A Touch of Malice

by Scarlett St. Clair

She had questions—what had he dreamed, exactly? Her mouth? This act, performed like this? In his open office? But she asked none of them and continued, spurred by his breathing, which pitched unevenly, ragged and labored.

  “Lord Hades,” Ivy’s voice entered the fray, and she felt Hades tense, his posture changing as he stiffened and sat up straighter. Her presence didn’t keep Persephone from continuing; she worked harder, lavishing every sensitive dip and arch of his cock with her tongue.

  “Why are you sitting?”

  Ivy sounded perplexed, and Persephone laughed despite Hades’s cock filling her mouth. His reaction was immediate. He twined one of his hands into her hair.

  “I’m working,” he said.

  “There’s nothing on your desk,” Ivy said.

  “It’s…coming,” he said, his fingers digging into her scalp.

  “Right, well, when you have a moment—”

  “Leave, Ivy. Now.”

  Persephone heard nothing else from her. She assumed she was gone when Hades placed another hand on her face. For a moment, her eyes met his as he spoke.

  “Take all of me,” he said and thrust into her mouth.

  He went deep and her eyes watered, her throat full of him—but she wanted to be this for him.

  “Yes,” he hissed. “Like that.”

  He pumped into her and she choked but he stayed there, rigid in her mouth until he came, her throat thick with his come. She swallowed hard, feeling the burn of it in her nose. When he pulled out, she took in ragged breaths, her forehead resting against his knee. Hades’s hand smoothed her hair.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  She looked up at him. “Yes. Tired.”

  He brushed her lips with the tips of his fingers. “Tonight, I will make you come just as hard.”

  “In your mouth or around your cock?”

  He smiled at her question and replied, “Both.”

  Hades restored his appearance and helped Persephone to her feet.

  “I know you are having a hard day,” he said. “I hate to leave, but I came to tell you I will be meeting with Zeus.”

  “Why?”

  She could think of two reasons.

  “I think you know,” he said. “I hope to secure Zeus’s approval for our marriage.”

  “Will you confront him about Lara?”

  “Hecate already has,” Hades said. “It will take a good two years before his balls grow back.”

  Persephone’s eyes widened.

  “She…castrated him?”

  “Yes,” Hades said. “And if I know Hecate, it was bloody and painful.”

  “What good is his punishment if he can just regenerate?”

  “It is a power that cannot be taken away, I am afraid. But at least for a little while, he will be…less…of a problem.”

  “Unless he denies our marriage,” Persephone said.

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  She wanted him to reassure her, to say that would not happen, that Zeus would not dare. Hades seemed to sense her unease. He secured his hands behind her neck and brought his forehead against hers.

  “Trust, darling, I will let no one—not king or god or mortal—stand in the way of making you my wife.”

  * * *

  Persephone returned to her floor and found Sybil, Leuce, and Zofie at Helen’s desk. It was adjacent to Persephone’s and decorated simplistically—with marble and gold accents.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Zofie filled us in on Helen,” Leuce said. “So I thought I’d go through her things.”

  “Because…?”

  “Because she’s been hiding things,” the nymph said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I have been watching her,” she said. “She would take phone calls out of the office. I thought it was weird, so I followed her one day.”

  “And?”

  “And she was meeting some guy who kept glorifying Triad…and himself,” she said. “I think they’re sleeping together.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “A demigod,” she said, and her lips twisted into a look of disgust. “A son of Poseidon if I had to guess. It’s in the eyes.”

  Theseus, Persephone thought.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Today,” Leuce said. “That’s why Helen went to you this morning—she wanted to get to you first.”

  Persephone lowered her gaze to Helen’s desk. It was neat and organized. She had varying research stored in file folders and labeled in clean handwriting.

  Sybil was looking through a small, black book.

  “What’s that?” Persephone asked.

  “Notes,” the oracle said. “Just trying to see if she left anything useful.”

  “I say we burn her things,” Zofie said. “Leave no trace of her treason.”

  “I wouldn’t call her a traitor,” Persephone said and searched for the words—confused, foolish, delusional all came to mind.

  “She’s a climber,” Sybil said. “She’s searching for an opportunity that will get her to the top fast. It’s why she left New Athens News with you. She thought she could ride to the top with you.”

  “Did you see that in her colors?”

  “Red, yellow, orange, a touch of green for jealousy.”

  “You knew all that by looking at her and you didn’t warn us?” Leuce countered.

  Sybil looked up from the black book. “I saw ambition when I looked at her. It can be a positive or negative trait. I didn’t know how she was going to use it.”

  “I don’t think any of us did,” Persephone said.

  “Sephy, it’s lunch time!”

  Hermes appeared beside her suddenly, singing. She jumped, not expecting him so soon, but as her eyes darted to the clock, she saw it was almost noon. Time had gotten away from her.

  “It’ll be a few minutes, Hermes—what are you wearing?”

  It looked like a romper and was army green in color.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and twisted.

  “You don’t like it? I call it my lounge suit.”

