IT WAS ALREADY PAST MORNING, THE VERY FIRST DAY OF OUR AGREEMENT - AND WE WERE ALREADY RUNNING BEHIND SCHEDULE.

“How much longer?” I impatiently knocked again on the door adjoining our chambers, curling my fists.

“Just five more minutes!” the female voice wafted from behind the doors.

They’d been telling me that since the past one hour.

Women.

Suddenly, the door opened, the fair eyed handmaidens of the Queen fluttered out like a bevy of startled doves, giggling and pushing each other out of the way. I craned my neck eagerly to watch her - the damned ladies surely took their time running off.

And there she was, lovelier than the rising moon.

“Good morning,” I muttered, feeling my mouth go dry at her sheer beauty. “You look… very… very beautiful.”

“Oh,” Persephone blushed, a tiny giggle on her rosy lips, turning around to show me how the breezy chiffon skirts flew around as she twirled, the silk brushing on her skin. Her hair was down in a ripple of auburn and mahogany, crowned with a bunch of fresh flowers I had sent upstairs for her in the morning. The mere whiff of her made my blood heat. I gallantly offered her my hand, watching her carefully as her cheeks heated a plum red, before nervously placing her petite palm in mine.

By the heaven, her skin was so fucking soft.

“You should learn how to take a compliment,” I frowned at her, watching her spring green eyes widen like a young leaf as we wandered about the gloomy halls, smelling of smoke and wine.

“I… don’t dress up much.”

“Much? I daresay you don’t dress up at all, Persephone,” a corner of my lips turned at her remark, and I watched her glare at me, amused by how pretty she looked when she did that.

“If you are here to insult me, I am better off staying in my chambers,” she shot back at me, her shoes clicking on the cobbled pathway of the ancient, eternal corridors. Yet her face lit up slightly as she paused for a minute, taking in the cold, ornate surroundings, like a beauty frozen in everlasting ice.

So she liked the castle.

“Let me know if you want for anything.”

“Really?” her mouth twisted in a half smirk, a not so innocent smile. Her hands sat on her hips as her eyebrow raised, just a little bit. Anything I want? Really, Hades?

“Did you even open your wardrobe, wife?”

“Will opening my wardrobe let me see my mother?”

I sighed in exasperation. Damn it, was this woman a tough one.

“There are five trunks full of diamonds in there. If you don’t like the diamonds, I can get pearls. Gold, if you want. Rubies or emeralds or jade, name it and it is yours.” I stopped to watch her staring at me, her jaw dropping, cheeks blazing. “You are welcome for the flowers, by the way. I sent up Hecate to gather them from Zeus’s gardens at two in the morning so that she could enchant them to never wither. She’s furious with me, though.”

Persephone looked at me, blinking for a few seconds before biting her lip, her mind reeling, no doubt.

My, my, wasn’t this getting fun.

“You don’t stop at anything, do you?”

“No,” I murmured so low that even she could not hear me. We halted at last, right at the huge, cavernous entrance to my realm, and she looked around suspiciously, gooseflesh erupting on her skin in the chilly presence of the huge, imposing stone structures.

“This is the Gate of Hades,” I gestured to her, an arm sweeping out to show her the grandeur of the majestic entrance. “The solitary entrance to my kingdom for god and mortal alike. The only way in and the only way out is through this gate.”

The gate was a huge, imposing stone archway that towered above our heads, stretching to the skies as far as the eye could see. Layer upon layer of ancient rock lay carved into the structure, fashioned into ornate creatures and fierce beasts whose very gazes spit fire. It lay mounted in fathoms deep inky black water, like a mighty tree whose roots took hold miles within the soil. The waters were deep, dark and very still - their surface bearing no ripples as the reflections of the lights in the great, endless ceiling shimmered on in its depths.

“I do not recall much,” Persephone looked at the gate with wonder, “but surely you did not bring me in through this gate.”

“The Underworld lies deep under the realm of my brother, Poseidon. So I stuck the ground thrice with my staff and the waters parted to let me pass.”

She still looked unimpressed, looking askance at me, waiting for a detailed answer. In a bid to see that glowing smile on her face, I arranged my face into a nonchalant expression, continuing.

“No one alive except for me can enter that way. Everyone else has to use the entrance.”

“I see,” she murmured. “What are those?”

Her slender ivory finger pointed right to the cavernous little islands in the middle of the unmoving waters, where a collection of disfigured beings sat in despair, singing a song of agony and gloom.

