If this was all a dream, then soon I’d wake up, and no harm would have been done. If not, there wasn’t any time to waste on questioning this devastating new reality.
My mouth was dry, but I forced myself to speak. “What do you want from me?”
It was the wrong question to ask. His smile widened to reveal teeth just a touch too sharp to be human. “To own you. Come with me, and everything I have will be yours.”
I felt a yearning so deep that it nearly doubled me over. From the seductive look he cast over my body, he sensed it in me.
But even if all of this existed entirely in my head, I knew better than to say yes.
Steeling my resolve, I glared at him. “I won’t go with you willingly. Don’t expect me to fall for your tricks.”
His head tilted to one side, watching me with eyes that were almost too large for his face and tipped on the sides like a cat. Or an alien. Because I couldn’t stop the fanciful ideas from popping into my head at the worst times, I wondered if our conception of little green aliens was influenced by the gods. Perhaps some prehistorical human caught sight of a god and underestimated just how foreign its origins might be.
Except, none of this was real. I had to keep reminding myself of that until I believed it.
He seemed amused as he studied me like he could tell precisely what I was thinking. “It is fascinating to me that you think you have a choice.”
“In the story, Hades stole girls away only when they’ve asked for it. Which I didn’t. And won’t ever.” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling smug. Even the sexiest hallucinations could be outsmarted.
“I had hoped it would be you to say the words,” he acknowledged with a small nod, that infuriating smile still playing at his lips. “But you aren’t the only pretty little human who knows the right words to invoke my presence. And you have no one but yourself to blame for that.”
The right words.
I stared at him, the slowly growing horror apparent on my face.
“Those who call his name in the liminal space, between what was and what will be, and make their demands become the god of the underworld’s to take.” He repeated words from my play verbatim as if they were a magical spell.
And perhaps they were.
I shook the thought away with an effort. “Even if the Underworld is real, which it’s totally not according to every psychiatrist I’ve ever met. Only Cleo said the words, and she didn’t even mean them.”
“Intent has nothing to do with it,” he chided. Long pale fingers stroked his lips, and the movement was hypnotizing. “I am compelled to take what is mine. Both of them.”
My gaze snapped back to his mercurial eyes. “What do you mean by both?”
“The boy is mine to take as well.”
“Only Cleo said the words!”
“She said us. I chose to interpret that as I pleased.”
A phantom hand squeezed my heart, making it impossible to breathe. “You can’t have him.”
Hades smirked, clearly not missing that I said him and not them. “You can’t stop me.”
“No—”
“But perhaps we can make some sort of bargain.”
Humans should never bargain with the gods. That rule was in every story, some warning in every version, from the British Isles to Timbuktu.
Because the gods didn’t bargain unless they knew they had the upper hand. Even though they couldn’t lie, the truth could be stretched and warped so far that it was nearly indistinguishable from an actual falsehood.
A god deal never worked out well for the human involved.
But he had taken Adonis. And I didn’t want Cleo getting the life sucked out of her, no matter how much she sometimes annoyed me. “What sort of deal?”
“The only kind that matters. One in which lives are on the line.” His gaze traveled down my body, lingering at the low-cut neck of my dress then dipping to the curve of my waist. “And bodies. And souls. I am king of the underworld and I deal in the only currency that matters. The only things which truly have any value.”
I glared into his eyes. “Explain.”
“Come to the underworld and fight through the challenges I have created to reach your friends. If you succeed in time, then all of you will be returned to this drab little world with no lasting harm done to you.”
Hades was no covetous dragon hoarding gold in its mountain cave. He dealt in a very different kind of currency.
Blood. Bone. Flesh. Life.
I knew that because I was the one who came up with it.
“Speak plainly. No flowery language or innuendo. What will you get if I fail?”
“You,” he said, so plainly that it was still a shock even though I knew something like it was coming. “All of you. Without resistance or restraint.”
“Not even a safe word? The local BDSM club would have something to say about that.”
I couldn’t believe I just made that joke. My face was already heating with what I knew was a fiery red blush. He merely smirked.
“Do we have a deal?”
“Will you tell me what you want with me? You could simply just take them and be done with it.” I told myself it was curiosity that compelled me to ask and not pride. It only made sense for me to be at the center of the fantasy that I had created. And perhaps he simply wanted to take as many of us as he could get his hands on.
“Perhaps. If the mood strikes. But no, not now. Now you haven’t the time.” He held his hand out flat, hovering over my upper chest where the cut of the dress left an expanse of skin bare. Even though he didn’t touch me, heat grew on my flesh until it felt near to burning.
I let out a cry of pain, and he pulled away. When I looked down, the same lariat necklace that Adonis had tried to get me to wear in the costume room was around my neck.
That was how I knew this had to be a product of my overactive imagination. Too much of the real world had mixed in with the fantasy. My fractured mind was never good at telling the difference between what I remembered and what I’d only imagined.
Uncut stones in colors ranging from the lightest pink to deepest purple and brightest yellow to forest green were suspended on the chain that trailed down my chest, reaching nearly to my waist. As I watched, they all became transparent, as if the colors had only been a trick of the light. When I touched the highest one, it was cold against my fingers.
“Each stone represents an hour of time in your world. Watches and clocks will be of no use to you in the underworld. Time moves . . . differently.” He gestured to the stone under my fingers, which had already begun to darken in color again as I watched. “Their color will brighten with each passing moment. By the time all the color has returned to the last stone, you must have reached the throne at the center of my realm. Otherwise, you will be trapped there forever.”
I didn’t need to be told that forever in the underworld would feel significantly longer than the average human lifetime.
Thirteen stones for thirteen hours. Thirteen hours. It took longer than that to get across L.A. County during rush hour.
My hand fell to my side. “That doesn’t sound fair.”
“It isn’t, and it never will be.” He inclined his head in a nod of acknowledgment, but anticipation flashed in the crystalline depths of his eyes. “Do you agree to our bargain?”