by Melody Rose
Hades wrapped an arm around his friend’s throat at that very moment and held him in a chokehold. “Dude, could you keep your fucking mouth shut for once?”
I couldn’t help but laugh as Hades and Hephaestus wrestled with one another. Before long, Hephaestus tapped on Hades’ arm and said, “Uncle, uncle!” As Hades let go of his friend, Hephaestus rubbed at his newly sore throat. “Jeez, you’re so touchy.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Hades said dismissively before he wrapped an arm around my waist. “Can we get a table away from the band or what?”
“Follow me,” Hephaestus said with a sly grin before he led us towards the far end of the bar near the alligator hides. He gestured for us to sit in a small booth before he ventured off towards the bar to fetch two glasses of water.
I sat first and folded my hands neatly on the tabletop. Hades sat opposite me, his cheeks still pink with embarrassment. For a moment, it was silent. On the small wooden stage, a group of men performed covers of popular rock songs. I recognized the current song as Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” a favorite band of Artemis’s.
Hephaestus reappeared with two glasses filled to the brim with water and ice. As he set them down on the table, he smiled at the two of us. “So, what would you two love birds like to have tonight?”
Hades cut Hephaestus a glare before he regarded me warmly. “What are you hungry for?”
I frowned. To be quite honest, I was so nervous I couldn’t even think about eating right now. All I wanted to do was sit here and just enjoy Hades’ company. Would it be weird if I didn’t eat anything? How was a date supposed to work? I chewed at my cheek before I examined the menu that was wood burned into the table.
“What’s a ‘cheeseburger’?” I asked.
“You’ve never had a burger?” Hephaestus scoffed in disbelief before pulling a chair from a nearby table and sitting down at the head of our booth. “Where have you been, under a rock?”
“Zip it,” Hades snapped as he kicked Hephaestus’s shin beneath the table. Hephaestus let out a yelp before rubbing at his leg. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle my laughter before patting Hephaestus on the shoulder.
“It’s okay, Hades,” I said, smiling at the handsome man who sat across from me before I turned to Hephaestus. “I don’t really get out much, but judging by your reaction, it must be something delicious. I’ll have one, please.”
“Me too,” Hades said before Hephaestus had a chance to ask.
Hephaestus nodded and stood. I watched as he slid his chair back and vanished into the crowd before I turned to Hades. Hades was staring at me quite intently, his expression blank. Feeling my anxiety starting to rise, I grabbed my glass of water and took a sip. When I set the glass back down, I realized Hades was still watching me silently.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. Hades blinked at me for a moment before he shook his head and cleared his throat.
“Oh, sorry… I was just thinking about something,” he replied, lowering his gaze to his glass of water. To avoid meeting my gaze, Hades had decided to put forth extra effort into watching as a single droplet of water traveled down the side of the cup.
Amused, I chuckled. “What were you thinking about?”
Hades said nothing. Instead, he took a deep breath and continued to stare at his glass. I frowned slightly. What could he have been thinking about, I wondered? I wasn’t really sure how dates should to go, but I was fairly certain that you could talk to one another while on one, couldn’t you? Perhaps Hades was just as nervous as I was. Was this what it felt like to like someone? To want to be around them every second of every day, but also to be terrified once you were with them? I wanted nothing more than to be here right now with Hades, but I also wanted to blend into the faded red leather booth. What if he didn’t find me interesting or realized that he didn’t like me after all?
You idiot, I chastised myself, didn’t you hear what his best friend was saying about you? The man clearly likes you. Talk to him!
“What exactly do you do in the underworld?” I asked, breaking the silence. Hades stiffened ever so slightly as he turned his attention away from the glass to the other patrons of the bar. Beside us, two men, one with horns and another with fanged teeth, made idle conversation about their upbringings. Behind us, in another booth, a man with white, feathered wings noisily slurped at his food.
“I judge the souls of the dead,” Hades said at last. “Depending on how a soul spent their life, they will either be led to the Elysium Fields to spend the rest of their afterlife in a paradise, or they will endure endless suffering in Tartarus.”
“Oh.” I balked. “Do you enjoy it?”
“It’s not exactly something you enjoy,” he said with a frown.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, deflating.
“It’s fine. It’s just… there’s a lot to cover when it comes to the Underworld, and I don’t want to scare you off with any of that.” Hades glanced up at me with worry in his deep blue eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassured him. Hades lowered his gaze to his water again with a small, shy smile. I bit my lip and chuckled to myself. He was truly adorable without even having to try.
“What about you? What do you do in your mother’s garden?”
I thought for a moment. As the Goddess of Spring, my duty was to ensure that our trees and flowers blossomed and prospered. Every morning, I would grow ripe vegetables and juicy fruit that my mother’s handmaids would harvest. They would then distribute the food amongst the handmaids and priests of all the temples on Mount Olympus. My mother, on the other hand, was in charge of overseeing the prosperous harvest of the mortal world, though she never left her temple to do so. She simply confined me to the garden.
