Teased by Darkness (Bound to Hades Book 2), page 1
Teased by Darkness
Lillian Sable
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Also by Lillian Sable
About the Author
Prologue
One Thousand (and Twenty-Three) Years Ago
Hades carried the unconscious girl in his arms down long hallways of the castle as they passed by him in a blur. Hours had passed since their escape attempt. He cursed himself for thinking the worst thing they faced would be death at the hands of a jealous pantheon of gods.
Persephone, or Seph as she had insisted he call her from almost the moment they met, hung in his arms like dead weight. Only the gentle rise and fall of her chest gave him any sign that she was still alive.
He had watched her suffer a mortal injury and die, then return to life again as if by some miracle. But when he gathered her up in his arms and held her close, the relief he felt was short-lived. She had grown weaker and weaker, falling into a state that was nearly comatose, until he questioned whether she had truly been saved at all.
No healers lived in the Underworld. This was a land of the dead. The creatures here were more likely to tear into flesh than mend it. But he screamed for one just the same, until his throat ached and his voice had gone hoarse. The daemons stared at him as if they did not understand what he wanted, but followed with curious gazes and noses raised in the air to inhale the scene of freshly-spilled blood. Hades distantly wondered if they had any real concern for the fallen goddess or if they were merely hoping to carve off a tasty chunk.
If Persephone died, none of this would matter to him at all.
A wizened darkling stepped forward from the crowd, the creature so old that Hades had trouble discerning if it was a male or female until it spoke to him. “Set her down here.”
He laid Seph’s too still body on the thick rug in the center of the hallway, falling back when the darkling forced itself between them.
The moment that his touch left her skin, Seph inhaled on a harsh gasp of air. Her overly pale skin brightened with the smallest bit of color, but she gave no more evidence of life.
“Tell me what is wrong with her, lost one.” Hades’s voice was rich with a command that he had not yet earned.
“My name is Orin, boy.” The darkling’s voice was caustic, but his touch was surprisingly gentle as he inspected the queen. “Back away. Further.”
As equally annoyed as he was concerned, Hades shifted back by the smallest half-step. He glared at Orin, but his gaze immediately moved back to Seph when she let out a soft sigh that sounded like his name. He rushed forward only to freeze when that sigh turned to a moan of pain that only faded when he backed away again.
“What is wrong with her?”
“You.”
“That is absolutely ridiculous…” But Hades watched as her chest rose and fell with more normal breaths as he retreated. Eyes that had previously been closed fluttered ever so slightly as she seemed just on the verge of regaining consciousness.
His beloved was coming back to life, but only as long as he did not touch her.
Orin gave him a look that could almost be pitying, if darklings admitted to such emotions. “This is the Underworld. We are all dead things here. It does not matter what she was before she came. Now she is a queen of the Underworld and your power over death alone will not be enough to save her.”
There were many types of gods, some capable of saving life and others who could only take it away. Good and evil were purely human concerns, but that seemed a petty realization as he lamented his inability to help her.
But he couldn’t have known it would come at such a cost.
“Where is Demeter? Where is the goddess of the harvest? Perhaps there is something she can do, take Persephone away if she must…”
“Gone.” Orin murmured with a shrug. “Far enough to be out of reach, but no one will can say where unless she chooses to return.”
Demeter might be the goddess of the Harvest, but she was also a murderous fucking bitch. Hades had originally invited her to the Underground with the intent to marry her, misguided as that may have been. Sharing their power would have made them a force that no other power among the pantheon could have overcome. It would have finally freed him from his compulsion to stay only in the darkness of the Underworld.
He had wanted to be free.
Instead, he had fallen in love with Persephone, the goddess of spring who shone like a bright spot in the darkness.
They had tried to escape the Underworld on this very night, but Demeter had discovered them first. She had not reacted with the fiery anger he expected at his betrayal. Instead, Demeter had seemed almost coldly calm as she stabbed her own daughter through the chest with a dagger and then cursed Hades to rule the very land he had been so desperate to escape.
But Seph had survived the killing blow, and now he understood what it truly meant to be cursed.
His fingers touched the gentle curve of Seph’s cheek and then recoiled when she winced in pain. “Why does my touch hurt her?”
Instead of answering the question, Orin cocked his head to the side and regarded Hades closely. “Tell me how you feel.”
Concern for his beloved had blunted any awareness of his own needs. But now that he was forced to think about it, Hades made the gradual realization that, aside from his fear for Seph, he felt amazing. His body seemed somehow lither and stronger, power stirring under his skin in a way that he had never experienced before.
Strong enough to rule the entire Underworld if that was what he desired.