“Forlorn spirits whose only aim is to spread ill will and malice,” I answered quietly. “See that old hag in a cloak of borrowed gold? She is Grief. The thin, balding man behind her with purple hollows under his sunken eyes is Anxiety. The starving old woman sitting beside them with that miserable gaze - she is Old Age. See the way the silver young girl between them sings endless ballads even with a millennia old wound at her side. She is Disease. And there,” I carefully took her slender hand and pointed to the other side of the entrance, “there you see Fear, Hunger, Agony and Guilty Joys. War is a wandering youth clad in bronze, with fire in his eyes and fury in his heart.”

Persephone looked at them, fascinated.

“Why are they here?”

“Zeus does not allow them to be seen above the ground, and he turns them from his gate without a glance. So they come and live here at the entrance to the Underworld - where I do not let them pass but do not turn them away either, as a reminder that Death is immortal, and fair in its gifts.”

“Hmm,” she mused, observing them quietly, her voice holding a slight tinge of admiration.

“Even the deadly Chimera and the Harpies live outside the entrance, accompanied by the Gorgon.”

“Can we see them?” She asked eagerly, rubbing her palms together.

I suspiciously regarded her, looking her pale form up and down. She was too delicate for such terrors, I supposed even so much as the sight of blood could make her faint. We surely couldn't do with an unconscious maiden on our hands.

“Another day.”

“Please?”

Tempted as I was to make some sort of deal with her, to strike a golden bet to trick her into spending a night with me, I kept my head.

“I said no.”

She gritted her teeth, baring them to me like a ferocious, caged animal backed into a corner. The only reaction that elicited from me was a slight smirk, amused at how that lethal, predatory side of hers revealed itself. Something her mother had managed to suppress for years, no doubt.

“Look at that,” I coaxed, trying to draw her finicky attention, as wanton as the wind. She glared back at me with bright green eyes, looking in the direction of a huge, black leaved elm, whose branches spread over the ceiling like long dusted cobwebs. Silvery drops dripped down from every leaf, fallen onto the withered, mossy green trunk of the tree where they shone like a cascade of freshly harvested pearls.

“Is that dew?”

“No. Those are false dreams. They cling to the leaves, and drop to the ground after breaking hearts that weep in despair. We call it the Elm of False Dreams.”

“My King and Queen,” a gloomy, melancholic voice flowed behind us. “Would you like refreshment?”

We turned to find Thanatos sulking in the darkness behind me, with a nervous, trembling shade holding a tray with two glasses of iced wine, shining a blood red.

“Would you like some?” I asked Persephone, holding out the goblet to her as she looked at it, contemplating something in that pretty head of hers. She looked at me dubiously.

“I don’t think… Mother said-”

“Forget her. Would you like to have it?”

“But Mother-”

“Do you want it, Persephone?”

She sighed deeply, looking at the sweet, delightful wine sitting daintily in its glass, like a mischievous delight beckoning to her while whispering delightful promises in her ear.

“Yes.”

“Then take it,” I muttered, pressing the chilled glass into her hand. “This is your kingdom now, Persephone. It is yours. This life is yours. Not your mother’s. You are my Queen, and you will have whatever you wish for - just say the word and I will place the world at your feet.”

She blushed heavily, her cheeks turning rosy again. I frowned, waiting for her to speak - why couldn’t the damn woman accept her place? Didn’t women like having jewels, and handsome men? I could not for the life of me figure out what the hell was wrong with her.

The first glass was empty in the blink of an eye, and she looked at me eagerly, eyes shining with longing.

“More.”

The delightful smile spread over my face, gleeful, amused, and this time it was my hand that poured out the blood red sangria into her waiting cup. Her lips were slicked with crimson, like thick, hot blood staining her rosy pink skin, and I could have slammed her against the wall and kissed every inch of that delicious skin of hers-

“Do you like it?” I murmured, waving for the attendants and waiting shades to fly back into the gloom. My wife looked at me with bright eyes, licking her lips like a divine deity smeared with the blood of her enemies.

“It is exquisite. I can feel the grapes bursting on my tongue,” she laughed, throwing her head back, her voice so rich, so merry, that it made me want to dance and weep and laugh and cry at the sheer beauty of it.

She was a paradox, a treasure, a shining pearl tucked away into the hideous oyster that was her mother.

“Excellent. Come this way,” I held her hand and let her walk beside me, “it is time for you to meet Charon.”