by Katee Robert
Unlike Meg.
Unlike Leda.
Impossible not to conflate the two, even though their situations are hardly similar. Leda was attacked. Meg is… I’m not really sure what’s going on. All I know is that a powerful man holds her leash and orders her to do things like fuck strangers. I thought she enjoyed what we did, but knowing the context I can’t be sure. If he forced her, can she even give consent?
The thought that I might be more like my father than I could have dreamed haunts me. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus on work and keep making stupid mistakes. I even go so far as to type out a text to Leda, though I have enough control left not to send it. It’s not fair to look to her to make me feel better. I promised not to contact her again, and I will keep that promise.
Again and again, my mind goes back to Meg. If she’s as trapped as I fear…
Smarter to leave it alone. If I couldn’t make a difference as Zeus’s son, can I really make a difference as a nameless waiter in a city that’s not my own? I don’t even have money to offer as a payout, though I suspect no amount of money would make a difference. I’ve seen that man’s type before. I used to know plenty of men like him. Ambitious and cruel and willing to trample over anyone who gets in their way. People like me.
People like Meg.
It takes me all of two days to figure out who he is—Hades, the owner of an exclusive club called the Underworld. I spend far too long looking at his picture on the website, the distinguished silver in his hair and the classy black-framed glasses. He’s attractive. Really attractive. His mouth, curved in the same soft smile he’d worn when he caught me eating his woman’s pussy, makes my stomach clench in a way that’s not altogether unpleasant. Like he knows a secret that I don’t and finding out will either please me greatly…or be something I regret for the rest of my life. There is no middle ground there. I shouldn’t crave that any more than I should desire Meg, a woman who only fucked me because she was ordered to.
Yet when my day off rolls around, I find myself pushing through the doors into the building that houses the Underworld. I half expected some Victorian house that looks haunted and full of secrets, but it’s a skyscraper in the middle of downtown. The lobby is like a thousand other lobbies—tile and neutral colors and elevators. That’s it.
I check the directory and head to the correct elevator bank. It’s only when the doors close me in that it hits me how out of line I am. Whatever game Meg and Hades played, it was obviously between them. I didn’t ask for an audience, but it’s not like I would have objected, given the right circumstances. I don’t mind being watched. Hell, I like it.
Charging in here to save Meg is high-handed at absolute best, and deliriously misguided at worst. I should turn around and walk out and move on with my life.
I should…but I don’t.
The doors open, and I walk straight to the desk situated in the middle of an empty room. It houses a Black man who is possibly the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid eyes on. His dark skin is so flawless, I’m half convinced he doesn’t actually have pores, and he wears a suit that’s worth about six of the one on my body.
He gives me a similar rake of his gaze and then presents a wide smile. “What can I help you with, handsome?”
“I’m here to see Meg.” If we could have a conversation, maybe it will dial back the protective impulse that drove me to this lobby in the first place. If I can reassure myself that she’s not trapped, that maybe I misunderstood what happened after we had sex in that apartment… Maybe then I can let this whole thing go.
His face snaps into coldly professional lines. “I’ll see if she’s available. Sit, please.”
I turn and find a cleverly hidden bench in the same stone as the floor. A waiting room can be its own kind of defense, its own kind of weapon. It sets up the power dynamics before an audience is ever granted. I recognize that, but I don’t have a choice to do anything except play this game. I settle down to wait.
In the end, it doesn’t take long. Ten minutes after I arrive, the man clears his throat. “You may go in.”
“Thank you.” I move around the desk to the large black door. It’s meant to intimidate and it’s successful. My nerves try to get the best of me, but I shove them down deep and fall back into my old habit of masking my expressions. A vital survival tactic in what my father likes to call his court. I wonder what Hades calls his inner circle, but that thought has no place here.
I push open the door and walk into the next room.
I’m not sure what I expect. With a name like the Underworld, it could go a number of ways. Instead, it looks like any bar in some high-end spot. Booths line the walls, each tucked back into the dark gray walls and shrouded in shadows except for a single small stylized chandelier that hangs over each. They’re all different shapes and styles, but each is made of silver and has either glass or crystal pieces muting the light. It’s a startlingly classy effect considering I know what goes on in this place.
The rest of the floor is much better lit with the circular bar acting as the main attraction. It showcases a wide array of alcohol options that border a giant marble sculpture that’s… I blink. It’s almost abstract, but I’m certain that it’s depicting an orgy.
What catches and holds my attention is the man lounging against the bar, his black-on-black suit somehow making him look ever more distinguished than the last time I saw him.
Hades.
What the hell?
He arches a brow at me. “Don’t look so confused. You honestly think you can come to my front door and ask after Meg and I wouldn’t know about it?” He gives me that same half smile that’s haunted me for days. “I think we both know you’re smarter than that.”
Maybe I am.
Maybe I knew it would come down to seeing him again.
I don’t know. My stomach is twisting in on itself, a toxic combination of anger and self-righteousness and desire making it hard to think. I clear my throat. “I’d like to see her.”
