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He let his hand fall from her face, fingers curled into fists. It was one thing to know and another thing to hear.
“He harms you, even in your sleep,” Hades said. Pirithous haunted her even though his soul was trapped in Tartarus—hauntedhimno matter how many times he had tortured the demigod to death. “I failed you that day.”
“How could you have known he would take me?”
“I should have known.”
Hades took pride in knowing everything, anticipating everything. He had taken every precaution, ensured Antoni took Persephone to and from work, assigned Zofie as her aegis to guard her at all times, even from afar. He had allowed her as much freedom as he possiblycould, which was likely more than he should have, given she was a target for so many—enemies she could not even fathom. But he could not keep her locked in a cage, even if that cage was the Underworld.
“You are not all-seeing, Hades,” Persephone said, her voice a whisper.
She was trying to ease his pain, and she could not know that her comment only made it worse. It did not matter that he was not omniscient. He still blamed himself for what happened. He had blamed Zofie too, and when he had tried to relieve her of her assignment as Persephone’s aegis, his goddess had defended her.
He was not proud of his actions. He should have been comforting Persephone. She struggled. He knew it. Even when he made love to her, he could feel the tension in her body, highly aware of the time it took to make her comfortable.
This man, this demigod had invaded their most private and intimate space, and it enraged him.
And this, he recognized, was the power of the semidivine.
Their power was unknown, their numbers were unknown, and one insignificant son of an Olympian had managed to kidnap not only another goddess buthisgoddess.
He refocused on Persephone and what should have been comforting words.
“You are right,” Hades replied. “Perhaps I should punish Helios, then.”
She gave him a look, unimpressed with his comment.
“Would that make you feel better?”
“No, but it would be fun,” Hades said. He did notadmit that he had fucked with the God of the Sun so much over the last few months Helios was likely to never assist him again—which was not so much a loss as it was a relief despite the fact that he suspected the god either had or would side with Hera in her quest to overthrow Zeus.
Hades had only managed to threaten the Queen of the Gods to submit to his will, ensuring that when Zeus protested his marriage to Persephone, Hera had to come to his defense. She had agreed, though reluctantly. It was not that Hades did not wish to see an end to Zeus’s reign as King of the Gods; it was that he wanted Persephone at his side when he did. They were far more powerful together than apart, but then, Zeus would know that, which made him the greatest threat to their happiness.
“I wish to see him,” Persephone said.
It took him a moment to process what she had said because his thoughts had been in a completely different space. He felt guilty that he had been thinking of Zeus and Hera while she had been agonizing over Pirithous.
But there was a determination in her voice he knew he couldn’t fight—not that he would deny her request. He had made this promise to her the night he had rescued her, though not exactly as she had asked.
When you torture him, I get to join, she’d said, and while he had agreed, it had not kept him from going to Tartarus that night to torment the demigod alone—or returning nearly every night since to do the same. It was not that he did not wish to honor Persephone’s request. It was that he had been waiting for her to make it, because then, he knew she would be ready.
His only hesitation was that once she visited this partof Tartarus, she would know the darkest part of him. He realized she knew the purpose of his Underworld prison, but it was an entirely different thing to see it, and that triggered him, the fear that she might finally understand who she had fallen in love with and realize she was not in love at all.
He held her unwavering gaze and replied, “As you wish, darling.”
Hades took Persephone to the white room—one of his more modern torture chambers. It was used to deprive its occupants of their senses. Sometimes, Hades would leave a soul in here alive for weeks, and by the time he returned, they had lost all sense of themselves. He particularly enjoyed granting this punishment to those who used their status and power to wound and kill in the Upperworld. It made it all the more satisfying when they finally lost their sense of self.
It was here where Hades had last left Pirithous, having spent the better part of his time in the Underworld cycling through other methods of torture, both old and new. He had broken bones and cracked knees, cut off his balls and his dick, covered him in honey and let insects and rats mince at his body until his bones were exposed.
He had done all that and more, and his rage had not lessened. Even now he could feel it welling inside him as he looked at Pirithous, who was slouched in a chair at the center of the room, only held in place by rope that wound around his arms, waist, and legs. His skin was pale white, almost gray, and spattered with layers of dried blood from his previous torture. He was not a pleasantsight, and Hades wondered what Persephone thought now that she was face-to-face with the demigod.
Beside him, Persephone was still and quiet, her eyes fixed on her attacker. After a moment, she took a breath, which sounded sharp in the silence of the room.
“Is he dead?”
He assumed she whispered for fear that she would rouse Pirithous.
“He breathes if I say so.”
