensity of his gaze making me feel untethered before he even speaks. ‘Marry me.’
Everything stops: my breath, my thoughts, the very ichor racing in my veins. The silence is a physical presence I can’t move against.
And then all at once everything rushes back in a surge of energy.
‘What?’ I half yelp, half demand.
‘Marry me,’ he says. ‘If you want to stay here and the only argument they have revolves round marriage, then marry me.’
I scramble away from him, trying to put some distance between us.
‘I … I did all this to escape marriage. I don’t want … just because I like you doesn’t mean I want to marry you!’
‘You like me?’ Hades grins teasingly. ‘I shall remind you of that next time you call me an arse.’
Everything is spiralling, spinning out of control. I’m not merely falling any more, I’m plummeting.
‘I’m not joking!’ I screech. ‘I don’t want to marry you!’
His nose wrinkles. ‘I don’t particularly want to marry you either.’ He still thinks this is amusing. ‘I’ve seen what your hair looks like in the morning.’
‘I’m trying to turn down your proposal, you arse. Can you stop joking?’ I’m verging on hysteria.
‘Well, that took all of two seconds. You want to stay here forever. You don’t want your parents dragging you back. Tell me how this is a bad idea?’
‘I don’t want to fuck you,’ I snap. I recoil at the crude language but what else would it be? Certainly not the lovemaking that the nymphs always dream of. I think of hands holding me down, my sobs silenced by kisses – images that have always haunted me are now fears with a face, and it’s the face of the one person I thought might understand.
Hades winces and all humour falls from him like he’s been hit by a physical blow. ‘No! By the Fates, no, that’s not what I meant. At all.’ He steps forward and I flinch back. His lips pull into a tight line and the fury in his eyes could level nations.
