King of Shadows

by Amelia Wilde

  “No,” I say, but it’s weak. There’s no fight behind it, and he sees that. That cruel smile spreads across his lips.

  “You do.” He dismisses me outright, and I want to slide down the wall of the elevator to the floor. “And to answer your question, though I don’t believe you deserve an answer—I don’t believe you deserve anything—is that you will lie down and take it whenever I see fit. You will do anything I demand of you. You’ll take it because you have no choice.”

  At some point, the panting breaths have turned from panic to desire, which is terrible. It’s the most terrible outcome I can imagine, aside from Hades dragging me back out into the center of the rotunda and punishing me. I don’t even know what that would entail, other than—god, I can’t even think about it. My body, however, has thought about it, and I can’t deny the new dampness between my legs or the way my nipples brush against my tank top, sending electric shocks down to the center of my belly.

  Hades studies me.

  He studies me like I’m a foreign language to learn, and the only way to learn it is to absorb me into his skin until the humiliation eats me alive. Blessedly, that should happen soon. There’s no way I can sustain that.

  “Keep your hands on the railing.”

  I try to say okay but no sound comes out. Nothing comes out. I concentrate all my effort on the railing.

  Hades kneels down in front of me, and even kneeling, he is absolutely in control.

  “Punishment,” he says, as if I’ve been a naughty schoolgirl, being intentionally obtuse, “can take many forms.” He wraps two fingers around my ankle and lifts my foot off the ground, exposing the tender arch. “I could punish you here.” He draws a finger down the center, the spot so sensitive I throw my head back against the wall and squeeze my eyes closed. Then the quick swipe of a fingertip on the tops of my feet. “Or here.” God, what kind of horrible things does this man have up his sleeve? Is there no limit? No, whispers that voice. There is no limit. He drops my foot and runs two hands hard up the backs of my legs, then squeezes the backs of my thighs. “Here, until they’re criss-crossed with stripes from my belt.” His belt. Oh, my god, I might not survive this, not even one single day. His hands go upward, and he’s testing the curve of my ass. “And here. This is what you were thinking of, I’m sure of it. A spanking. But you know, Persephone, there are far more interesting punishments.”

  I’m speechless, lips parted, struggling to take a breath. Heat, heat, heat between my legs, running up between my breasts. Hades thrusts his hands up to my chest, taking one breast in his hand. He studies it like he watched my face before, with complete concentration.

  “Tits are an excellent thing to punish, too. The sounds—” He makes a noise of satisfaction. “Well, you’ll see. But even more than that...”

  There can’t be more. There can’t be more, because I’ll die. I’ll turn to dust in his hand and float away on the non-existent breeze in the elevator. He would love that, wouldn’t he? Or would he hate it? I can’t tell anymore, and the only thing that matters now in all the earth is the way he’s touching me, roughly, squeezing, pinching. Why, why, why does it feel good? Why do I want to lift my hands from the railing, not to push him away but to pull him closer? What the hell is wrong with me? It’s all so, so wrong.

  Then he slips his hand down, over my tank top and over my panties—the same panties he palmed last night—and brushes his knuckles over a part of me that throbs in a desperate, aching way. He doesn’t stay there. He reaches back behind me, takes two handfuls of my ass, and spreads. He’s not even really touching me. That thin layer of fabric—that’s keeping him from touching me. It’s keeping his hands off my skin and it’s not enough at the same time. It would be better if he took them off. But oh, god, it would be so mortifying, I would never be able to stand it, I would never live through that.

  One of his fingers goes to a place so private I whimper, knocking my head back against the wall, anything to release the pressure. It only presses in harder, along with his finger.

  “Here.”

  I’m babbling something, god knows what, the words meaningless. Hades pays no attention to them. He brings his hand around to the front of me and slots it between my legs, exactly where it was last night. He doesn’t have to force them open. He’s already arranged me how he wants me, and I didn’t notice. He scrambles my brain. He does something to me that’s worse, somehow, than killing me would have been. My mother was wrong, she was wrong.

  “And here.”

  All the sound and breath in the elevator goes still. Letting go of the railing isn’t an option—it hasn’t been on the table since he told me to keep my hands here—but he might as well be holding me up with his hand between my legs. It’s awful, it’s wonderful, and it’s going to tear me to pieces. Seconds tick by in the silence. He’s waiting for something. I pick my head up from the wall and look down at him, my face burning.

  “You—you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t do that.”

  He looks up at me, serious expression on his face. I think of a judge handing down a sentence, paternal in a way and vaguely concerned. I’ve taken you through this as simply as possible, the look says. Are you still not following?

  “I would. Know it in your heart, Persephone. I would.”

  Hades stands up, brushing his hands together like he’s done dirty work. The moment snaps apart. I bend forward, bare feet hot and then cold on the elevator floor. He turns, eyes already far away, and presses one palm to a panel on the wall that glows. The elevator drops, my stomach rises, and we descend into what has to be Hades’ private rooms.

