by Vivian Wood
And as much as I hate him—and I do hate him, for what he did to Decker and for the fact that he’s exactly as evil as my mother always said he was—there is a part of me that wants to see what happens next. A part of me that won’t sit down and shut up now that I finally have a chance to do something other than roam my mother’s fields. We’re headed toward a logical conclusion, and God, that logical conclusion is terrifying. My heart thrums in my throat, just thinking of the waiting. But my mind recoils. If he throws you down outside this train car and has his way with you, you’ll be wishing you could go back in time to when it was all shrouded in mist, part of the future.
I catch up as he steps down off the car, straining to hear Conor’s footfalls behind me. The dog’s nose brushes the back of my dress, and my legs tense, ready to run. But running is the last thing you should do in front of a wild animal. He’s not a wild animal, not really, but the back of my neck bristles like he is.
The platform outside is not just a platform. I get an impression of high ceilings and dark marble, a cavernous, echoing space. And then I get an impression of something else, something that needs a second look. Hades holds his hand out. The movement doesn’t make any sense. What is he doing? What does he want me to do?
Oh.
He’s offering me his hand. Conor bumps me to the side to get out, sending me into the doorframe.
Hades glares.
“Is it that you want to fall onto the tracks? I can promise you it wouldn’t be a pleasant escape.” His voice is so light and so cutting all at once.
“No, I don’t.” I put my hand in his.
The touch is electric, bordering on a firestorm. For all he touched me last night, the only thing I had under my palms were Hades’ clothes. His hand is so big, and mine so small, like putting my hand into an alligator’s cage. Utterly reckless and dangerous if the alligator is in a bad mood. Hades is far more dangerous than any of the animals I’ve read about or seen outside the fence, except for his own dog. Is that what this is? A warning? Or my own body tricking me into thinking a monster might not be so bad after all?
He tugs, and I step down. He doesn’t seem to care that I’m not wearing shoes, or else he hasn’t noticed. All around us, black-clothed men step into place in a loose circle. They’ve left enough space to make it seem like we’re walking alone, but... we’re not.
In fact, we’re very far from alone. I’ve only ever seen the train station in the city, which was an antique design built before all the skyscrapers went up. At least that’s what one of the placards on the wall said. This station doesn’t have any placards. That doesn’t seem to matter. It’s busy. Nobody spares a second glance for his dog, which must mean they’re used to it. I don’t know how they could get used to a dog that size—one that’s obviously a killing machine. I want to keep my eye on him, but the people demand my attention. So many people.
What did I expect when he threw me over his shoulder? An empty room at the center of the mountain? This isn’t it. Far overhead, the ceiling moves smoothly over us in a high arc. The rock is a matte black with streaks of gold painted onto it. No, not painted. In an instant, it clicks into place; he didn’t hire artists to come hang from the rock, carefully imitating seams of precious metals. They are seams of precious metals. He’s carved his train station out of his own riches.
“Close those lips or I’ll be forced to put something there,” he says lightly, but I hear the promise in his tone.
“I….” What’s the use in apologizing? There is none. I think—and I could be wrong—he likes it when I’m a little insolent. Probably because that’ll give him an excuse to punish me later. A full-body shiver rocks me from head to toe. God, who has thoughts like this? Not me. I can’t let myself sink into that kind of depravity no matter what happens to me here. If I do, I’ll never be the same. And if I’m going to hold out any hope of escape, I have to keep myself intact. As much as I can manage. “This is huge.”
People pour out onto the platform from doorways gashed into the walls. They keep their heads low. Their eyes flicker in our direction, but the looks are glancing, temporary. These people head straight for the train, as quickly as they can. No wonder. I only wish I could ask them where they’re going and why it looks so simple for them to leave.
As if he’s read my mind, Hades laughs. “They’re not leaving, so wipe that precious expression off your face. They stay on the mountain, just like you will.” The trap of his hand closes over mine.
“You keep people here?”
Hades looks at me like he’s never seen a person quite as dense. “Who the hell do you think works in the mines or staffs my home? Fucking commuters?”
“Just like me,” I echo, the terrible realization dawning. “They all made a deal with you?”
His eyes narrow. “Did you think you were special?”
Maybe I did. Maybe some sound he made last night made me think his cruelty is hiding something else. But I must have imagined it. The way he’s looking at me now, eyes harder than diamonds—no. I’m like everyone else in this station. I’m his property too. My heart aches for them and for me. I was desperate enough to throw myself on his mercy. They must’ve been too. It’s a cold comfort.
“You’re nobody,” he says simply, and even though I know it, even though I’ve been bracing myself all along, tears prick the corners of my eyes. “You’re nobody now, and when I’m done with you, you’ll still be nobody.”
Then he lifts my hand to his lips and brushes them across my knuckles.
He drops it before I have a chance to react.
“Keep up with me. I don’t have all day.”
Chapter Ten
Persephone
The mountain is much farther from my mother’s fields than I thought. Nothing drives the point home harder than walking up the wide stone steps to a set of massive double doors that look like they’ve been carved from the same rock as the train station. They swing open as Hades and I approach, Conor right behind him, and it’s only after a few seconds that I see the men holding them ajar. They both keep their eyes on the ground as we pass through and enter what can only be described as a capital city.
