Page 24 of His in the Dark
HADES
L et word spread that she stands beside me with a rightly deserved crown. Let Hekate hear whispers from the army of the dead. I pray it travels to every realm. With purpose and a renewed sense of thrill, I lead her to her throne.
Entering my court has never felt like this. Not once.
The pride is unexpected but as is the anxiousness of their reaction.
Stepping through the doors with my queen at my side is unlike every other time I can recall, and the sensation is not entirely comfortable. Mostly, this is on my own behalf.
With a sharp gasp, I turn to look at her. Fucking beautiful. She’s breathtaking in the crown made for her.
I take great pleasure in Persephone’s company. I would prefer to see her spread out on the sheets beneath me, but out of the corner of my eye, she is all regal beauty.
Whispers rise as we move toward the dais.
The gathered attendants lean close to one another, speaking in low voices or whispers. Though I cannot hear the words themselves, the tone is audible.
The tone is kind. The tone is slightly awed, as if they are surprised to see her at my side.
Many of these attendants have seen Persephone out on the path. The few who I have allowed in the castle. They have come to like her. To respect her.
Now they will stand in astonishment, as I do every time I walk into the rooms we share.
It is like watching the sun rise in the realm of the mortals, or Elysium come down to meet the darkest pits of hell. It would be difficult to explain Persephone’s beauty to one who had never seen such things. They might think, in their ignorance, that it was nothing more than exaggeration.
It is not.
Persephone holds tighter to my arm, and we step up onto the dais at the opposite side of the room. Two thrones wait for us. I guide Persephone into the one on the left, if one is facing the dais.
I take my seat, and Persephone is at my right hand, where she should have been before and will remain. I will ensure it.
She is trembling. Nerves, I think. I brush my knuckles along the back of her hand and she glances at me. Her beautiful eyes wide and full of awe.
“Your kingdom awaits my Queen,” I tell her and she offers me a short nod in acknowledgement. I can practically hear her heart racing from here. There’s nothing to concern her. She will participate as she’d like to and nothing more today.
Persephone’s hand slides into mine atop the thick armrest between our thrones.
She’s here, my heart says, though my eyes can see this perfectly well. She is here, and today you need not remember all those eternities you spent alone.
“We will begin,” I announce, my voice reaching the very back of the hall.
Voices rise slightly, but then the first of the new souls is brought in, and we fall into the well-worn routine.
It is the same pattern as always, and yet it feels like the first time. Each soul is a precious being. One under my rule and their eternity at my discretion.
With Persephone’s hand in mine, I am the same God I was before. And I am a God I have never met.
It is not a matter of fairness. From my first breaths in the Underworld, I knew I would rule with balance and that with it, would come judgement from others. Scathing hate from those punished that is inescapable. Heartless is a word I hear often. There is no one in the Underworld who can claim that I was unfair, or unjust. Except for liars and those who still fail to see their sentencing here is mirrored in their free will in the mortal realm.
Persephone does not inspire whimsy in me for a task like this. She doesn’t inspire rage or a severe harshness. She simply sits beside me to observe and in that, she inspires additional patience. As I treasure the moment she has. Her first court in her throne. The first witnesses to her crown.
Court proceeds as such: the guard states the name, verdict by each Judge and then allows the soul a moment of appeal. When the Judges do not agree, that is where I am needed. Screams and cries are silenced with a wave of my hand. The first soul, a murderous thief screams out, tears streaming down his face when sentenced to a hell of listening to the screams of his eight victims and then the cries of their loved ones and then the silence of the funeral. Over and over again for a hundred years. At which time, he will be resentenced. The moment his scream begins, my hand is waved and the black tarp is placed over his head, silencing the cries as the man is made limp by the magic and he’s taken to his new home.
I glance at Persephone whose lips are parted in what appears curiosity and then her gaze catches mine. For a moment, something flickers between us. Something unprecedented. But then the next soul is announced.
After some time, Persephone’s hand relaxes in mine.
