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“Say I told you so?” Hecate asked.“I have waited too long for this moment. I told you to let me poison her and before that, I told you to demote her, and before that, I told you to never sleep with her.”
Hades sank to his throne. Suddenly, he was exhausted, and as he spoke, his voice was tried and quiet.
“I have enough regrets, Hecate,” he said.
The goddess said nothing, and after a few seconds, she quietly disappeared.
He was not alone long when Persephone entered the throne room, leaning against the door as it closed behind her.
She looked sleepy and beautiful, dressed in a white nightgown and matching sheer robe. Her hair was wild and mussed, falling in gold waves down her back. Her presence gave him the strength to straighten.
“Why are you awake, my darling?” he asked.
“You were gone,” she said, approaching. She settled into his lap, her legs draped over his, her hands tangling into his robes. She took a deep breath, and burrowed into his chest.
“Why are you up?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
He considered telling her about the saga of Sisyphus—how he had cheated death twice and stolen the lives of two mortals, forever shattering their souls—but that explanation would also require divulging the Fates’ threat, and with Sisyphus on the run again, he preferred to keep that to himself.
So instead he answered,“I…could not sleep.”
She drew back, gazing up at him with heavy-lidded eyes.
“You could have woken me.” Her voice was an erotic whisper. It promised things like throbbing lips, pounding hearts, and soft heat.
He raised a brow, and asked,“What purpose would that serve?”
Her hands dropped to his swollen sex, barely caressing it through his robes.“Would you like a demonstration?”
Hades smirked and gathered her close, teleporting to the Underworld.
***
“Any word?” Hades asked Ilias as they walked the shadows of his club. He’d been hopeful that tonight would be the night Sisyphus would take him up on the offer of a bargain.
“None,” Ilias replied.“Word travels slow in the mortal underground.”
Hades frowned.
The Fates had not been pleased to learn that Sisyphus had escaped.
“Arrogant,” Lachesis had said.
“Overconfident,” Clotho had hissed.
“Brash,” Atropos had added.
Hades had not argued with them. It was the first time he’d gone to them and feared them, feared their vengeance, feared that they would unravel the threads they’d taken such care to weave, ready to bask in his misery.
But they hadn’t. They’d merely asked who Hades was willing to trade if he lost his bargain with Sisyphus, a question he had not answered.
“He will come when he realizes he has nothing,” the satyr said as they crested the stairs.“Hermes has managed to intercept several million dollars of Sisyphus’stock. What would you like to do with it?”
Hades knew how to make a mortal desperate. It was possible that Sisyphus would have remained on the run if his business was still afloat, thinking that he could survive on the lives he’d already taken, but Hades had guessed the mortal’s plans and he had taken everything—would continue to take everything—until the man came begging.
By the end of this, he would wish he had died when he was supposed to.
“Burn it,” he said.“And do not keep it a secret.”