There had once been a time when I was completely in love with my mother’s garden. Every day a new adventure awaited me. There had always been some new species of flora or fauna that I hadn’t yet discovered. But, as the years went on, I had finally discovered everything there was to discover within my mother’s garden. Now I could barely stomach to look out upon the rolling meadows and lazy creeks.
“I grow the flowers and food,” I whispered. It was quite lackluster compared to what Hades had to do.
“What’s your favorite part about growing flowers?” he asked. I could tell he was trying to lighten my suddenly sour mood. He really was incredibly sweet.
“I suppose…” I began, “I suppose I enjoy watching the flowers grow, mostly. I mean, I kind of feel like a flower. We come from this tiny seed and are planted in this beautiful, fertile earth. With enough love, care, and sunlight, you blossom into something extraordinary. But if you lack the warmth of the sun or the proper amount of love, you die.”
Hades placed a hand over mine. When I looked up into his eyes, I felt breathless. The concern in his expression floored me. How could this man have such tremendous power over me with just a simple look? He leaned in close and laced his fingers with mine.
“You don’t have to worry about not getting what you need to grow anymore, Persephone.”
My heart shattered into a million pieces. Before I could control myself, tears were streaming down my face. When I was a little girl, my mother had showered me with so much love that it had been almost suffocating. But as I grew older, my mother grew cold and distant. I wasn’t sure what had changed in her, but she suddenly had such a poor outlook on life that she then forced upon me.
For years, I wanted nothing more than to be completely free from my prison and to be able to feel loved again. But I wasn’t even sure I knew what love was anymore. And even if I did come to know love again, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to express it the way that I genuinely wanted to.
Hades ran a thumb along my cheeks to wipe the tears away. As he did so, I leaned into his hand, pressing my cheek into his palm. I wanted to stay here and melt into his touch. Was what I was feeling for Hades the beginning sparks of love? Or was this infatuation? My moth
er had put so many lies into my head that I couldn’t be sure. But it was certainly the start of something new and exciting.
“Persephone?” Hades whispered. I looked up at Hades and sniffled, feeling slightly embarrassed by my emotional breakdown.
“Yes?” I replied
“There’s something I’d like to show you.”
15
Hades
After Persephone and I had finished our meals and said our farewells to Hephaestus, I took her hand and led her outside. Outside, in the sticky New Orleans air, I turned to her with a smile. I was brimming over with excitement. It was so rare that I brought someone new into my domain, and now I was bringing her.
However, I wasn’t merely bringing her to the underworld for my own selfish reasons. Shortly after I had asked Persephone what did in her mother’s garden, I could tell she was distraught. She had explained to me that she felt like a flower and that, without the proper care, the flower would wilt and die. I knew right then and there she had been talking about her mother.
An overwhelming sense of pain and sympathy had torn through me immediately. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be mistreated the way that Persephone had. True, my parents weren’t exactly the poster children for greatness, but at least they weren’t still around to torment me. Unlike Persephone, I had never known love from my parents. She had at least had some semblance of a relationship with Demeter once.
I placed a hand over Persephone’s before I intertwined my fingers with hers. When she looked up at me, I could see the pain she kept hidden behind her lavender-colored eyes. “You don’t have to worry about not getting what you need to grow anymore, Persephone.”
Almost immediately, Persephone began to cry. My heart ached for her. I wanted to console her, but I wasn’t exactly sure how. I was unversed in the rules of dating or socializing. This was the most conversation I’d had with anyone in almost two thousand years. I was at a loss.
Instead, I reached over and brushed the tears away from her silky cheeks. The last thing I ever wanted was to see this woman cry, but now that I had, I wanted to rip the heart right from Demeter’s chest for causing Persephone so much pain. Persephone leaned into my hand and rested a warm cheek on my calloused palm. The heat of her skin crept slowly up my arm and shot through my entire body.
I didn’t want to see her hurting anymore. But what could I possibly do to lift her tender spirits? I thought for a moment and paused. Persephone liked flowers, right? And she had seen plenty of those in Olympus. But the underworld held a wondrous array of flora that could never survive in the harsh light of either the human world or the Olympian world. I supposed it was time for me to take a leap of faith.
“Persephone?” I whispered, bringing her tear-filled lavender gaze to meet mine.
“Yes?” she said with a sniffle.
“There’s something I’d like to show you.” I didn’t go into further details after that. I wanted to surprise her. But she did continue to try to pick information out of me as Hephaestus brought over our meals, and we began to eat. And now, here we were, standing outside as I mentally prepared myself for what I was about to do.
Persephone watched me warily as I took one deep breath after another. “Are you going to be okay? You look like you’re going to faint.”
“I’m fine,” I said dismissively. I was, in fact, not fine. “Okay, the first thing I’m going to need you to do is to close your eyes.”
“Close my eyes?” Persephone asked, arching a perfect brow. I nodded and moved to stand behind her.
“Yes, close your eyes. I want this to be a surprise. Please don’t freak out, okay?” I said. She nodded slowly and did as I asked. I then placed one hand over her eyes to ensure she wouldn’t peek and wrapped another around her waist so we could make out descent.
“Is this all necessary?” she said with a giggle.
“Absolutely,” I replied. “Hold on tight.”
