Abducted (Hades and Persephone #1)

by Bella Klaus

  I whirled around, meeting his glare. “Why are you so rude to your employees?”

  “Do you need a healer?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?” I placed a hand on my chest.

  “The leg that you bumped on the dresser,” he said as though something really was wrong with my memory. “Does it require medical attention?”

  I shook my head and frowned. “It was just a bump.”

  He turned to Minthe, who had paused halfway to the door, and waved her away. “Send for Pallas. She can tend to Persephone’s needs instead of you.”

  “No,” I ground out. “I want Minthe.”

  His nostrils flared. “What difference does one nymph make from another?”

  “Since you won’t let me go home, I get to pick my own staff.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Unless you’re willing to admit that I’m your prisoner instead of the co-ruler of Hell.”

  His eyes smoldered with banked rage, and a muscle in his jaw tightened. “Very well, but I expect you to eat breakfast.”

  Hades walked alongside the bed to the other side of the room, where Minthe had set down the tray. He pulled off the dome to reveal a large plate of sunny-side-up eggs set within a bed of spinach leaves, halved tomatoes, small squares of feta cheese, red onions, and sliced scallions. Two servings of toasted pitta bread lay on the side, along with a tall glass of what looked like freshly squeezed orange juice.

  Hades rubbed a slow circle on my back. “Your favorite.”

  My throat thickened. He was right, but eating this contravened rule one of the Compendium of Magick’s chapter on Survival Skills in Hell:

  Don’t eat the food.

  According to the book, any living being who ate food prepared in Hell would sprout horns. Their skin would form scales, their tongue would fork, and their spine would form ridges and a tail. They would be condemned to an eternity as a low-level demon and forget everyone they loved.

  Even if the Compendium contained more lies than truth, I had a dozen reasons to mistrust that food. The first being that Hades wanted me to eat it.

  I shook my head. “I’m not hungry, and you’ve gotten my favorite meal wrong.”

  He placed a hand at the nape of my neck and pressed a kiss on my temple. “Very well.”

  “What does that mean?” My gaze darted to the exit.

  “You’ll eat when you’re hungry. Until then, you will stay in your room.” He walked toward Minthe, grabbed her by the shoulder, and steered her toward the door.

  I glared at their backs. As soon as they left, I would count to twenty before flushing it down the toilet. “Check with me in an hour.”

  Hades’ harsh chuckle made the fine hairs stand up on the back of my head. “Think again before disposing of your breakfast. The contents of your tray are charmed to return to the plate, and you won’t get anything else until you’ve picked it clean.”

  As they stepped through the open door, Minthe turned around, giving me a sympathetic grimace.

  “No.” I rushed after them, but the door slammed shut, and a seal of magic formed around its frame.

  A growl reverberated in the back of my throat. He was no better than Mother.

  I curled my hands into fists. Hades might know Persephone’s old tricks, but he sure as hell didn’t know mine. There was more than one way to escape, and I was determined to find it.

  Chapter Eight

  I rushed to the bay window and reached for its handle, but lightning bolts of power snapped at my fingers. Even wrapping the bedsheets around my hands proved futile against the magic determined to keep me confined. I checked the floors, under the bed, and opened every closet for signs of a hidden passageway or some other form of escape, but the room was sealed tight.

  “He’s a professional alright,” I muttered under my breath. “A professional psycho.”

  The bathroom was equally as secure, with no way to escape except through the plug hole of the sunken tub. Its seamless black marble floors stretched across the vast space to matching walls and a counter containing a mirror and a sink.

  Daylight streamed in from a ceiling that mirrored the sky. A woman could lounge within that sunken tub, wasting her hours away instead of working out her escape.

  I returned to the bedroom, where the same food from before awaited, looking like the eggs had congealed. My stomach rumbled, and I hissed at it to stay calm. The poor organ continued to plague me. It didn’t care that the food in Hell was toxic.

  Pressing my back to the wall, I kept on the other side of the room, not daring to go near that food in case inhaling its aromas counted as consuming it.

  “Bloody Hell.” I slid down to the marble floor, and held my head in my hands.

  The worst had really happened. I was trapped with no idea what had happened to Dami or Mother, or if Pirithous had recovered from the battle.

  Hours passed, and the ache in my middle deepened until my stomach howled for sustenance. I clenched my teeth and breathed hard, trying to assure it that I wouldn’t die. Hunger was one of the eternal punishments of Hell, as was thirst. I just needed to stay strong until someone made an error and I found a means to escape.

  Someone knocked, and my head snapped up.

  The light streaming from the door’s seal winked away, and Minthe stepped inside. Her gaze turned from the uneaten food on the dining table, to the unmade bed, and then to me.

  She placed a hand over her mouth. “Persephone?”

  “Kora,” I said. “My name is Kora.”

  “You haven’t touched your food.” She rushed toward me, the fabric of her green dress floating as she moved. “Do you need to see the healer?”

  “Are you offering to escort me to my doctor in London?” I asked.

  Her shoulders rose to her ears, and she gave her head a tiny shake. “His Majesty would flay the skin off my back if I allowed another young woman to escape.”

