❛THEY WOULD TELL YOU OF A KING WHO STOLE ME HELPLESS FROM MY SUNSHINE GARDEN.❜
They won't tell you about the woman who came to him sublime, lily eyes and lily lips. A king does not ask permission from his prize, but she, oh she, she knelt, kissing m...
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ROYAL CHAMBERS, THE UNDERWORLD
HADES
THE DAWN OF THE DAY WAS SUNLESS, GREY AND BRAZEN - YET CAME BEARING WINDS FULL OF SILK PROMISES.
The tiles were freezing as I huffed a deep breath, sipping from a flask of spiced Ambrosia.
I loved it. The sharp, biting cold, the warmth of the luxurious carpets, the work awaiting me - us - in the courtroom. I loved those subjects, those souls begging for mercy, those lives waiting to be served their justice. Silent footsteps echoed in the room as I pushed aside the curtains to her chamber.
“Are you awake yet?”
Except that she wasn’t. She wasn’t sleeping, no - she wasn’t even in the damn room.
Worry began to thrum in my veins as I looked around restlessly. A loose curse slipped from my lips.
A tinkling laugh drifted out from behind a painted screen.
“A bit too early in the morning for that, don’t you think, Polydegmon?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing off, relief filling my body as it warmed the tips of my toes. I carelessly pushed aside the silk to find her in that extravagant dressing gown of hers, dragons and artistic roses sprawled about on the elegant fabric. Her skin was shining with beads of fragrant perfume, shining with an ethereal sheen. The cinnamon in the wine rolled on my tongue, a blissful hymn as my eyes lingered over the Queen of the Underworld. She seemed to have just stepped out of the bath as whitish puffs of steam still lingered in the air, enveloping her as if it were enchanted mist. Her hair was up in a loose, messy knot on her head – such lovely, luscious hair – and it took all I had to not bury my fingers in those mahogany locks and feel their softness.
Persephone’s bright green eyes twinkled with light I had never seen before.
She had never looked so lovely, so full of spring.
“You might want to pick your jaw off the floor, my lord,” she murmured, her gaze even brighter than before, as if shining with some unknown, untold secret only she knew.
“I – of course,” I managed to gasp. Her golden skinned handmaidens fluttered about her like doves, averting their eyes, too aware of the tangible tension between the rugged stone walls of the room.
“You may go now. Thank you, Illythea,” she smiled at one of the younger girls as she curtsied nervously, and hurried out of the room accompanied by her lady companions.
Persephone sighed, and sat at the edge of the granite bathing tub in the middle of the room, looking only slightly tired.
“Mind if I have some of that?” she gestured to the flask in my hands.