  11

  Persephone

  The elevator comes to a smooth stop and the doors slide open. I swallow back a bitter surge of fear. The way time passes is distorted by standing so close to Hades, so I have no idea how long we’ve been dropping down. We could be far below the mountain, for all I know. Outside the doors the hallway drops into shadow. Is it a dungeon? Is he going to lock me up in a cage? That empty train car comes back to me in full force. He would do that. He’d shut me behind a solid rock door with nothing but my clothes and keep me there, the weight of the mountain crushing me bit by bit until there’s nothing left.

  He steps out into the hall. Conor moves first, going directly to his side. Hades looks back. His face in profile, even wearing an expression of impatience, is so beautiful it takes my breath away.

  “Let go of the fucking railing. Don’t be tedious about this. It wastes my time.”

  I’m trying to be good, I want to say, but I don’t. It disgusts me, trying to be good. Who have I become? Less than a day away from home, and I’m already scrambling and scraping to please him. I have to stop. I can’t stop. I can never, ever stop.

  I follow him out and try to keep myself calm by going over the details. This is not, at first glance, a dungeon, like I’ve read about in my books. Dungeons don’t have walls carved like this, with the same gold streaks I saw below. This floor—this wing?—has no echoing rotunda. The ceilings are high enough that Hades looks almost normal. This place was made for him, as custom as his suits. I steal a glance behind us. The hall disappears into darkness in either direction.

  He sighs.

  I snap my head around, expecting to see him glaring at me, but he’s standing with his eyes closed, hands in his pockets. It lasts for less than a heartbeat. Conor nudges him below the knees, almost like he’s coaxing him to go somewhere. As if Hades could ever be coaxed. Hades opens his eyes, frowns at me, and moves down the hall, Conor at his feet. I’m not even as good as his dog.

  “Keep up.”

  What was that I saw? Relief at coming home? Hades is a man who should be as comfortable here as he is anywhere else. There’s nothing that could possibly touch him, out there in the world or here at home. Does he...like being at home? Need it, like regular people do? It doesn’t seem possible, and yet...

  We pass four doorways and the gloom lifts at the end of the hall, where a double door is set into the e
nd. We’re almost there when I can’t force my feet to go another step. Hades stops and looks around to me, scowling now.

  “I said, keep up.”

  “Just tell me what’s going to happen,” I plead.

  He rolls his eyes. “When I said I’d make you beg, I didn’t mean over every obnoxious thought that goes through your mind. I thought that was understood.”

  Anticipation and anxiety twist together at the center of my chest, filling up all the space where air is supposed to be.

  “I can’t stand it,” I say breathlessly. “I need to know what’s coming. I need it.”

  Hades makes his way back over to me, a half-smile on his face. Oh, he understands, he understands. My heart cracks open with relief. I know he’s a bad man. I know he doesn’t care about me and never will. That doesn’t mean he’s incapable of all empathy. He must see in my face how much I need this. Is it a dungeon? A cell? Did I make a mistake, thinking this was his home, and not a prison? Why would I think the walls would matter? Why, why, why? My thoughts become more and more tangled with every step he takes.

  He reaches out and puts a hand on the top of my head and I let my eyes flutter closed. A comforting touch. I thought I’d never feel a comforting touch again. One tear, then two, comes free of my eyelids.

  His thumb rubs over my temple, smoothing back my hair. I need this. I need this so much. I press my lips together to keep my chin from quivering, because I don’t want him to stop, I don’t want—

  Hades digs his hand into the back of my hair, twists his fingers in hand, and tilts my face up to his. It pulls a gasp from my mouth. I’ve never seen a harder, more narrowed set to his eyes, not even when he was killing Decker.

  “We’re not going to do this.” Nothing about him is loud, which makes his voice sound far deadlier. This is a man who doesn’t even have to speak to keep people in line. “I’m not going to pet you and indulge you at every single fucking doorway. You need to know what happens? You already know what’s going to happen, sweetheart. You’ll do anything I say and maybe, maybe, I’ll let you live. But let’s get down to the truth at the very bottom of this, the one you keep flirting with and trying to get me to deny. If I want you to die, you’ll die. You belong to me now.”

  I stare, open-mouthed, caught halfway between abject terror and disbelief at how beautiful he can look when he’s being so mean.

  Hades gives my hair a shake and I cry out a little at the pain.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” I choke out.

  “That’s not good enough, sweetheart. Tell me what it is you understand.”

  “That I—” I suck in a deep breath, hoping it’ll give me enough momentum to get the words out. “I belong to you now.”

  “Again.” He pulls my hair, harder, tipping my head back. Hades leans his head down until his lips are an inch away from my skin. He could bite me now, break the skin, and let me bleed out on the floor. All I feel is his hot breath as he exhales. “I said again. How many times do we need to go over this? Or is it that you’re really begging for punishment? I promise you, Persephone, I can make it so you’ll never, never forget what I’ve told you.”

  “I belong to you now.” This time, my voice is low and frantic.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “I belong to you now!” His hand digs in and the pain my scalp blooms into something sharper, all-encompassing. “I belong to you now! I belong to you now! I belong to you now, please, I belong to you now,” I scream the words, sob them, he’s going to pull me backward, he’s going to let me hit the floor. Instead he pulls my hair upright, toward the ceiling, and lets me fall.

