by Melody Rose
“Hades, why are you running from me?” I asked in between breaths.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kiss you,” he replied. His tone was apologetic and laced with something I couldn’t identify.
“You don’t want to kiss me?” I asked, feeling a bit surprised.
“No,” he said quickly. “Trust me, I do. I want to do more than kiss you, but I should have asked for your permission first. I’m sorry.”
He lowered his gaze to the grass, and I could see his emotions warring behind his dark blue eyes. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck. I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted to feel his lips on mine, and I didn’t want him to feel bad about it. Hades met my eyes and licked his lips, then lowered his head down close to mine.
He paused for a moment, his lips hovering just over mine as if asking for permission. I willingly gave it to him. I closed the distance between us and pressed my body tightly to his. Every fiber of my being was on fire as Hades ran his large hands over my body. He took a firm grasp of my hips and lifted me up to his waist so I could wrap my legs around him.
His mouth moved forcefully against mine, his tongue pushing past my lips and grazing mine. I moaned against his lips as he laid us down on the grass and pinned me down beneath him. His breathing ragged, Hades left their place on my lips and kissed a fiery trail down my jaw and my neck until they reached the hollow of my throat. As he braced himself over me with his right hand, he used his left hand to cup my breast. I arched into him at the feel of his hands roaming my body.
I wanted more of him. I wanted him to take me and make me his. Hades moaned against my throat as he began to grind his erection against the molten core at the junction of my thighs. I hissed with pleasure as Hades’ lips met mine once again, and his grinding intensified.
Before anything more could happen, Hades pulled away from me with a hiss. I frowned and leaned up on my elbows, panting heavily. “What’s wrong?”
Hades shook his head and rolled onto the grass beside me, his eyes dark with lust, and his cheeks flushed. “Nothing. I just don’t want to rush things when they’re going so well. I want to try to keep this as traditional as I can.”
He chuckled as he rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation. While my body protested that waiting would be a horrible idea, I nodded. I didn’t want to rush things either, but dear, oh dear, the things this man did with his lips and his hands were deliciously sinful. A light throbbing began between my legs at the thought of it. I closed my legs tightly and covered my knees with the hem of my dress.
What had gotten into me all of a sudden? One moment we were kissing, and the next moment, I was more than willing to sign my virginity over to Hades without question. I let out a sigh in an attempt to regain my senses.
“I don’t know what it is about you,” Hades said with a laugh, “but you make it hard for me to not want to kiss you.”
I looked over to where Hades was looking at me from his position on the grass. As I lost myself in the reflection of his lust-filled eyes, I realized that I was starting to develop more than an innocent crush on him. Every time our lips touched, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and comfort. Perhaps I was getting a little ahead of myself because of the intensity of the kiss we had just shared, but I knew deep down that this was more than either of us could have anticipated.
Hades placed a gentle hand on my cheek as he kissed me deeply. When he broke the kiss, he leaned his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. “I could stay like this forever if you let me.”
“You have my permission,” I mumbled, locked in a blissful daze. With a sigh, Hades pulled back and got to his feet, then extended his hand to me. When I took it, he helped me to my feet and smiled.
“Are you sure? Because in Tartarus, your word is your bond,” Hades teased. I nodded and leaned in to give Hades another kiss when a deafening howl echoed around us. I whirled around to see a large hulking beast with three heads watching us hungrily from the entrance of the temple, partially concealed within the shadows. I froze against Hades immediately.
“Don’t move,” Hades whispered in my ear. “This beast is dangerous. He senses fear easily.”
I felt a rising sense of panic as the beast took a step forward. “What do we do?”
Hades said nothing. Instead, he matched the beast’s step and fell into a low crouch. The beast, an impossibly large dog with three heads, I realized, growled at Hades. What the hell was he going to do? The monster was much larger than both of us, and those fangs in its mouth were the size of my entire hand! All my feelings of arousal immediately dissolved into complete terror.