“So intent on my Meg.” He motions and a tall, curvy Latina woman appears behind the bar, deposits two drinks, and moves away. There’s no one else in the room, so she must be trying to offer some privacy. Hades picks up the glass, and I can’t help noticing the elegance of his hands, the graceful way he moves. He crooks his finger. “I promise I won’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
My blood rushes to my cock, and I don’t fucking understand it. I should want to knock this guy out, but something about him has my instincts misfiring. There’s no fight or flight. It’s flight or fuck, and even in my current confusion, I know better than to play into the latter.
I should know better than to play into the latter.
Hades sighs. “Fine, I’ll take on the role of the bad guy. Either you sit, have a conversation with me, and I decide whether or not I want my Meg around you, or I call in Allecto and she escorts you out. It’s really that simple.”
I don’t know who this Allecto is, but I’m too focused on the first part of his sentence to worry about her. “Meg is a person, not a pet. You don’t get to decide who she does or doesn’t talk to.”
“Meg is both a person and a pet.” There goes that smile again, the one that seems to say he’s enjoying a private joke that I have no access to. “Sit, Hercules.”
My body snaps to attention, obeying the sharpness in his command before I can decide if I want to. I stride to him, and his smile widens. “What a good boy you are.” He tilts his head to the side, studying me in a way that makes me feel like he can see beneath my clothes. “I wonder… Would you kneel if I told you to?”
“No,” I snarl to cover up the truth. I’m not sure what I would do. I can almost feel the bite of the floor through my jeans. The weight of his hand on my head the same way he touched Meg that night. It makes my chest ache, and I don’t understand why.
Another of those shrugs that means everything and nothing at all. “I suppose we’ll find out.”
“I want to see Meg.”
&n
bsp; He takes a sip of his drink and raises his eyebrows. Reluctantly, I pick up mine and do the same. It’s scotch. Very, very expensive scotch. I lick my lips, going still at the predatory way he watches the movement. “I want to see Meg,” I repeat.
“Yes, yes. All in good time.” He leans back against the bar. “Let’s be honest between the two of us, shall we? You don’t want to see Meg. You want a whole lot more than that.”
How can he know that when even I don’t know what I want? I take another drink to cover up my mixed responses. “Why do you think that?”
“I have many talents. Reading people is one of them. You, my dear boy, got your head spun around by Meg’s pussy. I can’t blame you. She’s divine, isn’t she?”
“Don’t talk about her that way.” Even if I dream about her pussy. Even if I wish I hadn’t dicked around the first fifteen minutes of our acquaintance so I got more time with her taste on my tongue. It’s more than that. He’s making it sound cheap and dirty.
He’s making it sound like what happened that night is exactly what I’m afraid of.
He leans close, and I realize that he’s actually an inch shorter than me. He seems so much larger than life, it’s strange to look down into those dark eyes. Hades smiles slowly. “For such a smart boy, you’re awfully dense. I can talk about Meg however I damn please. She’s mine, Hercules. I own her. I told her to fuck you that night, so she did. If I stripped her naked and set her on this bar and lined up every member of the Underworld and let them fuck her one right after the other, she’d thank me for it just like she did after she fucked you.” He lowers his voice, still so close that our chests damn near brush. “I can do every single dark and twisted thing I want to our Meg, and she has no choice but to comply.”
Anger finally derails my attraction to him. If what he’s saying is true, and what little evidence I have supports it, then she truly didn’t have a choice that night. My stomach lurches and I clench my fists. “I won’t let you hurt her again.” I can’t go back in time and take back what happened between us, but I will do whatever it takes to ensure she’s not put in that position again.
Something flashes in his eyes, there and gone too quickly for me to identify. “I won’t let her go. I suppose we find ourselves at an impasse.” He finishes his drink, and I try my best not to watch the way his throat moves when he swallows. “What a shame.” He starts to turn away.
“Wait.”
“Yes?” Is he holding his breath? I can’t be sure.
I down the remainder of my drink, letting the alcohol buzz through my veins, though it doesn’t give me nearly as much courage as I’d like. “I heard you make deals.”
Hades turns fully back to face me and steeples his fingers. “You heard correctly.”
“I’ll make a deal with you to free Meg.”
He taps his fingers against his lips. “Meg is very dear to me, Hercules. I’m not sure what you could possibly offer that would make me give her up.”
I don’t possess anything of worth. Not anymore. If I were still in Olympus, I’d have access to resources and more money than even Hades could bring to the fore. Hades. Olympus. I stop short. I hadn’t even made the connection before now. Surely it’s not coincidence that Hades goes by that name. The one shared by the bogeyman in Olympus. Be a good boy or Hades will get you. It’s not a threat I’ve been on the receiving end of since I was a small child or I would have made the connection sooner. Hades isn’t supposed to be a real person, for all that he’s technically one of the Thirteen. If he existed, I would have known about it. “Hades.”
He seems to sense the change in me and raises his brows. “That is my name.”
“Do you have some connection to Olympus?”
Just like that, he goes as icy as he was the first moment we met. Cold. So fucking cold. “If you’re afraid of making a deal, then stop wasting my time. I have more important things to be doing at the moment.”