After a few more souls, the doors open to admit another.
This time, I wait.
The silence spreads across the hall. All the whispers and murmured conversations of the audience who watches over the cases, cease. The new soul waits, her head bowed, her eyes on the floor. A murderer, but of her captor. For weeks she contemplated, she could have run and left another upon her escape. Instead she ended the murderer and released the other prisoner. There was some deliberation among the Judges given her obsession with how she would kill him. In his sleep with boiled sugarwater. Painful. She craved his suffering.
The woman’s bottom lip wobbles as she stands before us silently. When asked her plea, she simply requests mercy in this life because she had none in the last.
Persephone squeezes my hand in a silent question.
I squeeze back. There is her answer.
She does not look to me for further debate, and I do not look at her. I give her the time she needs to consider the soul before us.
Persephone hesitates for one more moment, as if giving me a chance to stop her.
I do not.
She takes a deep breath, her grip tight on my hand. It is another thrill. Her softness and strength are there in her touch. Her compassion. I feel so much coming from her.
And I do not want to draw away from it. I do not want her hand to leave mine.
“You will go to Elysium,” Persephone says without a word from me, her voice as clear and steady as mine. “There, you will spend time in rest and contemplation until you are ready to return to the mortal realm for a new life. You will be safe there for as long as you wish. You may lay down your burdens.”
The soul exhales, her voice thick with relief. “Thank you, my Lady,” she murmurs. The audience murmurs as well, the sound reaching us. The guards do not hesitate, they allow Persephone the sentencing and move forward without pause. Excellent.
This is exactly what I intended. Persephone to rule, confidently beside me. I pray whispers reach the ears of Hekate. For the Titan will judge me as I judge the souls before me. I am sure of it.
More whispers follow. They get louder until the next soul is brought in.
This soul is already tormented.
As the judgements are heard and the soul is granted their moment to plead, I request of Persephone, “Again.”
She glances at me with wide eyes before nodding in agreement.
Persephone does not take as much time to speak once silence settles in the court.
“You will go to the Asphodel Meadows,” she proclaims. The soul sobs. “There, you may drink from the river Lethe. You may be reborn again.”
The attendants murmur among themselves, approvingly. A subtle smile lifts my lips into an asymmetric grin.
All of them together could not approve more than I do.
I want to whisper this in Persephone’s ear, but the next soul is brought in.
Once again, the court goes silent.
This soul is compelled by evil. The room is suffocated with it. The stench is evident. It is obvious from the bristling feeling in the air. An evil sinner. One who does not regret what they have done. One who takes pride in their malice.
I know Persephone will see this, too.
The twist of apprehension I feel is only for her, not for myself.
She does not hesitate when I turn to her and nod for her to give her sentencing. My Queen delivering a sentence of pain… will she do it?
“You will face the torture of knives.” There is no malice in Persephone’s voice. “They were chosen by you in your previous life, not by me.” She does not take pleasure in passing this judgment. What shocks me most is the note of empathy. “You cannot be allowed to forget what you have done. Think upon it well.”
“How long?” I ask her. The three judges could not agree and thus the reasoning for his summons here.
She glances at me, but then back to the soul who screeches in anger. “A thousand years,” she states lowly and I tell her, “louder.”
“Your sentencing is a thousand years,” she answers, her voice strong and the crowd goes silent as the soul is hushed with magic and draped in the tarp.
My breath catches as the soul is led out.
Yes. She is every bit a queen fit for this realm. Although she readjusts in her seat and unease is written in the way she picks at the hem of her sleeve, she did not cower. She was just. I am obsessed with her ruling.
I take over the judgements to let her breathe, but keep her hand in mine. She whispers a soft, “thank you,” when I take over.
I pray she knows how well she did. How honorable and righteous her judgements were.
This will tell everyone in the room, and soon everyone in the realm, how much I value Persephone. How much I trust her. How much power she holds, and not only because I offered it to her.