It was only when he saw the knowing expression on the darkling’s face that Hades realized the question was meant to be more than just casual interest. “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”
“You are Hades, ruler of the Underworld. But now you have tied yourself to a goddess whose powers allow flowers to bloom and bring life to the world from the dead of winter. Her power has given you dominion over life and death, but it comes with a cost. You will be compelled to feed off her to maintain that power. As she grows weaker and nearer to death, you grow stronger and gain the power you need to master this place.”
“Near to death?” His mind whirled at the terrible possibility, even as power burned under his skin with fiery heat. “And then what?”
Orin’s face was so cracked and wrinkled that it was nearly impossible to tell what expression he wore. But his voice held the most trace note of sadness. “She will die and live again, like the endless cycle of the seasons, no matter how mortal the wound she suffers, over and over until darkness finally consumes the universe.”
The goddess of spring who could suffer endlessly, but never die.
“We could leave. Escape, just as we planned.” Hades reached for her before catching himself, afraid that even the act of holding her close to him would cause excruciating pain. “Let this realm be reclaimed by the darkness. We will simply find another.”
“That is the desperation talking. I know you have already sensed the truth, even with these denials. Hades, you are bound to the Underworld and cannot leave it, at least not for long. To attempt otherwise is to invite your own destruction.” Orin stood and brushed his small hands against his woolen robe. “The queen may grow accustomed to the pain, in time, which is the best of her available options. But this place will warp you, make you crave the power that it offers until you crave her suffering along with it. As the ruler of the Underworld, you must remain unless another takes your place.”
The dead did not lie. But even if the darkling twisted his words with some hidden deception, Hades felt the truth of it down to his marrow. He knew that if he were to make for the borders of the Underworld and attempt to leave, the very ground would shift under his feet and great chasms would open between him and any avenues of escape.
He possessed all the power that the Underworld had to offer, except for the one required to leave it.
His perfect match, his love, was trapped with him in a nightmare. He thought himself capable whatever it took to gain unimaginable power. And now he had it, even as it became the very last thing he wanted. The irony of it certainly wasn’t lost on him.
“I don’t want the power that badly.” And despite an eternity of coveting it, the words were truly meant. At this point, Hades wasn’t even talking to the darkling anymore. Instead, he directed his words at the primordial universe who he knew would never answer. “This isn’t at all what I wanted.”
“Well, you have it.” The darkling disappeared into the crowd without waiting for a response.
“Hades…”
The fragile, broken whisper had him rushing forward to kneel at Seph’s side, but he maintained enough presence of mind to avoid touching her, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I’m here.”
Her eyes were open, but she stared up at the ceiling as if not seeing anything at all. Her mouth moved, but it was impossible to tell if she actually spoke to him. He leaned over her, careful to keep them from touching. “My love.”
But her head had already lolled back onto the floor, eyes sliding closed as she slipped back into unconsciousness.
Hades stared down at her, at war with himself. At the very least, he wanted to carry her away from this public hallway and so many sets of prying eyes. He would have no choice but to touch her, cause her even more pain, but that didn’t mean he needed to do it with an audience.
Dozens of daemon servants and darklings who served in the castle had gathered around them in a tightening circle.
His anger finally got the best of him.
“Leave us,” he roared.
The crowd scattered as he lifted Seph into his arms and tried to ignore her tiny moans of pain. As much as those small sounds disturbed him, he also found them strangely alluring. He had to resist the urge to squeeze her tighter in his arms, if just to discover what other sounds she might make. Already the power tempted him, urged him to do things that he would never consider otherwise. That desire to cause her pain was entirely unwanted, even as he felt the first stirrings of magic more powerful than anything he could have imagined.
Even barely lucid, Seph naturally curved her body against his. Still barely conscious, her fingers tightened in the fabric of his shirt as if trying to pull him closer. He told himself that she didn’t understand he was the source of her agony. But as she nuzzled against him while mewling sounds escaped from her lips, he wondered if part of her craved this as much as he did.
What had they become?
Chapter One
Adonis came awake with the shocked sort of awareness of someone who was falling in a dream and snapped back to consciousness just before their body hit the ground. His heart beat too hard in his chest, and adrenaline made him sharply alert, with no transition between sleeping and waking.
Had he been dreaming?
His body ached as if it had been stuck in a strange position for hours on end, despite the plush sheets and memory foam mattress underneath him. And when he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the maniacal laughter of the man who’d spent thirteen hours torturing him. And as Adonis stared down at his hands, there were already half-moon indents on the back, as if someone had been holding on for dear life only moments before. Even the worst nightmares didn’t leave physical marks behind.
Which meant that it all had to be real.
