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It occurred to him then that her only fear was that this man might be able to hurt her again. His hands fisted as she made her way toward the soul. He was overwhelmed with the urge to pull her back, to keep her near, to only let her observe him from afar, but he knew if she felt she could not do this, she wouldn’t.

“Does it help?” she asked, turning to look at him. For a brief moment, all he could think about was how strange it was to have something so beautiful in a space like this. “The torture?”

Hades studied her face.

There was something innocent about her question. Perhaps it was the assumption that he used torture to heal his wounds instead of feeding them, as was the case with Pirithous. No matter how Hades made the demigod suffer, it would never be enough.

“I cannot say.”

Her gaze lingered on him a moment longer before she turned and began walking around her prisoner. She could not know what this did to him, how this made him feel. She commanded this place like a queen, and she wasn’t even aware of it.

She paused behind the demigod, watching him, andall he could think was that she had never looked more beautiful, despite their surroundings.

“Then why do you do it?”

For a moment, he scrambled to figure out if she asked because she disapproved, but she did not appear to be horrified by him or the demigod restrained before her, so he answered truthfully.

“Control.”

It was something he sought daily because it had been the first thing taken from him when his father had swallowed him whole upon his birth, and then, just when he thought he was free of that horrible prison, he faced another ten years in battle. In the aftermath, control had meant a dark existence. It meant that everyone in his realm had to feel like he felt—wretched and tortured. He had believed no one was deserving of a peaceful afterlife after what he had seen.

Over time, his idea of what it meant to be in control evolved, and his empire bled out into the world above. He sought to make the darkest parts his own, feeding the underbelly of New Greece until power and status could only be obtained through him and anyone who operated outside that did not last long. There were few exceptions, but among them were Dionysus and, most recently, Theseus, who was helped mostly by his father.

But not even they challenged him like Persephone.

She had crashed into his life and defied him at every turn, and he had not been able to exercise any sort of control over her. She would not be contained, and in many ways, he could not blame her. She had only just escaped the confines of her mother’s authority, and then to come face-to-face with him—a virtual stranger whohad attempted to give her rules—it was no wonder she had resisted.

In the end, she’d only wanted what he had wanted.

“I want control,” she said, and Hades felt like she was squeezing his heart.

He wanted to give her that.

He extended his hand. “I will help you claim it.”

She did not hesitate and came to him, placing her hand in his and drawing in close. He turned her so that her back rested against his chest, his fingers splayed at her hip, possessive and aware that Pirithous would soon awaken. Hades wanted the demigod to be reminded of what he had done, that he had taken the wrong goddess and challenged the wrong god.

With her safely in his arms, he summoned his magic like a spear and aimed for Pirithous. The demigod sucked in a sharp breath, as if he’d felt the pain of Hades’s power, and at the sound, Persephone went rigid. Hades shifted closer, as if he could shield her from her fear with his body. He let his lips brush the tip of her ear as he spoke.

“Do you remember when I taught you to harness your magic?”

He had taught her one evening beneath the silver eaves of her own woods. As he recalled that evening—how his body had cradled hers, how he had touched her, how she had slowly grown warm and aroused beneath his hands—desire kindled low in his stomach, and as much as he would have liked to suppress it, to focus only on the point of their visit to Tartarus, Persephone made it just as hard.

She shuddered, and her ass and shoulders pressed into his body.

It seemed he did not even need to know her answer, her reaction telling him she remembered that and what came after.

Still, she spoke.

“Yes.”

The corners of Hades’s lips lifted, and as he spoke, his mouth skimmed the edge of her ear down the column of her neck.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered as the demigod began to stir because he did not wish for her to have to look at him.

Pirithous’s eyes blinked open, brows furrowed in confusion as his sleepy gaze fell on Persephone, at which point he seemed to fully awaken. Then he spoke Persephone’s name, and it took everything in Hades’s power not to cross the distance between them and rip out his tongue.

Instinctively, he pressed closer to her, his fingers digging into her hip. Touching her made him feel grounded and reminded him why they were here—so Persephone could take back her power, and maybe then, she could finally sleep in peace.