That’s what it looks like, with Roman architecture and a soaring rotunda up at the top. A series of hallways branches out from the round center of the room. They’re so long I can’t see the ends from here. This palace isn’t a mansion; this is a small city. Now it makes more sense why my mother would have been so paranoid. A man who could own something like this could own anything else he wanted, including the hands of an assassin or a policeman to look the other way. There are no rules for him; his house makes that crystal clear.
Something is not right about the space. Most places I’ve seen like this, in school and in pictures, are carved from... white rock, I guess. The rock shot through with gold isn’t what’s wrong about it, however. It’s something else. Something is different. The shadows shift on Hades’ face. I try to blink away the difference—maybe it’s my eyes—but nothing changes.
People come and go here too, but fewer of them, and they’re dressed in dark suits and maids’ uniforms. All of them, without exception, subtly change their paths to get out of his way as we cross. I can’t help craning my neck to look around as he moves through, not hurrying exactly, but not giving me any time to look. There are carvings up in the dome of the rotunda, and windows. I can see white, fluffy clouds through the windows, but the tint is off. Tinted windows in a rotunda? Who would ever want that? Lights ring the room, but the character of it doesn’t measure up to natural light. It’s not until this moment that I miss my mother’s fields with a vengeance. I’d do anything for the sun on my face.
Hades stalks across the rotunda, footsteps echoing, to a bank of elevators. Conor keeps up, completely focused on following Hades. He doesn’t pause to sniff the floor or get a pat from anyone else. He stays right by his feet like it’s his job.
Maybe it is.
There’s one button inset into a panel outside the e
levator, and Hades presses it. The doors slide open soundlessly. Every set of doors reminds me of just how far I am from home and safety. I don’t want to go in; I don’t. But I remember the way he bent me over his desk, and I know he’d do worse right here and right now, no matter the audience. Maybe he’d like the audience. My core goes hot with embarrassment, and suddenly I can’t get into the elevator fast enough. I break away and press myself against the back wall of the elevator, panting. My own reflection pants back at me. I have a moment to register that the flowers in my hair have... have died. Shriveled up, dried out into husks of themselves on my head. That should be impossible. They were new, from just yesterday.
But then Hades steps in. Conor follows. The doors close behind them. They’re taking up all the available space.
Hades narrows his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
It occurs to me that I’m gripping the handrail—I’m surprised there is a handrail in a place like this, where everyone is nobody—so tightly my knuckles have lost all their color. The elevator is far smaller than the train car, far more closed in, filled to the very top with my own fear.
“I’m being good. I’m staying out of the way.”
“Being good.” A smile plays over his face, beautiful and deadly. “What are you trying to avoid?”
Everything. “Getting bit by your dog.”
He drops a hand to Conor’s head. “If I wanted that to happen, it would have happened already. He’s a very well-trained dog. He would never bite without my express permission. Anything else?”
“There’s… there’s nothing.”
“You’re not concerned about being punished?”
Maybe he wants me to let go, to stand closer, but I can’t move. “You wouldn’t punish me for trying to be good.”
“My, my. I didn’t think we’d come quite so far yet. Let’s go back out so I can give you what you really want, you filthy thing.”
“No, please.” I hold on to the railing for dear life. “Don’t do that, not now, not on the first day.”
Hades saunters over. “So when you told me you would do anything to save your boyfriend, you meant ‘anything so long as you’re nice to me.’ You didn’t really mean anything.”
“I meant it.” My heart has gone wild, uncontrollable.
“You’d submit to a punishment to prove it, then?”
How could I do that? How could anyone do that? How could anyone just sit there and take it, no matter what they agreed? And why, why, does part of me already know the answer?
“Yes.”
“You would not. Who are you trying to fool, Persephone?” His eyes have gone deeper than the center of me. They’ve gone all the way through. He can see everything.
“I have no other choice.” My mouth has gone dry. “I would… I would try to do it.”
“It’s not about trying. It’s about submitting.” His hand is around my throat faster than lightning, too fast for me to raise my arms. “If you won’t give me what you promised, then your word is useless. You are useless.” He’s not squeezing hard, not yet. Just enough to let me know he has absolute control. And my body? My body responds. My nipples tighten, and I press my ass against the wall of the elevator. Hades looks down into my eyes, watching my shame, and then he curses under his breath. “I can’t fucking believe it.” He almost sounds wondering. “Demeter’s daughter is a virgin who wants a man to punish her.”
I have never, never thought those words, even in the privacy of my own mind, even late at night when I know my mother is so soundly asleep that she’d never catch me thinking about it. But the truth—oh, God, the worst possible truth—is that I’m a liar. I’m a liar, and I have thought about a scenario like that, with a man’s big hand and a woman bent over his knee, ass raised to… to accept it. There were books at school that I was forbidden to read, and I read them, but I never allowed myself to think of the words again. Only the images, and only because I knew it would never happen to me.
“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 crisscrossed 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 beneath my dress but over my tank 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 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, a
long 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, a 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.
Chapter Eleven
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. 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.