Scrambling to his feet, Adonis leapt out of bed. His legs tangled in the sheets, and he nearly toppled to the floor before righting himself. His haste didn’t make any rational sense. Either the already fading images in his head weren’t only a dream, and Seph was already lost or he’d go to her, all frantic and beside himself, only to be reassured that she was just fine. Hurrying wouldn’t change anything, but he just had to know.
Seph had never told him exactly what she went through when she was younger, at least not specifically, but he knew that she took medication. He didn’t know precisely what, just that it was the stronger stuff. The kind of drugs that they didn’t advertise on television because the side effects ruined your life almost as much as the actual illness did. That had never bothered him. Most people struggled with something, whether they had a diagnosis or not. But he had taken an intro psych class as an undergrad, so he understood the concept of a shared psychosis. If a sane person spent enough time around a mentally ill one, sometimes the crazy wore off.
Folie a deux. Perhaps both of them had just gone the tiniest bit insane.
But even standing in the middle of his messy bachelor apartment, the Underworld still felt just as real as when he’d been trapped inside of it. The memories were distant and fading more with each passing moment, but he hadn’t imagined them. He knew that as surely as he knew that Seph was gone, trapped in a place completely out of reach as if it had never existed in the first place.
Technically, Adonis shouldn’t have any idea where Seph lived. She’d never invited him or anyone else from their program there before. But it didn’t take much more than a quick Google search to find both her building and apartment number. Nothing was secret in the age of the internet.
The trip took about half as long as it should have, a combination of a rare occurrence of minimal traffic and his decision to drive like a madman. Some poor asshole cut him off on the 405, and he nearly ran the guy off the road before he got control of himself. It wouldn’t do Seph any good if he died in a car wreck or got shot in a road rage incident, something that occasionally happened on the freeways of Los Angeles.
His hand was already raised to knock when Cleo wrenched open the door, staring at him like he’d suddenly grown an extra head. The stricken look on her face was enough to tell him everything that he needed to know.
“It really happened, didn’t it?”
Without answering, she motioned him inside and firmly shut the door. Adonis couldn’t help but notice the normally poised girl was a nervous wreck. Usually, Cleo walked around like she had just stepped out of magazine spread. But now her perfect manicure was chipped from her biting compulsively at her nails, her hair was tangled enough for birds to nest in, and she was dressed in shabby clothes that looked like they’d been pulled from a hobo’s dirty laundry pile.
“When I woke up, Seph was gone,” Cleo said with a sigh, looking more lost than he thought possible. Most of the time it seemed like she barely cared about her roommate at all, so this turnaround surprised him. “Her foster mom has been calling me like nonstop all morning, and I haven’t answered because I literally have no idea what to tell her.”
That distracted him for the briefest moment. “Why would Seph’s foster mother be calling you?”
“It’s sort of my job to give her updates on how Seph is doing, that’s why I moved here in the first place. Free room and board in exchange for a little information.” Cleo had the grace to look embarrassed but balked at the obvious censure in his gaze. She sounded more like a narc than a friend. “Don’t look at me like that. If it wasn’t me, then it would have been somebody else, and Seph knew all about it. We had an arrangement, so she always knew what information I was sharing. Diana can be overprotective, and I helped keep her off Seph’s back as much as I could. Maybe it was just a decent gig at first, but Seph and I became friends. You have to believe me.”
He did believe her, even if there wasn’t a good reason to. “Okay, I get it. I assume you just woke up here, right?”
“In bed, like normal. Except . . .” She trailed off and looked at him with eyes that had suddenly become guarded. “You tell me what you remember first.”
Adonis’s voice was flat. “I remember being kidnapped and tortured by some guy straight out of a fractured fairy tale who called himself Hades. You were there, and Seph was there. And now I feel like Dorothy waking up in her bed after the adventure ended, except it wasn’t just a dream, and everything is definitely not back to fucking normal.”
“Same,” she sighed, rubbing her temples as if they ached. “I can’t decide if I’m relieved to hear you say that, or not. It might have been better to find out that I was just going crazy.”
“I get the feeling that’s how Seph has felt for most of her life.” He surveyed the neat apartment with a critical eye, noting that there was only one closed door in the hallway leading off the living room. “Is that her room?”
“She isn’t in there. I already checked.”
Adonis had already accepted that the girl he loved was somewhere far beyond his reach. He wasn’t surprised to open the door to find an empty cluttered room. But if there was any hope left of reaching her, then he would tear this place apart to find it.
But as the room came into focus, he couldn’t fight a spurt of surprise. And trepidation. Every wall was covered in paintings and drawings of fantastical creatures and places. Most of it looked like Alice in Wonderland reimagined by H.R. Giger, whimsically terrifying in other words. Some of the pieces were more romantic, done in pastel colors or with softened lines of charcoal. The large sketch hanging above the bed immediately caught his eye and kept it.