She reached up and grabbed hold of the hand I had around her waist and took a deep breath. With a flash, I had teleported us from New Orleans to the outside of my second temple in the underworld. This temple was my main home, while the other was mostly used for business. Here, in this temple, I had a garden as well, although not nearly as impressive as Demeter’s.
I let go of her waist and slowly removed my hand from her eyes. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Persephone replied eagerly. I rubbed my now clammy hands on my jeans and cleared my throat.
“Okay,” I said. “Open your eyes.”
When Persephone opened her eyes, she gasped loudly. I grinned, feeling quite pleased with myself. She knelt down and ran her fingers through the obsidian colored grass, her eyes wide with wonder. Next, she crawled over to a pink narcissus that glowed brightly in the dark. She turned to me, her jaw slack.
“Where…? How…?” She was at a loss for words.
“This is… the underworld,” I said after a moment of hesitation.
Persephone tilted her head back and glanced up at the ceiling above us. The blue and lilac stalactites glittered brilliantly in the darkness, giving the illusion of an ever-shifting sky. She then jumped to her feet and whirled around to examine the silver olive trees that grew along the side of the temple wall.
“Hades, this is absolutely beautiful! I’ve never seen anything so incredible in my entire life!” Persephone squealed. I was thrilled at the sound of her excitement. Persephone made a mad dash towards the olive trees and plucked off a rather plump olive. She turned to me and held it up with a blinding smile.
“Is it safe to eat?” she asked quickly. I couldn’t help but laugh. Persephone’s mood had done a complete one-eighty. I wasn’t complaining. I was ecstatic. I nodded and came to stand beside her, plucking an olive off as well.
“Of course,” I said as I popped the olive into my mouth. “I snack on these whenever I’m not busy in Tartarus.”
Persephone bit her bottom lip before tossing the olive into her mouth. Persephone closed her eyes and moaned in delight as she chewed the olive. At the sound of Persephone’s soft moan, my body tightened with desire.
The Fates have mercy, I groaned to myself. When Persephone opened her eyes, she smiled up at me. Her pupils were dilated, which did nothing for the painful erection fighting me beneath my jeans. I licked my lips and turned away from her, trying to hide my arousal before she could notice.
“That was delicious! This place is phenomenal, Hades. I had expected the underworld to be a little more…” She trailed off, rolling her wrist as she looked for the right thing to say.
“A little more like hell?” I said with a laugh. Persephone giggled and nodded, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“I didn’t want to sound like a jerk,” she agreed, “nut yes. The way you made it sound earlier was like it was a terrifying place. But it’s unbelievably beautiful here. And it’s a lot quieter than I anticipated. This would be the perfect place to just sit and think.”
I looked around the garden before shrugging lightly. As someone who had seen this same garden day in and day out, it was really quite boring to look at on my own. I had a feeling that she could say the same thing about her mother’s garden as well. But as long as she enjoyed them, then she was welcome to visit it whenever she wanted to just sit and breathe.
“Do you want to see something really amazing?” I asked as Persephone was reaching for another olive. She paused and raised her brows.
“There’s something even more amazing than this?”
I nodded and held my hand out to her. When she took it, I led her around the back of the temple where a gleaming silver pond sat rimmed with fluorescent white flowers. There were millions of them around the pool. Persephone stifled a gasp as she carefully ambled towards the pond.
“What are they?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“They’re soul flowers,” I explained as I joined her side. “Whenever a soul takes their own life before their time, Zeus grants them
one final wish. Most of them wish to be reborn, others want to go to Elysium, and others want to roam the earth as spirits to watch over their families. Those who don’t wish for anything come here and live here in this special garden.”
Persephone turned to me with a look of adoration on her face before she knelt down beside the flowers to smell them. “Why is the water that color?”
I knelt down beside Persephone and carefully dipped my fingers into the pool. When I brought my hand up for her to see, the thick silver liquid dripped down my fingers. “It’s a special formula I developed to keep these particular flowers alive. That way, they can live a happy existence without any more suffering than what they must have endured before they took their own lives.”
Persephone gingerly ran the pads of her fingers over a soul flower. In response, the soul flowers shivered and waved its petals. I chuckled and touched the same flower, coating the silver water over the petals. The flower waved its petals again, this time with more enthusiasm.
I felt Persephone’s gaze on me and glanced over to her. She was watching me with her lips slightly parted. Those lips looked so inviting and soft. I swallowed at the sudden thirst burning in my throat before I whispered, “This garden is yours if you want it.”
Persephone’s lips parted further with a gasp, and before I could help myself, I leaned in and kissed her.
16
Persephone
Hades pulled away from me, his eyes wide with surprise. “Shit… I’m sorry.”
He jumped to his feet before I could say anything and quickly stepped out of the garden of soul flowers. I followed suit, taking extra care not to step on any flowers, and I ran after him. When I reached Hades, I grabbed hold of his arm and whirled him around to face me.
His eyes were full of regret and fear. I struggled to catch my breath. Hades’ legs were much longer than mine, and it took very little effort on his behalf to be able to cross the garden in a few short strides. I, on the other hand, felt like I had just completed a mini-marathon just to keep up the pace.