That’s what it looks like, with Roman architecture and a soaring rotunda up at the top. A series of hallways branches out from the room’s round center. The halls are so long I can’t see the ends from here.
Now it makes more sense why my mother would have been so paranoid. A man who could own a place like this could own anything else he wanted, including the hands of an assassin. There are no rules for him. His house makes that crystal clear.
Something is not right about the space. Most places I’ve seen like this, in school and in pictures, are carved from white rock. The black rock shot through with gold isn’t what’s wrong about it, however. It’s something else. The shadows shift on Hades’ face. I try to blink away the difference—maybe it’s my eyes—but nothing changes.
People come and go here too, but fewer of them, and they’re dressed in dark suits and maids’ uniforms. Almost all of them subtly change their paths to get out of his way as we cross. Only one man dares to approach. He matches pace with Hades and hands over a leather folio. Hades opens it, not breaking his stride. The man puts a pen in his hand. He signs. Hands the folio back. They don’t exchange a word, and then the man is part of the crowd again.
I can’t help staring as Hades moves through the giant space. He’s not hurrying, not exactly, but there’s not much time to look and so much to see. Carvings up in the dome of the rotunda, and windows. White, fluffy clouds roll against a blue sky through the windows, but the tint is off. Tinted windows in a rotunda? Who would want that? It’s doing something to the natural light. Making it wrong. It’s not until this moment that I miss my mother’s fields with a vengeance.
I miss the sun on my face.
Hades strides across the rotunda, footsteps echoing, to a bank of elevators. Conor keeps up, completely focused on following Hades. He doesn’t pause to sniff the floor or get a pat from anyone else. He stays right by his feet like it’s his job.
Maybe it is.
There’s one button inset into a panel outside the elevator, and Hades presses it. The doors slide open soundlessly. Every set of doors reminds me of how far I am from home and safety.
I don’t want to go in. But I know he’d do worse than bending me over his desk. Hades would do it right here and right now, no matter the audience. Maybe he’d like the audience. My core goes hot with embarrassment, and I can’t get into the elevator fast enough. I break away and press myself against its back wall, panting. My own reflection pants back at me. I have a moment to register that the flowers in my hair have died. Shriveled up, dried out into husks of themselves on my head. They were new yesterday. How are they dead?
Hades steps in. Conor follows. The doors close behind them. They’re taking up all the available space.
Hades narrows his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
I’m gripping the handrail so tightly my knuckles have lost all their color. I’m surprised there is a handrail in a place like this, where everyone is nobody. The elevator is far smaller than the train car, far more closed in, filled to the very top with my own fear.
“I’m being good. I’m staying out of the way.”
“Being good.” A smile plays over his face, beautiful and deadly. “What are you trying to avoid?”
Everything. “Getting bit by your dog.”
He drops a hand to Conor’s head. “If I wanted that to happen, it would have happened already. He’s a very well-trained dog. He would never bite without my express permission. Anything else?”
“No. There’s nothing.”
“You’re not concerned about being punished?”
Maybe he wants me to let go, to stand closer, but I can’t move. “You wouldn’t punish me for trying to be good.”
“My, my. I didn’t think we’d come quite so far yet. Let’s go back out so I can give you what you really want, you filthy thing.”
“No, please.” I hold on to the railing for dear life. “Don’t do that, not now, not on the first day.”
Hades saunters over. “So when you told me you would do anything to save your boyfriend, you meant anything so long as you’re nice to me. You didn’t really mean anything.”
“I meant it.” My heart has gone wild, uncontrollable.
“You’d submit to a punishment to prove it, then.”
How could I do that? How could anyone do that? How could anyone sit there and take it, no matter what they agreed? And why, why, does part of me already know the answer?
“Yes.”
“You would not. Who are you trying to fool, Persephone?” His eyes have gone deeper than the center of me. They’ve gone all the way through. He can see everything.
“I have no other choice.” My mouth has gone dry. “I would try to do it.”
“It’s not about trying. It’s about submitting.” His hand is around my throat faster than lightning, too fast for me to raise my arms. “If you won’t give me what you promised, your word is useless. You are useless.” He’s not squeezing hard, not yet. Just enough to let me know he has absolute control. And my body responds. My nipples tighten, and I press my ass against the wall of the elevator. Hades stares into my eyes, watching my shame, and then he curses under his breath. “I can’t fucking believe it.” He sounds wondering. “Demeter’s daughter is a virgin who wants a man to punish her.”
I have never, never thought those words, even late at night when I know my mother is so soundly asleep that she’d never catch me thinking about it. But the truth—the worst possible truth—is that I’m a liar.
I’m a liar, and I have thought about a scenario like that, with a man’s big hand and a woman bent over his knee, ass raised to accept it. There were books at school I was forbidden to read, and I read them, but I never allowed myself to think of the words again. Only the images, and only because I knew it would never happen to me.
“No.” It’s a weak denial. There’s no fight behind it, and Hades notices. A cruel smile curves his lips.
“You do.” He dismisses me outright, and I want to slide down the wall of the elevator to the floor. “And to answer your question, though I don’t believe you deserve an answer—I don’t believe you deserve anything—is that you will lie down and take it whenever I see fit. You will do anything I demand of you. You’ll take it, because you have no choice.”
At some point, the panting breaths have turned from panic to desire, which is terrible. It’s the most terrible outcome I can imagine, aside from Hades dragging me back out into the center of the rotunda and punishing me. I don’t even know what that would entail, other than…
I can’t even think about it. My body, however, has thought about it, and I can’t deny the new slickness between my legs or the way my nipples brush against my tank top, sending electric shocks down to the center of my belly.
Hades studies me.
He studies me like I’m a foreign language to learn, and the only way to learn it is to absorb me into his skin until the humiliation eats me alive. Blessedly, that should happen soon. There’s no way I can survive my embarrassment much longer.
“Keep your hands on the railing.”
I try to say okay, but no sound comes out. Nothing comes out. I concentrate all my effort on the railing.