Hades woke to a sharp and burning sensation in his side. He roared in pain as he tore his eyes open in time to see Theseus remove two fingers from the wound he’d inflicted with Cronos’s scythe.
“Good,” Theseus said. “You are awake.”
Hades gritted his teeth, glaring at the demigod, his eyes watering. He wanted to speak, to curse him, but his words were lodged in his throat, tight with pain.
“Forgive me,” the demigod said, gaze falling to his two bloodied fingers. “But you were not roused by my calls.”
It wasn’t until Theseus rose to his feet that Hades realized he was in a different position than he had been when he’d fallen asleep. He was no longer hanging from chains but sitting on the floor. The massive net that had draped his body was gone, replaced by one that fit more like a shirt. Despite the difference, Hades could still feel its weight and the strange way it seemed to drain his energy—like it had teeth sinking into his very soul.
“Come, Olympian,” Theseus said. “You must earn your keep.”
Hades had to fight his compulsion to remain where he was. He did not like being commanded, especially by an arrogant demigod, but he could not deny that he was curious about where exactly he was and wanted any opportunity to observe and devise a plan for escape.
He rose to his feet, though his limbs trembled.
Theseus did not immediately lead him from his cell. Instead, he studied him, his critical eyes burning along his frame.
“Admiring me, Theseus?” Hades hissed, breathless.
“Yes,” the demigod said and then met Hades’s gaze. “Have you ever felt so weak?”
Hades scowled, and Theseus offered the barest smile before turning to open a nearly invisible door.
“Even you must admit to being impressed by our technology?” Theseus said as he passed into a narrow passage that was no brighter than Hades’s cell.
Hades could feel the grit in the air, and a musty smell filled his senses, seeping into the back of his throat, making it even harder to breathe beneath the net.
“Yours?” Hades countered. “It looks like Hephaestus’s work and smells like Demeter’s magic.”
“What is technology but the evolution of what already exists?” said Theseus.
“I didn’t know you were a scholar,” Hades muttered. He would have spoken louder, but the tone of his voice correlated with how badly his lungs hurt, and he preferred to save his strength.
“There is a lot you do not know about me, Uncle.”
Hades cringed at the use of the familial title, though he knew Theseus only used it to mock him. He felt no bond to the demigod, not an ounce of affection, but Hades said nothing and instead focused on his surroundings.
They were in a long corridor, and Hades could only see a few feet in front of him either way he looked. A cloudy orange light hung like mist in the air, creating pockets of darkness. The floor was sandy, and the walls were made of smooth stones, stacked high into the dark above. What he was most aware of, however, was the cold. He was familiar with the way it clung to his skin and seeped to the bone.
He was in the labyrinth where he had fought the Minotaur.
“Daedalus was a genius, no?” Theseus commented.
“He was a man who made himself useful,” Hades said, following Theseus at a distance.
Certainly at the time, Daedalus was considered one of the most brilliant inventors of his age. He had been commissioned by King Minos to build this labyrinth as a prison for the Minotaur, a half-bull, half-human creature Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, had birthed. A creature that only existed because he had also built the wooden cow that allowed her to mate with a bull she had been cursed to lust after by Poseidon.
“He saw opportunity,” said Theseus. “Even you must respect that.”
“I do not have to respect it,” Hades said.
Daedalus was a narcissist and had attempted to murder his own nephew when it was evident that his genius threatened his own.
Theseus chuckled. “Oh, Hades, I shudder to learn what you think of me.”
“You know what I think of you,” Hades said.
The demigod did not respond, and Hades was glad for the quiet. He hated talking anyway, but right now, it was exhausting. As he followed Theseus, he flexed his hands and realized he had movement in his arms. The net, which lay heavily against his chest, back, and stomach, did not seem to restrict his arms, and while he knew the net was impossible to escape without help, he still tried.
Theseus chuckled, though when Hades looked up, the demigod was still facing forward, moving down the corridors of the labyrinth with ease.
“You will only exhaust yourself trying to remove it,” said Theseus. “Might as well save your strength. You will need it.”
Hades glared at the back of Theseus’s head, imagining what it would be like to smash it with a stone.
After Tyche’s death, Hades had gone to Hephaestus to learn more about his creation, knowing that the net posed a great threat to the gods given its ability to immobilize and suffocate their power. Hades had asked the God of Fire to forge a weapon to cut it, but he’d not been able to obtain that weapon before he’d been captured.
It angered him that he’d fallen into such a trap. He had not had a second thought when he’d gone in search of Persephone, in search of the ring Theseus now kept in his possession. He tried to sense it, the familiar energies of the stones he’d chosen to represent her and their future together, but all he felt was the cold of the labyrinth, which became even more disorienting the longer they were within it, alternating between walking for long stretches and a series of sharp turns down shorter pathways.
