The fruit hung, heavy and ripe, from the branches. I reached out and plucked one. The skin was smooth, something that I might not have noticed before.
I scowled and stepped back, careful not to bruise the fruit.
With swift steps, I left the castle grounds and made my way into the city. The streets were quiet at this hour, most of the inhabitants at their evening meal. Those who lived in the city had been in the Underworld the longest. They’d earned the privilege.
The newer dead lived outside of the city walls, working to feed the inhabitants. It was a system that had worked well for thousands of years. The entire city was a system, a well-oiled machine that worked because the inhabitants were too afraid of me to defy me.
For my part, I paid them no mind. People—their joy or their pain—held no lure for me.
So I left them to their devices, and they left me to mine, understanding that the briefest change of my will would signal a change in their circumstance. Most likely for the worse.
I felt a few curious gazes on me as I walked, moving silently over the cobblestones in front of the three-story buildings that housed people and shops. I did not bother to turn and meet any of their gazes.
Instead, I sought the shop nearest to my castle—the Mages’ workshop.
The door was shut when I arrived, black wood and iron barring me from entrance. I knocked, knowing that my magic seeped through the door, announcing my presence.
Footsteps sounded. A second later, the door swung open.
The mage, small and stooped, looked up at me with watery eyes. I stepped back, distaste flickering through me.
He bowed. “Yes, my lord?”
I held out the pomegranate, careful not to touch him as I passed it over. “I would like you to make this into concentrated liquid that does not taste of pomegranate. Quickly.”
He took the fruit and nodded. “Of course, my lord. I can have the mist for you tomorrow, late morning. It must be used within two days, while still fresh.”
I nodded. “Excellent.”
He bowed once more and disappeared into the recesses of his shop, letting the shadows swallow him as he shut the door.
I returned to the castle, forcibly keeping my thoughts from Persephone. She was here. We were on the proper path. All would be revealed.
Still, as I sought my rest, her face flickered before my mind’s eye, slumber weakening me to the point that my thoughts would drift where they desired.
To her.
And then, once slumber came fully, to the darkness that had formed me.
Seraphia
I returned straight to my room, skin buzzing from the near embrace with Hades.
Even through the leather of his gloves, his cold touch had burned me, making goosebumps rise on my arms, followed by heat.
Why did his touch affect me so much? He was a cold, miserable bastard. A monster.
Yet a monster who blazed beneath his icy exterior, tightly leashed power and passion that made a shiver run through me.
I am above that.
His words whispered through my mind, confirming my suspicions. The terrible god wasn’t human in any kind of way. He’d never wanted another person before. Never been with another person before.
Yet, despite his dismissal, he wasn’t truly cold, nor was he above it. The way he’d looked at me—heat and confusion combined—proved it.
I could use that . . . though I wasn’t sure how. I’d never been the femme fatale type, but I didn’t trust him to let me go when this was all over. I would need every weapon I possessed to contend with a god.
I scrubbed my arms, wanting to drive away the feeling of his hands on my flesh. To drive away the memory of his face. His eyes.
If I was going to use his own deeply buried desire against him, I couldn’t feel any of my own. It would derail me.
I needed to focus on him. Not me. On learning his weaknesses and using them against him. There was so much below his surface. More than just the heat that drew me like a moth to flame. Yet I was terrified to discover what it was.
Fates, I wished I’d spent more time practicing my magic. I’d had good reason for not doing it, but now I longed to strangle him with a fern.
No, think bigger.
I could get him with more than a fern. The last thing I needed was to be known as Seraphia, The Fern Girl.