A Bloom So Deadly: Hades and Persephone Retold

The Scheme

Persephone's darkness hummed in the most delightful way, bouncing along her skin and...dancing with the darkness of another. She was held in someone's arms, against their chest, and she could feel that dancing darkness of the other melding with her own, sinking into her skin where their fingers gripped into her thighs and arm. She faded out.

"- can't get her to wake," said a voice in urgency, the voice holding her, the deep timbre vibrating against her skull in a pleasant way. Again she drifted.

There was a jolt and Persephone sucked a hard breath as a pressure on her chest pulled away. A hand. Someone had laid a hand on her chest and snatched it away as her eyes shot open.

"There she is," said a woman hovering over her. Persephone sucked in another breath and sat up, her senses on full alert. "I told you it would work."

Hecate. The woman was Hecate, the same who had taken her to her cottage to calm her the night the Dread King had stolen her. Hecate sat perched next to Persephone and the young goddess looked up at the imposing figure who stood, looming over them. The Dread King returned her stare, his face an expression of barely masked fury.

"Do I even want to know where you got such an idiotic notion as to wake Kronos?" he seethed.

Hecate sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Hades," she muttered under her breath.

Persephone blushed, feeling nothing short of mortification, and looked down at her lap. It was too much to take in his clear blue eyes staring so cruelly at her. "Momus said he was my grandfather," she said quietly, pulling her arms protectively around herself and hunching her shoulders inward in case he decided to strike her.

"Momus," the Dread King seethed, spitting the name out as a curse.

"You're frightening her, Hades," Hecate scolded.

"I'm not sure that's possible if Kronos didn't frighten her," he shot back.

"I was frightened!" Persephone said, her voice rising as hot anger rose to further color her cheeks. "I called for help, but no one could hear me!"

The Dread King's mouth twisted into a snarl as he stepped closer to her. "Why would you wake such a monster in the first place?" he seethed.

"Because Nyx told me to wake Kronos and ask about avoiding one's Fate!" she snapped in reply. "If you should be yelling at anyone, you should be yelling at her!"

"I am not yelling," the Dread King said through clenched teeth.

"Well you have a nasty manner of delivery," she seethed, staring him down, all fear of being struck by his hand gone with her anger. "It has become apparent-," she said, letting her tone lose some of its heat, "- that my mother has not told me many things."

"That would be the understatement of the millennium," he shot back.

"I did not know he was so terrible. I do not know what it is that he did to be thrown into Tartarus," she said, then looked up at him from under her lashes. "I did not even know that you are Mother's brother."

The Dread King's face was tight, his lips pulled into a grim line as he stared at her with more hatred than she had ever seen aimed her way.

"Tartarus was built for him," he said in a snarl, then took a step away, his blue eyes still burning into her. "Have the clothes taken from my dressing room," he said, this time to Hecate. "And give her a bed there. I want a lock that only I can use."

"Hades," Hecate said with a sigh, looking over at him, but he was already gone with the gentle rush of darkness. She paused for a moment to shut her eyes and rub her fingers between her brows. "Well," she finally said, turning to Persephone with a gentle smile. "That went well."