by Amelia Wilde
“I—” There’s nothing I can say to that. He looks like he could stand at the bottom of the stairs forever and never get tired. There’s no choice but to do what he says. And in fact, I agreed to it—I did. I made a deal. I said anything. Whatever Hades is planning now is part of anything. Why, why, why was I so careless? Would Decker have done the same for me?
It dawns, slowly—maybe he did do the same for me. Maybe he was trying to put himself on the line, trying to distract Hades, and that’s what I interrupted. Decker was not dead when they took him away. There’s still hope he’s alive now. But I saw Hades’ hands around his neck. I saw the casual way he stood. It wasn’t an effort for him, killing Decker—it would have been easy, and he would have gone on with his life as if nothing had happened. I’m the only thing standing in the way of that now. I don’t know where they’ve taken Decker but this, tonight, this is proof that it doesn’t matter. My mother was right. Hades will find him and kill him, and that will be the end of the game. I owe him. A full-body shudder moves through me. I have to do this, and I have to do it now.
“T-turn around and do what?”
Another slow smile, the hint of a laugh. I hold my breath, the pressure of the air around me pressing in on my head and on my heart and on the sick desire knotting in my belly.
“It’s not obvious? Don’t lie to me.” Hades puts his fingers beneath my chin and moves my head back and forth, watching, watching. “I liked it when you lied before, even while you pressed those thighs together and pretended you don’t feel it. But don’t do it now. I’ll know, and then you’ll have to pay the price.”
“It’s not obvious,” I blurt, I beg. “What do you want me to do?”
“Turn around,” he says again. “And get on the fucking train.”
6
Persephone
The outside of the train car gave nothing away, its shell the same black, sleek exterior as the other cars. I edge into Hades’ train car sideways, breath shallow. I don’t want to turn all the way around. If I take my eyes off him, god knows what he’ll become. He’s already the worst thing I could imagine.
It’s not his looks that make my knees weak, it’s how he had Decker—strong, capable Decker—in midair without so much as breaking a sweat. Or maybe it is his looks. I don’t know anymore. My brain is nothing. My brain is the breeze in the leaves—leaves I might never see again.
He steps into the car behind me, his frame filling the door. For an instant I think he might not make it through. Then he angles his shoulders, the movement graceful and controlled, and I have to scoot out of the way so he can rise to his full height behind me.
I don’t mean to stare, but in the warm, golden light of the train car, I... have no other choice.
Hades is exactly as tall and broad as he was outside, only more so now that we’re in an enclosed space. My brain struggles to put all the pieces of him together at once. I wasn’t wrong about the way the light reacts to him. He wears a rich charcoal suit that might as well be a black hole. There’s not a hint of shine to it, like the suit jacket I found at the back of my mother’s closet once upon a time. At boarding school I picked up enough fashion knowledge to know that this is no off-the-rack garment. It was made for him.
And the body underneath the suit—
Flawless. I press my thighs together again at the sight of him. Decker has a rough-and-tumble attractiveness, some muscles bigger than others, nothing quite matching up. But Luther Hades looks like he was born to wear expensive suits as much as he was born to throw me over his shoulder. Everything about him is symmetrical, perfect. The suit slides over hard biceps and I bet if I pulled his shirt out of his pants and looked underneath—
I bet—
Oh, god, I can’t even think of it. I bet he’d still be perfect. I swallow hard. All the books I’ve read, I realize now, are complete fantasies. In real life, men as evil as Hades don’t have to have an outward mark to tell you that they’re the devil. Hades certainly doesn’t. This is a man, I think wildly. This is a real man. I try to bat the thought away, but it seems so real and foundational and true. I gave up my life for Decker, but I never once felt lightheaded at the sight of him.
A jagged tear appears in my mind. Everything about his clothes and his train car is supposed to be about refinement. But all I can feel is the violence coiled underneath all that fine fabric. His clothes don’t hide it. They enhance it. He could kill wearing the most expensive piece of clothing I’ve ever seen.