Without warning, the beast lunged itself at Hades and tackled him to the ground. I jumped back, mortified, as the beast snarled and snapped his massive jaws. Hades rolled along the grass with the beast. He kept his hands firmly placed on the monster’s broad chest, but the heads snapped at him relentlessly. Finally, Hades let out a boisterous laugh as the three-headed dog hopped off of him.
I stared with my jaw nearly touching the floor as Hades hopped to his feet lightly and rubbed each of the dogs’ individual heads. The large canine sat and wagged its lethal-looking barbed tail as Hades showered him with affection.
Hades looked over to me and waved me over. “Persephone, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
I hesitated for a moment before I was finally able to move. As I took my first step forward, the dog’s left head spun towards me and watched as I approached. Its tongue stuck out from its mouth as it panted happily. I eyed him warily before I dashed to Hades’ side. When I reached him, I swatted at his arm as hard as I could.
“You scared me to death! I thought this was trying to eat you!” I snapped. Hades chuckled as he rubbed at the sore spot on his arm.
“I’m sorry! He does this all the time. Persephone, I’d like for you to meet Cerberus. He is the guardian of the gates to the underworld and also my loving companion,” Hades said as he introduced Cerberus.
Cerberus was a massive dog. Along his back, sharp spikes made of black bone protruded from his flesh and ran down along his spine until it ended in the barbed ball at the end of his tail. Despite his intimidating appearance, Cerberus was acting like an overgrown puppy.
I smiled nervously and extended a shaky hand towards Cerberus’s center-most head. As he sniffed at my palm delicately, he licked at my fingers. I sighed with relief. Part of me had been worried that he was going to gnaw my fingers off.
“My Lord?” Hades and I glanced up from Cerberus to see a startlingly beautiful woman with long white hair and a plain white gown.
“Clotho? What’s going on?” Hades asked with a frown. Clotho met my eyes and regarded me warmly with a nod of her head.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Persephone. I’m Clotho, one of the three Fates.” Clotho offered me a smile. “Forgive my intrusion, Lady Persephone, but I must speak with Lord Hades. It’s a matter of urgency.”
Oh…. Well, I guess this was where the date ends.
Hades hid his concern well as he leaned in close to me and kissed my forehead lightly. I looked up at him with a smile. As he twirled a strand of my hair around his finger, he said, “I should take you home before I handle this.”
I sighed but nodded. As much as I didn’t want this evening to end, I also didn’t want to impede on Hades’ work. And if one of the Fates had something to talk to him about, then there was a possibility that it was something incredibly dire. Hopefully nothing too awful, I prayed.
I gave Clotho one more smile and waved a small goodbye, then reached down to Cerberus and pet each head quickly. When I was ready, I turned to Hades.
“Thank you,” I said, standing on the tips of my toes to kiss him. “I’m ready to go now.”
17
Hades
After I left Persephone back in her room in Demeter’s temple, I headed towards the temple of the Fates. The entire time, I couldn’t stop thinking of Persephone. The memory of her velvet lips
crushed against mine while our bodies were pressed close to one another had my thoughts and emotions reeling. All I wanted to go was to go back to her room and ravage her until she begged for me to stop.
I paused outside of the temple and took a deep breath. Just the thought of her was causing my jeans to feel two sizes too small again. I could hardly concentrate on anything else. Deciding that I needed to put an end to my arousal before I made a fool of myself, I closed my eyes then shook my arms and shoulders. As I did this, I expelled a long breath to steady myself.
When I was positive that I was no longer standing at attention, I opened my eyes and made my way inside. As I climbed the gold staircase, I could hear the three sisters inside muttering amongst themselves. At the top of the stairs, I saw them. Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis were all standing around a large black metal globe. From the globe, billions of golden strands hung, glittering in the light of the lit sconces that formed a large circle in the center of the room.
