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Hades blinked, squeezing his eyes painfully hard, and coughed to clear the desire coating his throat from Persephone’s proximity. He tried to ignore the feelings her head resting under his chin brought up, how badly he wanted to prop his chin on her hair and inhale the floral scent floating off her even from this distance.
It had been so long since anyone embraced him, or touched him. It had been decades.
Decades since Minthe was stomped into a plant, and even longer since he’d found a soaked and drowned Leukke in the yard. But right now was not time to dwell in the past, and definitely not the time to think about his dead lovers.
“Marry me,” he said. It came out more forceful than he meant it to, his voice easily sliding into its usual commanding tone with his mind still distracted with thoughts of Minthe and Leukke. Their faces passing by contorted in anguish as the light bled from their eyes. Blonde and black hair twisting and knotting together until the strands were thick, heavy ropes connecting the two women. Still beautiful even in death, even as their mouths drooped and their skin sallowed.
Persephone was silent for a long time before she opened her mouth to respond, certainly about to yell at him and hit him again for even suggesting such an outrageous solution.
He continued before she could interrupt, “Be my wife – my queen – and your precious little mortal man will be gifted another fifty or so years of life.” He flicked his hand indifferently. “Whatever he had left before it was sadly disrupted.”
Two glasses of wine appeared in his hands and he offered her one. An offering of friendship between them to help nudge her toward agreeing. She didn’t reach for it.
“Without you, of course, but alive and breathing. Just as you requested.” He offered her a sly smile; she ignored it.
“I never asked anything of you,” she said, her monotone voice barely above a whisper.
“But you were going to.”
She stared at his feet, her eyes dim but dry. Not a sparkle of a tear in them.
The audacity this young goddess had to ignore him, to ignore his hospitality and his offer to accept her plea. Fury rippled under his skin. Slowly, he turned to her, masking the anger bubbling up inside his chest, burning his throat to scream at her. He was King of the Dead, how dare she act like an ignorant child in his presence.
The wine glass shattered as he closed his hand in a fist, shards of glass flying toward her and landing at her feet. She took a step back, fear evident on her face and her stance, angling her body away from him. As if there was anywhere she could hide herself from him.
“Is that not what you were demanding an audience with me for? Was there something else you needed?” He snapped and closed the gap he’d made between them. He didn’t bother cleaning the wine from his hand before grabbing her chin and ripping it to face him. “I don’t get called upon too often, Kore,” he spat the name at her, and she she recoiled as his spit landed on her face. His grip was tight enough that it was all but a flinch, unable to remove her face from his fingers.
He dropped her face, flinging it to side. Letting her sway as he shoved past her, he stalked to the gates. Both swung wide as he approached, and stayed open for her as he slammed the front door open, too angry to wait for it to open on its own accord.
He did not look behind him to see if she followed. He didn’t particularly care if she walked into the palace, or stayed to sleep on the rotting ground.
Door after door shuddered in their frames with each step he took down the dark stone hall. Wine filled decanters were lined up on the table, drained ones scattered throughout them. It was those he headed for, grabbing two by their slim necks in each hand he walked to theamphoraein the corner, the stomp of his steps bouncing off the inner walls and out to the garden.
Making a mess with his speed, Hades filled them with wine, not bothering to dilute them before draining one.
Then another.
He was halfway through the third when a cough erupted from his burning throat, wine burning his nose as he tried to choke it down. Tears pricked his eyes as the burning liquid dribbled from his nose. He licked his lips, reaching his tongue to scrape his upper lip under his nose.
The hair above his lip was rough against his tongue, and it was no use trying to clean himself up this way. He wiped at his face, dragging his hand down his face and neck, smoothing the hairs to the sides again; he hated when the ends tickled his lips.
He eyed the pomegranates at the center of the table, the bowl laden with them a dark red in the dim lighting. Breathing heavily, he reached for one and ripped it open, seeds and sticky, bloody juice flying everywhere, the seeds rolling on the floor and bouncing off the columns. He loosed a shaky breath, his anger already dissipating, leaking from his body like the juice from the pomegranate, pooling in his palms.
Persephone stood in the open doorway to the room, looking from the mess he made with the wine, the pool he’d choked up on the counter top, to the scattered pomegranate pieces around the room.
While she took in the room, he took her in. Her bird-nest mess of hair, the strands standing in every direction as if she’d whipped her head around several times, pacing as she decided whether or not follow him. She held her hands together, letting them hang just below her waist in an effort to look casual. Her grip gave her away, though; her knuckles white as she stared at him with wide, brown eyes, her mouth a thin, pale line.
He remembered the pomegranate carcass in his hands a second later and offered one half to her. She reached for it with both hands, her fingers shaking a little, and he dropped it into them before she could get any closer to touching his own fingers.
Juice splashed as it landed in the cup of her hands, drops staining the clean cloth draped over her. They dried dark on impact, a perfect contrast to the brightness of the cloth.
It looked like blood splattered across her chest.
Hades, starting to feel uncomfortable under her unrelenting gaze, fought the urge to wrap the fingers of his free hand around her throat. Instead, lifting the hand holding the pomegranate to his mouth, and licking the trailing juice from his wrist to the top of his little finger as he stared into her eyes.
She looked away, her breath audibly increasing.
Now, it was his turn to watch her.