Hades snaps his fingers in front of my eyes.
I blink up at him, breath stopping again at the sight of his face. His face. His body is one thing, but his face—I’ve never seen any man so cruelly beautiful. Pale blue eyes like chips out of the springtime sky. Sandy hair, catching the golden light in short glossy strands. He looks out at me, cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and a perfectly cruel jaw.
“Ah—so you do like what you see.” His lips curve upward in something between a sneer and a smile. “But I didn’t tell you to stare. I told you to get on the train.”
“No, I—” Yes. I do like it. I can’t help it. He’s beautiful and his clothes are beautiful and this train car is everything I was hoping for out there in the woods, back when I was still a fool. “It’s hard to look away.”
Behind him, the door slides shut. He slaps a palm to the wall beside him. It glows, then fades away, and the train starts moving. My balance is off on my wobbly knees and I fall sideways, unceremonious, one palm thrown out to stop my fall—but I never hit the floor. Hades catches me around the waist again. I feel the place where he’s touching me over my entire side, like an electric current.
“Pay attention,” he growls. “If you hit your head on the furniture, you won’t be of any use to me.” He wraps his other huge hand around my waist and pushes me backward. This time, the landing is a soft one—plush and overstuffed, actually. It does nothing to calm me. His dog is instantly between us, guarding, watching me. The beginnings of a growl rumble in his throat. Wolf. He’s more like a wolf—too big and powerful to be a pet.
“Conor.” Hades snaps his fingers, and it’s like I never existed—either to him or to the dog. There’s enough light here to see that Conor is the color of midnight and strong, not an ounce of extra fat on him. He crosses the train car, nails clicking on the floor, and curls up in front of the fireplace. The fireplace. A low fire burns in a grate by the train’s outer wall.
I have the distinct sensation of the sun going behind a cloud. It makes no sense, because if anyone was ever the opposite of the sun, it’s Hades. He’s not the sun, and he’s not the moon. He is total darkness, a place no light can touch.
He moves through the train car, stopping to pat Conor’s head, which gives me a moment to catch my breath. Then he stands at the edge of a desk that’s clearly been made to fit him—sturdy and gleaming polished wood, a deep, dark color with a hint of red. He removes one cufflink, then the other, and drops them both on the surface of the desk with a muffled metallic click. The desk must be bolted to the floor. Everything in here must be bolted to the floor, because it all sways with the movement of the train. Although...something is different. It would have been a different ride in the dusty interior of the next car up on that hard bench. This car must’ve been built to his specifications, so that Hades, the man I’ve sworn to do anything for, moves in complete comfort. Every detail could have sprung from his bones, fully formed. The rich paneling on the walls. Deep green-gray furniture, the hue of the summer grass at night. He turns from his desk and undoes the buttons of his jacket, then slips it from his shoulders. My heart stops, then stutters to a start.
Behind the desk is a door. Past the door is the corner of a bed, done up in sheets the color of his suit. My stomach clenches, and I dig one hand into the armrest on this—what is it? A small sofa.
Hades pauses by a set of built-in cabinets and touches one of the slats. It rolls up to reveal a full bar—glasses and bottles of alcohol. My mother only ever kept wine in the house,
and this—this is not wine. The amber liquids are in unmarked bottles. I bet he has that specially made, too.
He pours himself a glass like I’m not even there, then turns around and watches me while he sips it.
“Still paying attention?”
“Yes.” I sit up straight. It’s sick, how hard I’ve been trying to do what he said. How hard I’ve been paying attention to this man, and his dog, both of whom could be the end of me right now. All it would take is one decision from him. A snap of his fingers.
I don’t want him to make me wish I was dead, I really don’t. I don’t want him to be the man I know he is. And some small part of me knows that even if I obey him flawlessly, it will never, ever change him. I didn’t come here to change him. I came here to pay what I owe. Tears fill my eyes again at the thought of Decker’s body dangling uselessly in the air, his feet kicking more slowly with every second. “I’m paying attention.”