“I sense a sweet young soul, fresh and pure, will be joining us in a moment,” Lachesis whispered adoringly as she hurried around the globe to grab a fading strand. “My, my… she’s less than a decade old.”
“Another, seven times older, will be joining us as well,” Atropos crooned as she grabbed a fading strand that was positioned somewhere near Australia. One by one, the women took their spots around the globe: Atropos to the North, Lachesis to the West, and Clotho to the East.
All three women wore dazzling gold himations with rubies forming a belt around their slim waists, which reflected the flames from their polished surfaces. I stepped into the room quietly, watching as the women bowed their heads. I made sure to stay outside of the circle of sconces where the Goddesses stood around the globe. Slowly and nimbly, I tipped-toed around them as they threw their heads back and began to chant. The song of their chant was hauntingly beautiful.
As they chanted, the flames in their sconces turned a spectacular shade of neon blue. One by one, the eyes of the goddesses began to glow white, and their chanting intensified. I found myself entranced. I had never actually seen the women performing a ceremony to honor the passing of a soul before.
I watched in awed silence.
From a small sheath on their belts, Atropos and Lachesis each produced a small silver athame with a bone-carved handle. The chants now dulled to a low hum as Atropos and Lachesis positioned the blades of their athames to the base of the two fading strands.
“May you rest peacefully,” said Atropos.
“May your judgment be blessed,” Lachesis whispered. In silent unison, both women cut the cords. A frosty breeze hissed through the temple, putting out the flames and bathing the room in darkness. I nodded, feeling quite impressed with the ritual I’d just witnessed. Very cool, I thought appreciatively.
“Lord Hades,” I heard Clotho say as she waved her hand over a sconce. The flames came to life immediately and cast a soft red glow on her beautiful face. Clotho, unlike her sisters, was a platinum blond beauty with clear blue eyes that put Aphrodite’s eyes to shame. She smiled softly as she came around the fire. I watched as her tall, lithe figure. As she passed by the flames, the light cast a lovely silhouette of her body beneath the thin material of her himation.
When she finally stood before me, I smiled back. Up close, Clotho looked no more than twenty, but like her sisters, Clotho was even older than my brothers and I were. In fact, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were once the councilwomen of my late parents. I shook my head at the thought. I couldn’t stomach my parents for what they’d done to my brothers and me, and for a long time, I couldn’t forgive the Fates for advising my parents to do so in order to grant my father more power. But after a few thousand years, we managed to work past it.
“I’m glad you came,” Atropos said with a bow of her head. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m kind of glad you and Cerberus stepped in when you did, or it would’ve gotten rated ‘R’ really fast,” I replied with a light shrug. Atropos chuckled before she gestured for me to follow her. As I followed behind her, Lachesis and Atropos busied themselves with looking for more strands. “Good evening, ladies.”
Lachesis turned in my direction, her blind eyes searching for me. With a beautiful smile, she bowed her head respectfully before saying, “Good evening, Lord Hades. How are you this evening?”
“Doing pretty good. You look beautiful tonight. You look lovely, too, Atropos.” Atropos turned her head towards me, then turned away with a huff. I frowned and raised a brow. Was she still mad at me for turning her down at the club?
“Don’t bother with her,” Atropos called. “She’s in a mood.”
My frown deepened. I hadn’t had any other encounter with her since the club, so it couldn’t have been anything recent. She must have finally accepted that nothing would ever come of us. I shrugged it off, deciding to listen to Clotho as we entered a large black foyer.
Lining the path of the foyer, that ended at a set of gold double-doors, were twelve statues, six on each side, carved into the exact likeness of the Titans that were hidden away deep beneath Mount Tartarus. I eyed each of the statues wearily as we passed them. In turn, Hyperion, Oceanus, Thea, Phoebe, Coeus, and Tethys all watched me with empty marble eyes, almost as if waiting for me to grant them freedom.