  “And…you’re going to lunch in it?”

  Hermes glared. “Just say you don’t like it, Sephy. You won’t hurt my feelings, and yes, I fully intend to go to lunch in my lounge suit.”

  “Um, Persephone,” Sybil said. “I think you should take a look at this.”

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Hermes wrapped a hand around Persephone’s arm to hold her in place.

  “Hermes, let go of me.”

  He pursed his lips. “But…I’m hungry!”

  She glared and he released her, grumbling. “Fine.”

  The oracle handed over the open book. On one of the pages, Helen had drawn a triangle and then scribbled in a date, address, and time. The date was today, the time, eight this evening.

  “Leuce—can you look into this?”

  “Wait. Let me see,” Hermes said.

  “I thought you were hungry,” Persephone shot back.

  “Stop reminding me,” Hermes said through his teeth and snatched the black book from her hands.

  He spent a minute studying the page and then said, “That is the address for Club Aphrodisia.”

  “Does that…belong to Aphrodite?”

  “No, a mortal owns it,” he said. “He calls himself Master.”

  Sybil and Leuce giggled.

  “What kind of club is it?” Persephone asked, though she thought she could guess.

  “A sex club,” he said. “Uh, not that I have been.”

  Persephone raised a brow.

  “You mean to say Helen has a meeting at a sex club?” Leuce asked.

  “Maybe she’s kinky,” Hermes said with a shrug. “Who are we to judge others’ s
exual preferences?”

  Persephone frowned. “I think we should check it out.”

  Hermes laughed. “You think Hades is going to let you go to a sex club?”

  “I’ll make him come.”

  “I’m sure you will, Sephy, but not there.”

  Persephone gave him a scathing look. “If you aren’t going to be helpful, you can eat lunch alone.”

  “I’m just saying Hades would totally kill the vibe. If we’re going to go, he can’t come.”

  “Then you tell him,” she said. “I won’t go without his knowledge.”

  “Uh, no. He’ll make me swear an oath that I’ll protect you with my life.”

  “Won’t you?” she asked.

  Hermes opened his mouth to speak and then paused, his gaze softening. “Of course I’d protect you.”

  Persephone offered a small smile.

  “We can go,” Leuce suggested. “Sybil and I.”

  “No,” Persephone said. “Not alone and not without me.”

  This felt personal, not only because it involved Helen—a woman she’d thought of as a friend and employee—but because she feared her friends could become targets too. If this meeting was about the future of Triad and their plans, she needed to be there.

  She looked at Hermes. “Prepare to take that oath, Hermes, and protect me with your life.”

  * * *

  Hades reluctantly agreed to let Persephone go to Club Aphrodisia but had done as Hermes predicted and made the god swear an oath to protect her.

  “What does that even mean?” Persephone had asked when he’d returned later to inform her that he’d gained Hades’s permission.

  “Don’t worry about it, Sephy. I got this,” he’d said. “Wear something sexy!”

  Persephone shook her head and tried not to laugh as the god departed in a hurry.

  After work, she returned to the Underworld. Before getting ready for the night’s investigation, she teleported to Elysium. It had been a while since she’d visited Lexa, and she found that what she wanted most after what happened with Helen was her best friend.

  She took her time wandering through the golden fields, speckled with gloriously lush trees with wild and deep roots. Now and then, poppies shot from the ground, mingling with the grass. Once, before Thanatos had allowed Persephone to approach Lexa, she had asked the God of Death about the sporadic poppies.

  “They are eternal resting places,” he had replied.

  “You mean...”

  “When a soul no longer wishes to exist in the Upperworld or the Underworld, they are released into the earth.”

  He went on to explain that the energy from their souls often acted like magic. “From it, poppies and pomegranates spring.”

  She’d had more questions—when does a soul decide it no longer wants to exist? Of course, she was thinking of Lexa when she had asked, but Thanatos’s reply was not what she expected.

  “Sometimes they do not get to choose. Sometimes they come to us so broken, to continue would be torture.”

  It was then Persephone had understood she had been lucky with Lexa. At least she had only had to drink from the Lethe. Apparently, there were worse fates.

  As Persephone crested one of many hills, she paused, looking for the familiar dark curls of Adonis, but did not find him. It was possible she wouldn’t even recognize him here. Even Lexa, while familiar, looked different, and it had been months since she’d last laid eyes upon the favorited mortal. Even if she saw him, it wasn’t like she could approach. Elysium was for healing. Souls here did not receive visitors; they didn’t even socialize among themselves.

  Lexa was the exception, and Persephone had a suspicion Hades had something to do with that, though she’d never asked.

  She stood a while longer, gaze lingering upon the fields, before continuing on to find Lexa.

  She took her time, enjoying the peace that came with being in this part of the Underworld. Here it was easy to forget about the threat of her mother, Triad, and Helen’s sudden change in behavior. It was like this environment forced those thoughts away, making them harder to reach for, and she always had the sense that if she stayed here long enough, she’d forget to leave.