When she sits forward to offer her own judgment, I let her. Some souls she seems eager to deliver a verdict to. Mostly women. We trade off seamlessly. Persephone herself was the one who made herself this way. She took on the mantle of Queen and sat on the throne beside me. She has already taken responsibility into her hands, and her judgments are entirely her own.
When the last soul has been brought in, judged, and sent out again, I stand up, Persephone’s hand still in mine.
“We are finished here today,” I announce. For this court. For today. With Persephone, I am only beginning. I am only just beginning, and I will not allow it to be ripped away from me. I cannot. “May the days bring us peace and gratitude for each of us,” I offer as a parting word and keep my hand on Persephone’s as she rises. “You may leave,” I command to the room and guide her to walk beside me as the court rises.
Pride would be overwhelming if not the aching of my cock demanding attention. She is glorious. Gorgeous and fair, my equal and righteous half to the courts. Fuck, those lips. I will never forget today. I will pine for these first moments of her power being realized for centuries to come.
The voices on either side of us as we leave the court are filled with praise and thanks and goodwill . I ignore them all, pushing past the stone door and leading her down the wall with haste.
We make it only three steps past the threshold before I guide her to the wall and kiss her.
I am too filled with pride to walk back to my rooms. I am too filled with awe to do anything but kiss her. I need her now. In this moment. Her flesh on mine. Her warmth and the sound of pleasure spilling from her lips.
She gasps the sweetest sound and then my name is spilled from her before she deepens the kiss, her hands reaching under my robe and gripping my back to pull her in close.
Persephone’s sweet mouth forces my lust to turn to need. Her hands lift and find my shoulders, and mine find her waist. I’m so hard that my whole body aches for her. It is a pain I would accept much more of in order to be close to her, but I do not need to.
My queen pulls herself up, braced against the wall, and I slide my hand up her gown and under her thigh. She lifts one of her feet and hooks it around my hip, her pale neck arched for me. Persephone’s crown click s and scrape s against the wall. I hope it leaves scratches for all eternity. I hope the evidence of her as my queen never fades, no matter what may come to the Underworld. No matter what war may threaten us.
I cannot think of any future war with her body moving against mine. She rolls her hips, brushing against my hardened length, already leaking precum, through our fabrics. Her skin is so soft, so fucking perfect, under her gown. A groan of primal need leaves me and in that moment, she moans the softest sweetest sound fueling me for more.
I hitch it up to her hip and kiss her with desperate need as I explore the warmth between her legs with my fingers. She’s already wet for me and lets out a needy noise into my mouth I can’t deny.
“I need you,” I growl into hers.
“Yes,” she pants. “ Yes.”
I want her as desperate as I. I crave her falling apart.
So I work my fingers over her clit, rubbing circles that deliver the sweetest sounds from her. At first, Persephone presses her mouth into the fabric of my robe to muffle her cries, but she forgets, and I do not care who hears her. I cannot spare even a thought for anyone else. The only thing I am aware of when Persephone is soaking my fingers with her desire is that I must give her more pleasure?—
And that no one has disturbed us. Not even my guards have come out of the court, though I know they must be hovering inside the door. It would only serve my cause for them to hear and bear witness to what she does to me and what I do to her.
In this moment though, I don’t care for their opinions or presence. This is my kingdom and she is my queen.
I lower my mouth to Persephone’s neck, kissing her there, sucking her there, and angle her over my cock. I get myself free from my clothes in a haze of her sweetness, get her positioned to take me, and pull her down onto my length in a swift thrust of pleasure. I bury myself to the hilt, feeling nothing but ecstasy.
Persephone lets out a loud, low moan as she takes my cock, then arches her back.
“Oh,” she says, and works her hips. “Oh, oh— Hades!” She cries out my name and I fucking love it. Harder and harder I rut ruthlessly, needing more. Craving her moans to turn to screams of pleasure.
Persephone is fucking mine .
And no one else is going to have her. Not a fucking soul could take her from me. God. Titan. Or anything or any one. She is mine. Forever.