“Good. Then we’ll begin.”
I lick at suddenly dry lips, folding my hands into my lap. Oh god, oh god. I thought I’d talked myself down from the panic before but it rises again, thick and suffocating. A thousand questions come to mind and die on the tip of my tongue.
Hades sits on the wider sofa across the train car, feet planted on the ground, glass cupped in the palm of his hand. He takes a sip and surveys me, eyes cold. A shiver crawls down my spine. My heart kicks up, thrashing around inside my rib cage, screaming to get out. Just start already, please, please, please. I open my mouth to let the plea slip out into the air, but Hades speaks first.
“Come here.”
Already, the sofa has come to represent the safest place in the room. As if a piece of furniture could stop him from coming over here himself. A firework exploding, sending shards of shame through every part of me, and I get to my feet. My knees start up again, going loose and useless, and I have to lock them to stay upright. Don’t faint. I unlock them, rocking them forward an inch. Just move.
I take the first step, and Hades holds up a hand.
“Not like that, sweetheart.”
I don’t know what he means. There’s no other way to get across the floor except for walking.
Unless—
I don’t know what he means, and then suddenly, awfully, I do.
“I—I’m wearing a dress.”
A glint sparks in his eyes, and I want to clap a hand over my mouth. I’m already here because of my reckless words, and now I’m going to end up without a dress. He’ll see everything. The linen tank I have a hundred of. Had. The—the white panties. Oh, god, no. And on top of this—on top of it all—I have to crawl past the dog with the scariest teeth on the planet. Conor.
“So you do understand.” He laughs, that same sound that burns my cheeks. “Come here.”
I drop to my knees onto the plush carpeting, which still carries the scent of a lightly perfumed cleaner, something meant to evoke clean laundry. It works, and before I can stop myself I’ve dug my hands into it, eyes burning.
“Don’t hide your tears.” I look up into Hades’ face, and his intense gaze is changed, brightened. He’s enjoying this. “I want to see them all. Keep that pretty chin up while you crawl to me.”
My hands are cement blocks, my knees totally ineffectual, but I put one palm after the other, one knee after the other, while hot tears slip down. At the last moment he points between his legs. I’ll never make it. I’ll never be able to make myself do this—not with humiliation sloshing against every last inch of me.
And the most humiliating thing of all?
It’s not every last inch.
Because between my legs, desire builds with every sway of my hips and every press of my palms into the carpet.
I stop between his wide legs, looking up at him, trying to keep my breathing even. Hades reaches down and puts a hand under my chin, jerking my head up another inch, peering down at me. That filthy, hidden part of me sighs with relief even as the rest of me recoils. I have to let him do this—for Decker. But I cannot feel this way about it. I can’t.
Hades looks down at me and smiles, and I can’t tell which parts of me have gone cold and which parts have gone hot. All I know is that I want him to let go, to let me go. Yes. That’s what I want. That’s what I need, and I don’t need anything else.
“You took too long, but you get extra points for crying. I fucking love that.” His teeth scrape at his bottom lip.
“Can I go back to the sofa now?” Another tear works its way free, my heart throbbing. This is enough for now. It has to be enough for now.
“Do you really think I’m done with you? Tell the truth.” The simple words might as well be curses. He leans down, the scent of him surrounding me. “Tell me now.”
“No,” I choke out. “I didn’t think—I only thought, since—”
“Shut your pretty little mouth.”
I snap my lips closed.
“I’m not done with you now, and I’ll never be done with you. Those are the terms in exchange for your piece of shit boyfriend’s life. You did it, Persephone. You saved him. But you’ll never save yourself.” He lifts me up by the chin, quickly enough that I have to scramble to my feet. He holds me off-balance, leaning close, and I want to collapse into him and sob against his shirt. It’s sick, it’s wrong, I want it.