  I scrambled to my feet, my eyes wide. “Persephone left him?”

  She stepped back, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. “It was the other one. Last year, he abducted a phoenix—”

  “Queen Hemera?” I asked.

  Minthe nodded.

  “What happened?”

  She wrung her hands. “His Majesty doesn’t like us to bring up his failures.”

  “But he’s not in the room,” I said.

  As she paused, I ran my gaze up and down her physique. She was slender and waif-like, much like if someone had stretched Dami another ten inches but kept her proportions the same. I could take her in a fight—with or without magic—but could I let her get punished by Hades?

  Mother’s voice in the back of my head admonished me for feeling sympathy for his accomplice, but I shoved it away. Maybe there was another method I could escape, so she wouldn’t get the blame.

  “Queen Hemera only stayed the night.” Minthe said with a tiny shrug. “Then she and her cat took the elevator up to Logris.”

  Bile rose to the back of my throat. “Hades made her spend the night with him?”

  Her cheeks turned pink, and she dipped her head to gaze at me through her lashes. “His Majesty doesn’t need to force women.”

  My hands itched to shake the whole story out of her, but a wave of common sense washed over my frayed nerves. What if this was a test to see if I would explode with jealousy or a test to see if I could be trusted not to escape?

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He’s in negotiations with the Supernatural Council, who are in negotiations with your mother.”

  Hope sprang in my chest. An overly optimistic part of my brain imagined Hades holding me for ransom in exchange for a magical artifact he wanted from Mother, but it was drowned out by the same wave of common sense. I wasn’t a hostage or a bargaining piece—Hades wanted me to replace the wife he’d lost.

  “Would you like a bath?” Minthe’s voice broke through my ruminations.

  I glanced in the direction of the bathroom. “N
o thanks.”

  “His Majesty wishes for you to be present in his pool, so he can enjoy time with you after his meeting.”

  I turned to the exit. Perhaps this bath would be the opportunity I needed to escape. “Do I have any choice?”

  “Not really,” she whispered.

  “Fine.” I pulled back my shoulders and headed for the door. Hopefully, by the time I returned to the room, someone would have removed the meal.

  I stepped out into a hallway as wide as Mother’s formal salon and longer than our entire street. The windows outside displayed the same view of Mount Olympus as the ones in my room, even though they were facing in the opposite direction.

  A weary breath whooshed out of my lungs. It made sense, considering it was an illusion to hide the fact that this palace was in Hell.

  “Well, well, well,” drawled a deep voice from down the hallway. “If it isn’t the wench from the dancefloor who kneed me in the nuts.”

  Behind me, Minthe shrieked.

  I spun to the left, meeting the gazes of two identical demons dressed in the same enforcer uniform as Captain Caria. They each had ridges from the tips of their almost-flat noses that stretched across their brows and around their bald heads. The one on the right bared a mouthful of sharp and evenly spaced teeth.

  My lips flattened, and my insides rippled with disgust. They were a pair of walking crocodiles.

  “There she is.” The demon baring his teeth pointed at my chest.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  His gaze lingered on the low neckline of my dress, and he licked his scaly lips. “You owe me for the other night.”

  Anxiety seized my heart in a punishing grip, threatening to bring me to my knees. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that this was Lyca, the twin who had asked me to dance. I forced myself to remember the Compendium’s second tip for how to survive in Hell, but I could only recall something about bluffing.

  “Didn’t you hear?” I said, trying to stop myself from trembling. “Hades has taken me as his bride, which makes me your queen.” I shooed him away with what I hoped was a dismissive wave.

  The twins exchanged amused glances, and boulders of dread tumbled through my insides.

  “Nobody can replace Queen Persephone,” said Lyca.

  “Especially not a one-night stand under the thumb of her mother,” added the twin whose name I’d forgotten.

  Lyca’s lime-green eyes jumped from my cleavage to my lips. “You’re just one of a string of waifs he drags in for fun. Give him a week, and he’ll discard you like the others.”

  I glanced at Minthe, raising my brows to signal for her to ring a bell, phone a friend, do something to raise the alarm. She shrank back into the room like a snail returning to its shell.

  Anger seared through my veins. It looked like I was on my own.

  I stepped toward the door, but one of them blocked my way. Time to bluff. Raising my chin, I said, “By your admission, I have a week of protection, so if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Lyca grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me into his broad chest.

  I sucked in a breath to scream, but the brother at my back clamped a hand around my mouth and pulled me back into the room.

  Lyca stepped through the door, placed a hand on its frame, and sealed it with a crackle of black flames.

  “That’s better.” He ran a leathery hand down my arm, making the skin tighten into goosebumps. “Now, show us your tits.”

  My eyes bulged. My gaze darted to Minthe, who was too busy cowering under the table with her arms over her head in the brace position people used in movie plane crashes.

  Lyca leaned into me, filling my nostrils with the scent of rotten meat. He ran his cold, wet tongue down the side of my face. “Delicious.”

  A whirlwind of fury spun in my chest, picking up speed with every rapid heartbeat. This was worse than the judges validating my fraudulent marriage. Worse than waking up in Hell. I screamed through my nose, but the sound came out muffled.

