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My heart thuds, a sick nervousness rolling through me. What kind of evening is this? This is so far beyond the world I’ve come from that I want to run back to my room and hide.
“Miss?” Elenora is at my elbow. “Let me show you to the elevator.”
Elevator? This place has an elevator? I thought I was going to take the stairs down to the little office that I share with Livvie, but Elenora is pulling open two shutter doors in the wall beside the windows, revealing an elevator door hidden behind them. There’s a little golden arrow, and the up and down buttons, and she presses down. The elevator doors open, and she gestures for me to step inside. Before I do, though, she lifts her other hand, dark purple ribbons hanging from it, and dangling from the ribbons, a flowered mask.
“Let me,” she says quietly, helping me to put it on, and tying it lightly behind my ears. The ribbons dangle, and she pins them up into my hair with a few spare bobby pins she pulls from her uniform pocket. “If you’d let me, you look beautiful, Miss.”
My whole face warms and I glance away, my throat tight as I step into the elevator. It’s small, meant for only two people, and it’s like being encased in a glass bubble. In here, I can hear the noiseof downstairs, the rising crescendo of the music, and as the door slides shut behind me, the music dies down, the lights in the elevator coming up, nearly blinding me.
I lift my hand to cover my eyes, shielding it from the light, and the elevator starts to move, just as everyone on the floor stops dancing, and turns to look up at me.
Everyone in the whole room is staring at me, as I descend, slowly, my heart fluttering like a bird inside a bell jar, their focus so intent it’s threatening to cause me to combust. I’m going to explode in a pyre of flame right in front of them. I’ve never been so visible, so exposed, in my entire life, and it’s not until the elevator settles on the ground floor, and the entire round glass separating me from the room slides to the left and behind me, that I can breathe.
Everyone is looking, the silence in the room shivering, stretched tight. The only sound is the soft rustle of fabric around me as women shift their weight. There’s a soft clicking, the trembling of beaded fringes and crystal earrings.
And right there, beside me, appears Hadrion. I know it’s him, even in his slick domino mask, his hair curling softly behind his ears, and on his head, two large horns, textured like that of a ram, but curved back and upward into blunted points. He offers me a hand, and I take it without thinking. Something has to keep me grounded, because I don’t know why everyone is acting this way, turning to me like I’m in the sun and they’re a field of wildflowers, their heads nodding, and slowly bowing to me.
My sharp inhale, and tightening of my fingers on Hadrion’s hand, has him murmuring in my ear,
“Steady, steady.” His words do and do not fill me with confidence at the same time. “Lift your head. Let everyone in this room see who you really are.”
As I step off the elevator floor, and it slides shut behind me, retreating back upstairs, the quartet strikes up again, music filling the room. There’s a flurry of movement, like petals falling from a tree, and all the dancers, the observers, the what feels like a million pairs of eyes, turn away from me and go back to their partners.
I exhale a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, and Hadrion leans in.
“Welcome,” his voice is low, and he’s smiling, “to my Underworld.”
My heart leaps into my throat, and I don’t know why.
13
Hadrion
She is a vision. She is perfect, a refraction of light, taking what is given to her and returning it to the world a million times over. Katy, in my arms, as I lead her across the floor, is a creature of the moon, the sun, the stars, and I cannot help myself from stealing her away.
“Come,” I murmur, and the crowd parts like a sea for me as I lead her through. “We have guests, and we must greet them.”
Katy’s fingers curl tighter into my arm, and her face is pale, but her jaw is set. I’m proud of her for not caving to the fear that must be racing through her veins. She has no idea that the surrounding people are not all human, that there are fae in every corner, demons lurking behind masks, that my horns are no costume and completely real.
It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am proud of her, and I will make sure that she knows it. She is my greatest triumph, and with her at my side it will signal to every demi-god in the city and beyond that Hades is stepping back into his power, that he has claimed his prize, and that he will retake his throne.
They don’t need to know that I don’t have her, not completely, not yet. They will see the key, feel the vibration of its power, and know that nothing is going to stand in the way of me reclaiming my kingdom and having my revenge on the ones who betrayed me.
My fingers flex, and I glance over at her, her hair glinting in the soft lights, the way her eyelashes flutter behind her mask, the way she clings to me, like a moth to the moon.
“We’ll make the rounds,” I murmur to her, and she nods, swallowing hard. “You’re fine,” I assure her.
“I’m not, but I’ll have to be,” she murmurs back, her voice soft.
“It won’t be like this every night,” I assure her. If it were in my court, in the real Underworld, and not my club, it would be. But I have never taken a queen before, and I’m not going to start now. This is temporary, but it’s not like she can’t enjoy it for what it is. Every flower deserves its moment in the sun before it fades, its seeds scattered to the wind.
“Thank you,” she says, her words quiet, and I don’t respond, because a part of me is angry at her. She shouldn’t be thanking me. I don’t deserve her gratitude. She has no idea what I am taking from her yet. One day, but not now.
“Hadrion,” a low-murmured greeting of a passing demon comes with a wink and a nod, a knowing look at the woman on my arm. He knows what it means. “Long live the king,” he barely whispers to me as he walks on by, and I nod in return. Yes, let them all know. Let them all see my power reflect in the aura that she gives off.
I’m going to use her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate her, that I don’t find her beautiful. I am not the monster that Iwas once painted as, and I’ll prove it. I’ll make her fall for me, and then, when I’m finished, when I’ve regained all the power I’ve lost, and made a mockery of the ones who cast me out, then I’ll let her go.
There’s only one throne on the dais in the Underworld.