  There was another hill, and as she descended into a low valley with more trees where Lexa tended to stay most often, her gaze snagged on a pair of souls sitting beneath one of the trees. They were shoulder to shoulder, heads inclined, and she almost looked away, feeling as though she was intruding upon an intimate moment. Except that she soon realized that she was staring at Thanatos and Lexa. Beside one another, they were opposites, Thanatos with his white hair, a flame against Lexa’s midnight locks. The only thing they shared were brilliant blue eyes and apparently breath and space, Persephone thought mildly.

  She wondered what she should do—turn around and come back later? Duck and watch from afar? Approach and force them apart? She didn’t get the chance to decide, however, because Thanatos’s eyes locked upon her, and he was quick to jump to his feet, putting distance between him and Lexa, who frowned when she saw Persephone.

  Feeling awkward and uncertain, she ambled down the hill toward them. She hesitated when she saw Thanatos approaching while Lexa remained beneath the tree, head tilted back, her eyes closed.

  “You’re not here at your usual time,” Thanatos observed.

  “No,” she agreed but did not apologize. Elysium might be watched over by him, but Hades was king. “I have somewhere to go tonight. I thought I’d come to see Lexa early.”

  “She is tired,” he said.

  “She was just talking to you,” Persephone pointed out and narrowed her gaze.

  “I understand you miss her,” Thanatos said. “But your visits will not produce the results you want.”

  She reared back as if he had slapped her. Thanatos’s features changed, his eyes widened slightly, and he took a step toward her, as if realizing the pain his words had caused.

  “Persephone—”

  “Don’t,” she said, taking a step back.

  She didn’t need to be reminded that Lexa would never be the same. She mourned that fact every day, wrestled with the guilt that this was her fault.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “But you did,” she said and vanished.

  Since she could not visit Lexa in the Underworld, Persephone teleported to Ionia Cemetery, to her grave. It was still new—a barren mound with a headstone that read beloved daughter, taken too soon. Those words gripped her heart for two reasons—because it did feel as though Lexa had been taken too soon, but also because Persephone knew they were wrong. In the end, dying was Lexa’s choice.

  I accomplished what I needed to, she’d said, right before she walked off with Thanatos to drink from the Lethe, and things would never be the same again.

  It was the first time Persephone had come here since Lexa’s funeral. She took a quivering breath as she knelt beside the grave. It was dusted with snow, and as her palm touched the cold earth, a carpet of white anemone sprouted from the dirt. This magic was easy to release because the emotion behind it was so raw, so painful, it practically poured out of her skin.

  She spent some time brushing snow from the flowers and from the headstone.

  “You don’t know how much I miss you.”

  She spoke to the grave, to the headstone, to the body buried six feet below. They were words she could not say to the soul in the Underworld because they were words she would not understand. It was why she was here—to talk to her best friend.

  She sat on the ground, the cold seeping through her clothes and into her skin. She sighed, resting her head against the stone at her back and looking up at the sky—flurries of snow melted on her skin.

  “I’m getting married, Lex,” she said. “I said yes.”

  She laughed a little. She could practically hear Lex
a screaming as she jumped in the air and threw her arms around her neck, and as happy as that thought made her, it also crushed her.

  “I have never been so happy,” she said. “Or so sad.”

  She was quiet for a long time, letting silent tears stream down her face.

  “Sephy?”

  She looked up to find Hermes standing a few feet away, looking like gold fire amid the snow.

  “Hermes, what are you doing here?”

  “I think you can guess,” he said, running his fingers through his blond hair as he took a seat beside her. He was dressed casually, in a long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans.

  “No jumper this time?”

  “That is only for very special occasions.”

  They smiled at one another, and Persephone wiped at her eyes, lashes still damp from crying.

  “Did you know that I lost a son?” he said after a long moment.

  Persephone gazed at him, only viewing the profile of his beautiful face—but she could tell by the deep gold of his eyes and the set of his jaw, this topic of conversation was difficult for him.

  “No,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You know of him,” Hermes said. “His name was Pan, the God of the Wild—of Shepherds and Flocks. He died many years ago and I still grieve him. Some days it’s like it happened yesterday.”

  She knew what questions others would ask—how did he die? But that was not a question she wanted to ask because it was one she did not like to answer, so instead, she said, “Tell me about him.”

  A smile curved his lips.

  “You would have liked him,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. “He was like me—handsome and hilarious. He loved music. Did you know he invented the pipe? He challenged Apollo to a competition once.” Hermes paused to laugh. “He lost, of course. He was just…fun.”

  He continued, telling stories of Pan—his great and not so great loves, his adventures, and finally his death.

  “His death was sudden. One moment, he existed, and then he didn’t, and I heard of his passing upon the wind—through shouts from mortals and mourners. I did not believe it, so I went to Hades, who told me the truth. The Fates had cut his thread.”

  “I am so sorry, Hermes.”

  He smiled, though sad. “Death is,” he said. “Even for gods.”