Hades wondered what guided Theseus through the maze. He walked with purpose, twisting and turning through the many and varied corridors. It was possible he had memorized the route—he was certainly psychotic enough.
Finally they came to a part of the maze that was in ruins, the walls broken and crumbled from age.
“Part of the original labyrinth,” said Theseus. Even in disrepair, the greatness of it was evident. “I had every intention of finishing it before you arrived, but as it is, I think it is far more fitting that you complete the prison in which you have been trapped.”
Hades’s gaze slid to the demigod.
“How do you propose I do that?” Hades asked.
“I have provided all the tools,” Theseus said.
Hades stared. He knew the demigod was willfully ignoring the obvious—the net draped over his body made him weak.
“And you wish for me to do this, why?” Hades asked. “So you can watch?”
“What else are you going to do while you wait to be rescued?” Theseus mocked. “Pine after your wife?”
Hades ground his teeth so hard, the muscles in his neck ached. After a moment, he relaxed, tilting his head to the side.
“Give yourself more credit, Theseus. You have done enough to earn a starring role in my thoughts.”
“What an honor,” Theseus said and cast his eyes to the materials scattered at his feet. “You might want to get started. I’ve been told it takes days for mud bricks to cure.” The demigod started to turn but paused. “I will pry a stone from your lover’s ring each time you stop,” he said. “And when there are no more, I will crush them into dust and feed them to you dry.”
The demigod left, vanishing into the dark, and Hades was left alone. As much as he recognized that there were other rings Hephaestus could make, the idea of the one in Theseus’s possession being destroyed by his hand felt like letting the demigod win.
That thought spurred Hades to begin.
He stared at the materials he’d been given—a trough of water, a sheaf of wheat, a bucket, a wooden box that would act as a mold for the bricks. There was nothing to cut the wheat, which meant nothing he could use as a weapon.
Everything would have to be done with his hands.
Hades recognized the futility of this work. It was not about finishing the wall at all. It was about shaming him, though Hades did not need this to feel ashamed. He had suffered with his guilt the moment Persephone had walked out the door with Theseus at Alexandria Tower.
He should have never agreed to the demigod’s request for a favor, but it had been the only reward Theseus would take for the capture of Sisyphus and the return of a relic the mortal had stolen. In fairness, it was no unjust request given that Sisyphus had been using the relic to steal lives from mortals, and while Hades had thought Theseus would use the favor for nefarious purposes, he had not anticipated that he would use it to separate him from Persephone.
And to what end? He still did not completely understand what had happened in his absence, but he knew that Theseus had managed to enter the Underworld, that he now possessed the Helm of Darkness, and that he had also released Cronos from Tartarus. And while Hades did not know what that meant for the future of New Greece, he knew he could handle it all so long as Persephone was well.
I am well.
Her voice was so clear, his heart raced and he turned, thinking she would be right beside him, but found nothing save dust twisting through the hazy darkness.
It was ridiculous to expect her there, foolish to feel disappointment when she wasn’t, yet he could not help how it crashed over him, a weight heavier than the net.
He ground his teeth, a wave of hot frustration settling deep in his bones. He would not be surprised to learn that Theseus had conjured some kind of illusion to distract him just so he could have the satisfaction of following through on his threat.
With the whisper of her words fresh in his mind, Hades swept the rubble from the jagged wall into the bucket Theseus had left to use in the brick mixture.
When he was finished, he lowered to the ground and dug his fingers into the sandy earth. The dirt reminded him of the fine, ashy silt in the Underworld, and as it lodged beneath his nails, he thought of how Persephone had knelt in the barren patch of earth he’d given her in his garden. She had been angry with him for snaring her into a contract, angrier when she had discovered the beauty of his realm. Even if it had not been real, the illusion only served to remind her of her inability to summon and feel her magic.
When she had risen to her feet, he had kissed her for the first time. He remembered how she felt against him, how she tasted like wine and smelled like sweet roses. He had lost himself in her perfection just as he was losing himself in her memory now.
“What a treat to find the God of the Dead on his knees.”
It was Persephone’s voice, and it set Hades on edge. He knew it was a trick, conjured by Theseus to torture him. He ignored the words, the way they whispered up his spine and made his chest ache. He focused harder on his task, scooping the sand into the bucket to mix with water and wheat, when he noticed something in his peripheral—the flare of a white dress—and when he looked, he was kneeling at Persephone’s feet.
He stared, his breath caught in his throat. She was more beautiful than ever with her wild, golden curls spilling over her shoulders and freckles dusting her ethereal skin. He wanted to kiss each one.