The train carries me away from my mother’s house, away from everything I’ve ever known, at a breakneck pace. My mind breaks away, going back to those fields. I hated the fences. I might love them now.
He snaps his fingers in front of my eyes again, the sound startling me.
“Now.” It’s all I can do to stay upright, even with his hand gripping my chin. “Let’s find out what else you’ll do.”
7
Persephone
I tremble in his hands, and Hades watches this as dispassionately as you’d watch a flower grow. Unlike my mother, he wouldn’t think twice about crushing them under his heel, or in his hands. He’d just as soon tear out the petals and spit on them.
“The crawling was fine.” A cold assessment. The way you’d talk about a thing. “The tears are delicious, but you’ll have to do better than that.”
He rises to his feet, towering over me. I just can’t move. I can’t anticipate what he’ll do or what he’ll say, so I stand there, rooted to the spot, staring at the buttons on his dress shirt. It’s the nicest dress shirt I’ve ever seen. Some of the other girls at school had spare clothes aside from the uniforms, and I could tell those dresses cost a lot—but this? It’s nicer than all of them combined.
“Mmm. I have to say, Persephone, the sight of you scared...” He makes a low noise in the back of his throat. “You were such a courageous little thing out there, offering yourself up.” He laughs again, and I want to sink down to the floor and hide my face. Even more than that, I want to hook my fingers in the space between the buttons of his shirt and hold on for dear life.
“I’m not afraid of you. I’ve known you were dangerous all my life. That—that doesn’t make me afraid.” I have never been so terrified. It’s become the air I breathe and the rise and fall of my lungs.
“It’s strange that you didn’t warn your boyfriend about me, given all that you know about me.” His eyes rake across my face. My lips. My neck.
“He’s not my boyfriend. I said that before.”
His bristling silence tells me I’ve stepped in the direction of defiance, and the air crackles with a warning. “So you don’t really care whether he lives or dies”
I look up into his face, as best I can from this distance.
“That’s not true. I—I love him.” It’s not true, and a flash in Hades’ eyes tells me he believes it as much as I do. “We weren’t together like that. My mother would never have let me be with him. It was something we were going to discuss when we got to the city.”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet.” He clicks his tongue. “You should be thanking me. I’ve saved you from a lifetime of cooking his dinners and pretending to be interested.”
I press my lips closed. Terror mixes with confusion, all of it wrapped in the overpowering need to survive. I did love Decker. I loved him enough to try to save him from Hades. But something rings terribly true in Hades’ words, all of it shaking the foundations of me like a two-ton bomb. Is he right, or am I just so afraid that I’m taking his word for it? Why would I take Luther Hades’ word for anything? And yet that’s exactly what I’ve done.
“I wasn’t pretending.” Some part of me was pretending, but which part? The girl who had never had a boyfriend before, pretending to know what she was doing? Or the woman who had fallen in love, pretending it wasn’t happening?
“Good. Prove it to me.” He takes me by the arm and turns me to face the desk. “Bend over the desk.” He puts a hand on the back of my neck. “You had so much trouble understanding my instructions before, so I’ll make it easy. Bend.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can only obey. I thought crawling was the worst of it, I thought the nightmarish images that came to mind about what men do to women were the worst of it—I never—I never—the desk meets my hips; a hard, unforgiving line. I’m painfully aware of the curve of my back and my ass and then the press of my breasts against the unyielding surface.
“What are you going to do?” I whisper. “Please, tell me.”
He gives my neck a shake and my cheek makes contact with the desk.
“A summary of my plans for you isn’t part of the terms.” Another shake, harder. “In fact, I’ve already held up my end of the deal.” Hades rubs a thumb absently up and down the side of my neck, underneath my hair, then lets go. “I didn’t kill that disgusting worm of a man. I didn’t kill you, though... I could.” My body fights between tensing up and giving in to the slow slide of his thumb. Why, why, would I ever want to let that relax me? It’s not me wanting it, I decide. It’s my traitor of a body. “You’re so small. It would be nothing.”