I have nothing to offer him. Not really. My trust fund is long gone, and even if it wasn’t, Hades doesn’t seem the type to be swayed by a series of commas and zeroes. No, he’ll want something more. Which is a damn problem. I have nothing except…
I take a deep breath. “You can have me.”
“I can…have you.” He studies me. “The devil is in the details, my boy. I’m going to need you to be significantly more specific.”
I clear my suddenly dry throat. “I mean you can have me. However you want to take that.” It’s only right. A way to balance the scales of the wrong I’ve done. The mistakes I’ve made. Penance. There’s a sweet relief in that, in giving up control so completely. I don’t really understand it, but in the end my feelings don’t matter. Helping Meg does.
“You mean, I can fuck you.” He circles me slowly, a predator going in for the kill. “I can shove my cock between those pretty lips of yours. I can do whatever I please to your cock. I can take your ass whenever and however I like.” He stops in front of me again, seemingly unaffected by the words he just launched at me like daggers. “Is that what you mean when you say I can have you?”
“Yes.” It takes me two tries to keep speaking. “If that’s what it takes.”
“A better man would turn you away. Forced consent is hardly consent.” He smiles suddenly, a full smile that rocks me back on my heels. “You’re a terrible negotiator. Truly awful. I accept your terms—you’re mine, and I no longer force Meg to follow my commands against her will.”
I swallow hard, trying to think. “That’s a very specific sentence.”
“Yes, well, I am not terrible at negotiating.” He raises his voice. “Tis, another round. We’re sealing a deal with a drink.”
The woman appears again, this time with the bottle. She pours a healthy splash into his glass and then mine, gives me a sharp look, and disappears around the curve of the bar again. I reach for my drink and pause. His words seem fine on the surface. I do this, and he can’t force Meg anymore. She won’t have to fuck strangers unless she wants to. She won’t have to follow Hades’s orders anymore. Surely she’ll be happy to be free?
I can’t think straight. Not with the scotch in my system, though Hades’s presence is more to blame for the muddled way my thoughts run together than the alcohol. I frown at him. “Do you want to fuck me?”
He gives me that blinding smile again, as if I’ve done something to amuse him greatly. Hades sets down his drink and reclaims the final step between us. He grips my neck, the strength in his fingers surprising. So is my reaction. My cock goes hard, and I have to fight back a moan.
What the fuck?
“Poor baby sub. You don’t even know what you are, do you?” He tsks. “Don’t worry. I’ll teach you.”
“Teach me what?”
“Everything.”
I don’t even know what that means. Not really. I just know that I suddenly want it. “Okay.”
“We’ll seal it with a kiss then,” he murmurs against my mouth. But he doesn’t follow through like I expect.
I belatedly realize he’s waiting for confirmation. I nod as much as I’m able to with the way he grips my neck. “Yes. Seal it with a kiss.”
“Good boy.” There is no teasing touch of his tongue. He simply takes my mouth as if it has been his all long. He forces me wide open for him and plunders me with his tongue. I lift my shaking hands and fist them in his perfect black shirt, though I can’t say for certain whether I’m clinging to him to steady myself or trying to get him closer. In the end, it doesn’t matter.
He releases me and steps back, leaving me swaying on my feet. Hades smooths down his shirt and then fixes his glasses where they’ve been knocked off-center by our kiss. “Tis will get you set up in your new room. One of my other people will give you the tour.”
That snaps me out of my haze. “What?”
Hercules gives me a pitying look. “Come now, Hercules. You didn’t think you’d bargain away yourself to me and then go back to your sad little life, did you? Call in and quit your job. My peopl
e will gather your belongings and see to your apartment. The Underworld is your home now.”
Chapter 6
Meg
“Did you hear about the new guy?”
I look up from the spreadsheet detailing the Underworld’s income last month. I wasn’t sure what the disruption of Balthazar’s territory would do for our bottom line. Coups in Carver City make everyone nervous, and nervous people will either drop mad cash or button it up completely.
Judging from the accounts list I have, they went with the former.
Thank fuck.
I drag my attention back to the present to find Tink standing in the doorway to my office. She’s victim to one of the many deals Hades has made over the years. I don’t know the terms of this specific one—I rarely know the details unless he feels I need to—but she’s fit right into life here at the club while still running her stylist business during the day.
She’s also a delicious little plus-sized blonde with a taste for pain, bondage, and group play. Add in snark and total disrespect for most authority, and she’s my kind of girl.
It takes a moment for her words to penetrate. Even then, I don’t comprehend them. “What did you say?”
“Hades has a new guy starting tonight. From the gossip Tis had, hot from the source, he doesn’t even know he’s a sub and I’m expected to give him a crash course in BDSM before the club opens.” She crosses her arms under her breasts. “I don’t get paid enough for this shit, Meg. I really don’t.”
“Why does he have you training instead of one of the Dominants?” Instead of me. I don’t handle every new sub we hire, but if they’re important enough to be brought in because of a deal, then I should be.
“She said Hades is handling that part of his training personally.”
What? “We can negotiate hazard pay once he’s up to par and working,” I say absently. A new hire from Hades means one of his deals. Normally every employee who the Underworld hires goes through me, whether they’re dominant, submissive, or just looking to bartend. It’s one of my most important functions as the person who manages this place.