“You’re not real,” he said.
She laughed, her brows furrowing just a little.
“I am real,” she said, taking a step closer. He could feel the air move with her. “Touch me.”
He looked away, eyes falling to the ruins of the labyrinth.
Whatever this was, it was more painful than the wound at his side.
“Hades,” Persephone whispered his name again, and when he looked, she was still there, though it seemed that she was in another realm. There was a brightness at her back that haloed her body, as if the sun shone behind her.
“This is cruel,” he said, still kneeling, refusing to look at her face. Instead, he stared at her billowing dress. The fabric was thin and white, threaded through with gold.
“Don’t you want me?” she whispered.
He closed his eyes against the hurt in her voice. When he opened them again, he expected to be alone in the labyrinth, but she remained. He reached out and touched her gown, pinching the fabric between his fingers. It was soft and real.
How?
Hades looked up at her from the ground, worry etched across her sweet face.
“Persephone,” he said, half in disbelief. He could no longer stop himself. He rose to his feet, his lips crashing against hers, gripping the back of her head. His other hand pressed into the small of her back, his fingers splayed, holding her to him as tightly as he could.
He released her mouth and rested his forehead against hers.
“I do not know if you are real,” he said.
“Does it matter if we are together?” she asked. Her voice was quiet, and it seeped into his skin, making him shudder.
Her hands pressed flat against his chest, skin to skin, as her magic ate away at the net and his shirt. Perhaps this was more of a dream than a trick.
“Better,” Persephone muttered, her hands smoothing over him. He caught her wrists and kissed her palms.
She curled her fingers.
“Let me touch you,” she said. Her eyes brightened, taking on a fierceness that pierced his heart.
It wasn’t that he did not want her to. It was that he already feared waking up alone.
Persephone placed her hands on either side of his face. “Live in this moment with me.”
He wanted nothing else. He wanted her to take up every second of every day, to live in every part of his mind, to never leave his side. She was the dawn of his world, the warmth he carried in his heart, the light that kept him looking toward the future.
He kissed her again and dragged her up his body. He would have sighed with the weight of her in his arms, but he swept his tongue into her mouth, groaning at the way her taste made his body tighten. With her arms anchored around his neck, he gripped her hips, grinding his erection into the softness between her thighs.
Fuck, she felt so good and real.
She wiggled against him, and as she did, he let her slide to her feet. He was completely naked now—by the mercy of her magic, his length heavy and full between them. She touched him, her fingers teasing the veins pulsing with his blood. He felt the roar of his need in his ears.
“Will you let me please you?” she asked.
She did not need permission, but he liked the way she asked. Her voice was low and husky, her eyes gleaming with lust.
“If you wish,” he said, his tone matching hers, resisting the primal urge to tangle his fingers in her hair as she knelt before him.
“I wish,” she whispered, her breath on his cock.
His muscles clenched, and he grew harder as she licked him. The tip of her tongue ran along every vein and the smooth edge of his crown before she teased his head with lavish strokes. He took a few deep breaths, working through the pleasure blooming throughout his body.
Then she sucked him into her mouth, her hand working him up and down. He groaned, his chest tightening to the point that he could not take in air. He thought he would come, could feel his body reaching those great heights, just caressing the very edge of release.
He smoothed his hand into her hair, and she looked up at him as his cock slipped from her mouth, red, wet, and pulsing.
“Let me come inside you,” he said.
Her eyes darkened.
“If you wish,” she said.
“Oh, I wish,” he growled, dragging her to her feet.
He kissed her again and let his mouth run along her jaw and down her neck, teeth grazing, pausing to suck her skin. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He liked the bite of her nails, which made this feel even more real. He still wasn’t sure what this was, but he no longer cared.
He shoved the straps of her dress down, exposing her breasts, then her stomach and hips. He kissed down her body, his hands smoothing over her skin as he did. He spent time teasing her thighs and burying his face between her legs, licking her swollen clit until her fingers twisted in his hair. He made his way up her body before taking her into his arms again, her wet heat settling against his erection, her breasts pressed against his chest.
Trapped within this tension, their eyes held.
“I miss you,” she said.
Her fingers danced along his lips before she kissed him. He would take this distraction over the ache in his chest and carried her to what he thought was the tallest part of the labyrinth wall, but when he went to rest her against it, he found that they had fallen into a sea of black silk.
“This is a dream,” he murmured.
“Then it is a good dream,” she whispered.
He kissed her and made a slow descent down her body, taking time to tease and touch. She writhed, her thighs squeezing, and when he finally pressed his mouth to her heat, he found ecstasy.