  My knees hit the floor with a bruising blow and I put my hands to the back of my head, expecting to feel blood. A hand comes down to my chin, pulling me up to my feet. I can’t catch my breath, but somehow, that hand steadies me. Something else does, too—Conor, pushing against me. Almost like he’s pushing me up. The dog makes a low noise in the back of his throat, and for the life of me, I can’t tell if it’s comforting me or trying to get me back on my feed to do Hades’ bidding. He presses his nose against the crook of my arm, the rest of him warm and solid. Everything is upside down. I should not feel any safer here, with Conor at my side. But I do.

  Hades eyes trace my face, following my tears down to my chin.

  “Excellent,” he murmurs. “You have no idea how much I fucking loved that.”

  “You’re sick.” I shouldn’t say it, not if I want to keep breathing, but the lingering pain overrides what’s left of my good judgment. “Disgusting. Vile—”

  “That’s it,” he prompts.

  “You’re a terrible man,” I shout.

  “Well, yes.”

  “You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.” The last tears fall, then dry on my cheeks. The air here—it’s not still, or stuffy, despite the lack of windows. It’s always moving, always whispering against my skin. “I hate you.”

  “Good.” Hades pats my head again, a light in his eyes, a smile playing around his lips. What the hell? “I intend to strip you down to the very core of you, Persephone, and make you mine in ways...” He trails off with a chuckle. “But this bullshit of yours, these little fits of terror over things like doors...save it.”

  “Save it?” I cross my arms over my chest to hide the shake in my hands. “Save it for what? This is all—this is all very, very bad.” My throat begins to tighten with tears so I clear it roughly.

  “Save your pretty fear for when I have you naked over my knee or tied spread-eagle on my bed.” He swipes his thumb across the remnants of my tears, the salt-tracks that seem to be a constant fixture on my face now. “That’s when I want it. Don’t waste it on things like entering a room. You’ll exhaust yourself, and that will limit the amount I can enjoy you. That’s not what I want. Say it one more time, so I’m absolutely sure you understand.”

  His words echo in my brain—naked over my knee, spread-eagle on my bed—and I imagine stuffing them into a closet and shutting the door. It’s the only way I can make myself say it. Because I don’t belong to him. I’ll never belong to him, not truly.

  “I belong to you now,” I repeat, voice level.

  “That’s right.” He whistles. “Conor, go in.”

  The door swings open beneath his hand like it was waiting for him to open it, and Hades sweeps one hand around my back and pushes me into the room. The dog shoots past us and disappears down one hallway. One of my bare toes catches on the smooth floor and I stumble, but this time there’s nobody to catch me. He’s behind me, and there’s no way for anyone to—

  A hand flies out in front of me just as I catch my balance and I take it like it’s the last life preserver on a sinking ship.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much...” The gratitude dies on my lips as I straighten up, the new information falling into place.

  Someone reached out to catch me.

  Someone has been inside this room the whole time, hearing what happened, hearing me scream.

  I raise my red, hot face only because I can’t stand the wait any longer.

  Five women in black uniforms, their hair combed back in sleek buns, wait in a semicircle in the entryway to the most enormous room—it must actually be a set of rooms, because this is no bedroom. To call it a living room seems like a ridiculous understatement. Thick pillars separate an enormous sunken sitting area from the rest of the room. It looks ancient and modern at the same time—like you could curl up at the base of it and stare into a screen or sit around the edges and attend a performance. My heart zigzags frantically at the thought of what kind of performance that would be. Knowing what I know of Hades, it could be...

  The blood leaches out of my cheeks and I take a step back toward Hades. He nudges me forward again with a sharp exhale. I’ve annoyed him again.

  One of the women—the one who put out her hand to break my fall—looks to be in her forties, with silver hair and a red lipstick that makes me feel utterly naked in its perfe
ction. I look ridiculous, here in this room. A linen dress, handmade for me by an old lady my mother pays by the season? I want it off. If I could have anything else to wear, I’d wear it.

  “Fix her,” says Hades. “Don’t disturb me until it’s done.”

  He moves past me as the women close in, the lady nearest me reaching for my hand again. Hades doesn’t look back. He heads to a wide hallway leading god knows where.

  “You’re leaving?” I call after him.

  “What does it look like?”

  “I thought you would stay.” I try and fail to keep the quiver out of my voice.

  “They’re in charge now,” he says lightly, still not turning back, still not bothering to see if I’m all right. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, of course he doesn’t care. “Obey their orders as if they’ve come from me.”

  “I’m Genie,” says the lady with the silver hair. She doesn’t bother to look where he’s gone. Her eyes hold a flicker of concern, then her face settles into seriousness. “Come this way, Persephone. We can’t keep Mr. Hades waiting.”

  12

  Hades

  Persephone would collapse into a fit of tears if she knew about the two-way mirror.

  It’s made with slightly different technology than the rest of my windows, which means the wall doesn’t even appear to have a window in it. There are many reasons for me to have a room in my private quarters that allows for observation, but of all of them, this is by far the most enjoyable.