Lords of the Underworld [malexmale]

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

It'd been two days since I last saw Atros.

This was the first time I counted the time I had spent away from someone and I loathed every bleeding second of it. I was restless, bored, uneasy. I couldn't sit still for more than a few minutes before I had to get up and move around. I debated going back, but my nose still hurt from where he'd broken it with the door.

Of course, I couldn't find it in me to blame Atros. I knew when I'd done something wrong and this was one of those hundreds of times. I had lied to Atros, pretended to be someone I wasn't, accepted all his love and affection without an ounce of guilt. Then he'd discovered the lie and only reacted the way a normal person would. It didn't surprise me in the least, but it still didn't stop the strange ache in my chest.

I ached to go back, to feel him stroking my skin for the sole reason of truly enjoying it. I wanted to feel him buried inside me again, to feel his hands on me, his lips against mine, and his deep lilting voice recounting memories of a past he longed to return to. I knew he loved his wife, and I knew he'd loved Hector. He loved Hector, not Hades. He hated Hades, which is why he'd reacted so negatively when he'd discovered that the one he loved was the one he loathed most in this world. Maybe that was why I didn't kill him. His hate for me was logical.

For once, though, I wished I could get angry. Instead of this ache.

Persephone had attempted to call me on several occasions, but I didn't want to speak to her. She would only try and twist my words and get into my head so she could figure out what was wrong, so she could fix me. To her, I wasn't a husband. I was a shattered pane of glass that she desperately wanted to piece together and restore. But her dream was a child's dream. Once glass was shattered into a thousand little pieces, it stayed shattered. No amount of her crazy glue could fix it.

I was fucked. I'd always been fucked. And I always would be.

Maybe it was her attempt to help me that pissed me off. Her reaction to me when she'd met me had been the same as Atros's. I remembered that day when I had first met Persephone.

She'd been very young then, younger than I. She was petite and slender with her long blonde hair laced heavily with brilliant pink flowers that matched her long summer gown made of almost tanslucent silks. She had been twirling and dancing. It was like a cheap shit Disney movie. Except there were no talking creatures dancing with her. She just kept twirling under the rays of Apollo's sun, basking in its golden ribbons while her bare feet were getting dirty from beating the earth.

I hadn't meant for her to see me in the beginning. I wasn't even supposed to be there. Zeus had been very adamant that I stay the fuck away from the mortal realm. I would be a plague to them. So I had figured that, so long as I stayed away from people, I should be okay. I stayed hidden in the shadows of the forest bordering the field she and her mother frequented. Her mother had gone off to fetch food for one of their many picnics.

I was such a fucking idiot then. If it had been a cartoon, my tongue would have hit the floor and dragged me forward because I stumbled out of the woods and Persephone had jumped when she saw me. She'd never seen me before, so she didn't recognize me. She just smiled brightly.

"Hello! Sorry, was this your land?" She asked. Baffled by her innocent question, I had just stared at her blankly. She kept smiling, not at all bothered by my young stupidity.

"My name's Persephone. You?" She asked. I'd managed to find my voice and muttered something about just passing through, and threw out a random name. She had accepted it without hesitation and had urged me from the woods to stand in the field with her. The bright colors of the flowers hurt my eyes, the sunlight practically burned my retinas. I was used to the darkness of the underworld, and I was wary of standing out in the open, in case Zeus noticed me. I hadn't thought twice about any of the other gods.