“Do you know our purpose, Lord Hades?” I heard Clotho suddenly say. Confused, I turned my head and paused when I realized she was facing me.
“Uh… To decide who dies and when?” I asked, suddenly feeling as though Clotho shined a spotlight on me.
She bowed her head slightly and chuckled. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but you’re close enough. Our job, Lord Hades, is to keep an order to the number of souls that occupy all living realms. In order to welcome new life, my sisters and I choose to sacrifice the souls of those who do not serve a greater purpose. A life for a life, if you will,” she explained.
I nodded. I had known the gist of it, but I had never put forth much effort to question the Fates. I wanted to question them for so much already, and our start had been quite rocky, so I just let it be. As long as we all did our duty to maintain the underworld, then not much else mattered. Still, where could she have been going with this?
“However,” Clotho continued, “we do not just monitor the realms of man. We also monitor all of the Gods and Demi-Gods. That orb you saw out there has over eight billion souls, both man and beast alike. Each strand that hangs from the globe each represents one soul. Each day, my sisters and I take turns to glimpse into the future and choose a soul to sacrifice. When we find one, we visit them in their sleep and give them the Kiss of Night. Within three days, that soul perishes.”
I blinked at that. If it wasn’t for the fact that they were beautiful women, I would imagine that humans would find that sight to be quite terrifying. The sisters were essentially the Grim Reapers, but instead of skeletal figures brandishing giant scythes, these women gave you the kiss of death in your nightmares. I felt a cool shiver run down my spine as I recalled seeing them as a child shortly before my father had…
No, don’t think about that right now.
“So,” I said, pushing those memories aside, “what about the Gods? Where are they?”
Clotho smiled softly and gestured to the doors at the end of the hall with a nod. “Follow me.”
As we continued down the hall again, I sneered at the statue of my father, Cronus. Whoever had sculpted this statue had captured his likeness almost too perfectly. His long white hair flowed about his sharply chiseled body, and his eyes were just as empty as they had been when I’d last seen them. I groaned angrily. Did they really need that statue there, I wondered? They could replace it with a statue of Zeus for all I cared. I glared at the statue until it was no longer in my sights and hissed under my breath.
When we reached the end of the foyer, Clotho placed both hands on the double doors and pushed. The doors swung open with ease to a gorgeous landsc
ape. Rolling green hills, radiant flowers, and a pastel-colored sky greeted us beyond the threshold. I took in a deep breath of the floral breeze that drifted in from the Elysium Fields. Clotho stepped through the door first, and I followed closely behind.
Once past the threshold, the doors closed behind us. A never-ending sun hung low over the horizon, and wisps of cotton-candy-colored clouds lazily drifted by. Clotho let out an appreciative sigh.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she breathed. I nodded as I stuffed my hands into my pockets. I found the Elysium Fields breathtaking the first time I had ever seen it. Here, souls who had lived a pure life unmarred by darkness roamed freely. They felt no pain here, no abuse, no hardships, and had everything their hearts had ever desired. I had only been here a few times when I first began judging souls all those years ago. However, nowadays, I just sent them here directly from my temple. It was almost too happy here for someone like me.
“Yeah, it’s amazing… but I’ve seen it before. What are we doing here?” I asked, already wanting to get to the point.
Clotho waved her hand towards a path line with silver Anemones. I raised a brow at the beautiful blossoms. I couldn’t recall ever seeing that path before. Had the Fates added something new to the Fields? Or had I really just never noticed it before? I muttered a quiet “hm” under my breath.
As Clotho started to follow the path of flowers, she said, “The Elysium Fields are just as alive as you and I. It adapts over time as new souls enter and abundant in curiosities never seen before by man, beast, or even god. The flowers, for instance, were not always there, and they cannot be seen by any other soul in this place. Only a god may see the pathway.”
“Are you reading my mind?” I asked with a smile. I heard Clotho chuckle as she turned her head over her shoulder.