Forbidden To Love (The Erosians)

by D Wills

  “Okay,” I agree as a war rages inside me between the part of me desperate for his kisses and the part that thinks I should run to the nearest werewolf and ask it to rip me to pieces for what I’ve just done.

  Missing Pieces

  ~23~

  We could have been laid together for days. I have no concept of time. I don’t know if the sky turns dark as it did earlier when its night. I don’t know if their days are twenty-four hours.

  They’re not really the important things, though. I don’t know what’s going to happen when Hades finds out I can’t make Persephone love him. I don’t know why I'm suddenly in love with the one I should despise the most, or why he is suddenly in love with me. I'm more scared about the fact that the werewolves seem to want to take my blood to see if it will make them stronger!

  Luca’s eyes are beginning to change. I can see the red forming around the edges and seeping towards the centre. “Your eyes, you need to go again.” He nods silently. “Where do you go?” it’s one of the more intrusive questions I could ask but at least it should be a simple answer.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  Well, I thought it was a simple question. “Do you, you know, pick a different city to go to, maybe do some population control in an area?” I scold myself for my attempt to make what he does to survive humorous.

  Luca laughs at my joke. “No, we’ve come a long way from savaging villages and cities.”

  I suppose they must have advanced. They’ve been here for millennia.

  “What do you do now, then?” Luca sits up and I follow.

  “Some questions, Acacia, are better left unanswered, especially when the answer to them is not one I’d like to have to explain to you.” He sighs, knowing I won’t give up till he explains.

  “You know how things here are made of human bones … ” I nod looking at the bench and the door. “Well Hades likes to be ‘green’.” He laughs to himself but I just look at him, confused. “He recycles the bodies when they come here. They’re sent for draining and the blood is bottled, then they’re skinned and separated into their useful components.” I feel bile rising to my throat as I picture what he’s telling me.

  “So you just collect a bottle and it’s that simple?” He nods.

  I can’t believe what I'm hearing. Tears start to sting my eyes. Josh will be brought here soon, if he’s not already here. Luca could be drinking his blood. I fight back the urge to be sick.

  “It won’t happen to Jake,” I hear Luca mutter

  “His name was Josh,” I correct him, as if Luca getting his name wrong is a bigger insult than anything I’ve done to his memory.

  “Josh will be given the chance to return to the mortal world on All Hallows Eve, so he’ll be allowed to keep his body”.

  I need to stop talking with Luca. It seems every conversation we have leads to a million more questions. “Why?” I can’t help but ask. I'm so relieved that Josh won’t be defiled in that way.

  Luca stands and walks to the window. “Only those sent to Tartarus are relieved of their bodies. They don’t need them there. It is their souls that are imprisoned.” That doesn’t provide as much relief as I was hoping it would.

  “I better go. I’ll lock the door this time, but what happened to those rogues has got round. Everyone’s now scared to come up here.” His face breaks into a smile and he swallows a laugh.

  “Why?” I look at him quizzically.

  He shrugs but his impish grin betrays him. “I might have told everyone you have telekinetic powers and you threw them around the room and destroyed them, so now they’re all staying away” I gawp at him. He comes over to me and places one finger below my chin, closing my mouth. He kisses me gently. “I won’t be long, my love.” He kisses me deeper, which provides the relief I was looking for and stops me getting mad at him for making up powers I don’t have.

  I lean against the window. After he flies out the room, I look out onto the fields. They’re still. I guess no one’s out hunting. I feel the familiar pain of loss and betrayal, starting at my toes, then firing its way rapidly throughout my body, setting alight every nerve. When Luca is holding me, I feel no pain for Josh. It’s like he puts my love for Josh on hold while the love I feel for him plays out. Once he leaves, though, he takes that relief with him and I feel like the worst person in the world.

  “Acacia.” I spin round to the sound of my name. There standing behind the web of bones is the girl from the painting.

  “Persephone,” I mumble to myself. She stares at where Luca has locked the door and the lock falls to pieces as the door opens for her. I press myself against the wall as I take in her flowing lace gown which trails endlessly behind her.

  More striking is her pale heart-shaped face which should look gentle but instead her expression is stern. Her eyes are no longer frozen as they appeared in the painting. They look alive and wild, almost as wild as Hades’. Now in front of me, she has her hair loose and it’s hard to tell where it ends. It is as dark as her dress and appears almost as long.

  “What happened to your dress?” She eyes each side of it carefully as I try to hold it up against me.

  “Two rogues came to try and attack me. They ripped it.” I can hardly tell her what really happened. I have no idea what she’d think, or if she’d turn Luca over to Hades, and it’s not like they can deny my story anymore.

  “I’ll have you a new one sent up.” She floats towards me, her hands held together at her waist. Each finger is adorned with a different jewelled ring. Trapped in each ring is the swirling grey mist which I’ve come to learn is the essence of a deceased soul.

  “I'm here to warn you.” Her eyes narrow as she speaks. “If you do as Hades wishes and make me love him, you will destroy everything. There will be a war. The Underworld race will destroy Olympus, and everyone and anyone that gets in their path.”

  I gulp. Her tone is grave and matter-of-fact, without the hint of any emotion, so I have no doubt what she says is true.

  “The mortals will also die. My mother will not stand for it and she will cause a mass famine, one which Zeus will not be able to barter himself out of this time.” She spits the last few words which appears all the more harsh because of how graceful her appearance is.

  “If you were to love Hades, though, you wouldn’t know any different and you wouldn’t want to be without him, so there’d be no need for a war.”

  Persephone’s eyes flash with anger at my suggestion. “I see the only thing Zeus improved with each Erosian was their bra size and not their IQ!”

  I look away ashamed as she continues.