  Tingling spread across my fingers, over my palms, and up both arms, accompanied by the sense of impending death. The arms around me tightened. All the air in my lungs escaped my nostrils in an outward breath. My fury built and built until everything released in a gigantic burst.

  Lightning filled my vision, crackling and hot and silver. The arms around my chest crumbled away, leaving me falling on my hands and knees to the marble floor with a thud.

  “What the fuck did you to do my brother?” Lyca yanked me up by the hair.

  I was too far gone to feel the pain. Power thrummed within me like a thunderstorm, with sparks crackling and flashing at my fingertips.

  Seeing my body thrumming with magic should have been a shock, but I was in the presence of two demons who wanted me dead. If I didn’t concentrate, none of this peculiar power would even matter.

  “Answer me,” he roared. “Tell me what you did to my brother.”

  “You’re about to find out,” I snarled.

  The demon stepped backward with his scaly palms outstretched, but I launched myself at him before he could unlock the magic he’d placed around the door.

  Thick ropes of lightning wrapped around his large body like vines, making him convulse. Each limb of power split into branches that divided themselves into twigs.

  “Stop.” He stared down at me, his eyes wide, white flames flying from his parted lips.

  A scream tore from my lips. I had no idea where this power came from or why, but I pushed harder, making his scales turn black. His insides spilled from his ears and mouth and nostrils with a glow like molten lava.

  Eventually, he stopped moving, and his charred body fell to the floor.

  Nausea surged through my gut. I doubled over, my stomach spasming, spraying its sour contents across the marble. My diaphragm contracted over and over until all I could do was dry heave. It was only as my body stopped retching that Minthe’s panicked screams reached my ears.

  I raised my head, finding her at the door with her hands over her ears.

  “Now you’re raising the alarm?” I rasped.

  “Sorry… I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she fell to her knees, raising her clasped hands in prayer.

  The door burst open with a bang, and Captain Caria ran into the room, her fingers pressed over an earpiece. She knocked Minthe down and stepped over Lyca’s dead body to reach my side.

  “Are you hurt?” Her gaze roved down my body. “Did someone touch you?”

  I raised my trembling hands to my mouth. “They tried, but I fought them off.”

  “What happened to your clothes?” she asked.

  I stared down at my naked body, which was now covered in soot. Everything around me was black, from my bare feet to the walls to the patches of grease on the ceiling.

  “It must have burned with the lightning,” I rasped.

  Her lips tightened. “Come with me.”

  The captain barked a string of orders at Minthe, who got me cleaned up and changed into a mauve wrap dress that clung to my curves. I remained numb throughout this, my mind replaying what I had done to Lyca.

  He and his brother had deserved to die for what they had tried, but I still didn’t understand how a few hours in Hell could unleash such terrible power.

  I was still reeling from shock as Captain Caria guided me through the palace’s wide corridors illuminated by elaborate chandeliers that cast their light on tortured and twisted stone statues.

  Numbness spread through my insides as I trudged beside the taller woman. Where had all that power come from? The creepy ring that had given me an electric shock, or from Hades himself?

  “That wasn’t my magic,” I whispered.

  Captain Caria stared at me, her eyes softening. “It must have come from somewhere.”

  “Until now, I’ve always had to borrow power from my mother to work in the greenhouse.”

  Her lips formed a tight line. “Let me see what I ca
n uncover.”

  I nodded, even though I had little faith that anyone could solve the mystery of this sudden bout of magic.

  After several minutes of walking, she opened a door that led to a darkened room with landforms etched into the walls and ceilings. Hades stood at the head of a large table configured into an atlas of the world. Men and women and demons surrounded the table, their gazes fixed on the several glowing points within the map.

  Hades turned to where we stood at the other end of the room. “Leave us.”

  Everyone around the table bowed before trailing out through the door. A few cast me curious glances as they passed, but my gaze was fixed on Hades.

  Today, he wore a military-style leather jacket that wrapped around his torso, accentuating his broad chest and shoulders. It was probably a variation on the enforcer uniform but one shaped to set him apart from the demons who worked for him.

  His eyes narrowed. “What brings you to the war chamber?”

  “This is not Persephone.” The captain strode toward him, pulling me by the hand.

  I followed along, far too wrung out to protest at her manhandling, but grateful that she seemed to be on my side.

  Hades scowled. “What did you do to her?”

  “Not me,” she snapped. “A pair of demons infiltrated her room and attacked.”

  Hades closed the distance between us, all traces of suspicion replaced by a flash of wide-eyed terror. He took me by my arm and guided me across the room, toward an alcove that housed a leather couch.

  “Fetch her a healer.”

  “No medicine.” I slumped down into the seat and let my shoulders sag.

  Hades knelt in front of me and cupped the side of my face with a warm hand. “Accept my help,” he said, for once sounding concerned. “This isn’t a ploy to trick you into consuming the food of the dead.”

  “No.” I pulled out of his touch and gave my head a vigorous shake.

  He turned to Captain Caria, his brow forming a deep frown. “What happened?”

  “Went to her room and I found her covered in soot.” She pointed her index finger in my direction. “Minthe told me she defeated two demons with lightning.”