  “Do you not think I know that? Do you not think I know that if you were to make me love my husband, I wouldn’t know what it felt like not to love him? It is not that which concerns me. It is the pain my mother will feel at me never wanting to leave the Underworld to be with her as I do now. My mother will not forgive you, or Zeus, for allowing Eros to send you here.”

  “But why? I don’t understand. You’re already married to Hades. Why is it such a big deal if you love him?”

  “I never chose to marry my husband. He stole me when I was just a child because Zeus was too much of a coward to tell him no.”

  “But you stayed with him”

  Persephone’s childish tinkle of a laugh echoes around my prison, “I had no choice. It was only because my mother, Demeter, caused a famine in the mortal world, which panicked Zeus; that I manage to get out of here for any time at all.” Her face twists momentarily with disgust at her past.

  “So Zeus got you out?” I look at her stunned. I had no idea Hades had abducted her. I just thought it was an arranged marriage that went wrong.

  “When Zeus told Hades to give me back, Hades found a loophole and tricked me into eating from the Underworld. Because of those stupid pomegranate seeds I took, I'm only released from this dismal place a few months of the year. If you make me love Hades, the human race will start to suffer because my mother will cause a famine again and
Zeus will have no option but to start a war against Hades to force him to release me. Hades wants that to happen, he wants the war.” She stops abruptly as her emotions start breaking through towards the end of her story.

  I try to reach out to her to comfort her but she straightens herself up and I step back.

  “I’ll have a new dress sent to you.” She smoothes her hands down her bodice as she calms her tone and leaves as silently as she arrived.

  I feel I should run through the open cell door until I find a way to escape, before I'm forced to admit I can’t do as Hades asks. I want out of this terrible situation. Every new piece of information I'm given just makes me feel more disgusted with the position I’ve put myself in. Hades said I had a few days to think about it, but for all I know, those days could have gone, my time could already be up. I pound my fists against the wall in frustration. This is so messed up!

  What if I could make them love each other? Maybe I should. Hades would probably win the war and it’s not that big a deal if I side with him.

  There’s nothing in the mortal world for me and there’s nothing in Olympus, so why should I care if I begin the apocalypse? I was willing to give up my life as I knew it for Josh, why not start a new one with Luca?

  My heart throbs. Josh’s memory deserves better than this. He died for me because he loved me. How can I so quickly succumb to Luca?

  What about Allana? She’d be caught up in it, perhaps even killed or, worse, enslaved to Hades and tortured by one of the other guards. I can’t let that happen. I’ll have to tell the truth. I’ll be cast away to live a life alone, the way I should’ve done all along. And if I had, I never would have been in this situation.

  A small voice in the back of mind whispers, “Luca,” and my heart feels so torn between everyone I love and want to protect that I'm sure it’s going to give in at any second and just collapse under the weight of it all.

  A small girl scurries into my room carrying a bundle of silver fabric. She places it on the floor in front of me, curtsies, and runs off. The bundle opens out into a floor length dress. It has thick straps which are intricately embroidered with jewels that sparkle even without the sunlight. I quickly shuffle out of my now-ruined ball gown and slip this dress on. The silk is cool on my bare skin. The feel reminds me of Luca’s touch. I look down at my crumpled old gown, torn and covered with ash. That dress will never be worn again; I will never be with Josh again.

  I run my fingers down my new dress. It’s fitted along my waist, flowing out slightly from my hips. I reach up and take my hair clip out from my much messed-up style, allowing the few ringlets that haven’t dropped out to fall down along my back. I toss the clip with my old dress, and push them to the corner of the room and hide them underneath the throw.

  That dress is the past; this new one is now.

  I look at the open prison door, wondering if I should go find Luca myself, or maybe Hades, and tell him the truth. I wouldn’t know the first place to begin looking for him, though, and Luca might get pissed if I take off without even telling him. I look between the window and the open door and back again, desperate for a sign of what to do.

  “Thinking of going somewhere?” Luca is leaning against the open door frame when I look back at it from the window. “Nice dress,” he adds but eyes me suspiciously

  “Persephone… ” I start. His whole demeanour changes at the mention of her name. I swear if the blood could drain from his face, it would have done.

  “What did you tell her?” he asks with a deathly edge to his tone.

  “Nothing” I shake my head. “She came to warn me, not to invite me to a sleep over for gossip.”

  He begins pacing the room. “Did you tell her about us?”

  “Of course not!” I'm not that stupid. I may not know much about life down here but I can pretty much surmise Hades wouldn’t be impressed if he knew about me and Luca. “She noticed my dress was ripped and said she’d send me a new one, then she told me that if I did what Hades wanted me to, I’d start a war and basically end the world.” I throw my arms up at the end and shake my head, “She’s probably exaggerating.”

  Luca stops and walks over to me purposefully. He takes hold of my wrists. “She’s not exaggerating. Hades is desperate for the war and he is desperate to overthrow Zeus.” He calms down slightly when my body tenses in his touch. He exhales loudly and runs his fingers through my loose hair. “I like it better this way.” I smile at his touch and expect to feel the stabbing flames of betrayal across my chest but Luca won’t allow me to hurt. “You said you couldn’t make God’s love each other.” He drops the strands of hair he was wrapping between his fingers.

  “No I can’t.” I search his eyes, looking for some sort of reaction, scared his disappointment is going to change the way he feels about me. “Not yet, anyway.” I carry on trying to salvage what’s happening as his body seems to edge further from me.

  “What do you mean?” Now it’s his turn to ask the questions.

  “I haven’t progressed enough to start playing with the emotions of the Gods. I'm not even at the same level as Amora yet,” I explain.

  “There are levels?” He walks over to the window.

  “Yeh, we start out only being able to see and manipulate the part of the aura to do with love, then we can start to plant thoughts in people’s minds, and then after that we can cause instant attraction. Eros and Allana can do that.”