Receiver of Many Ch. 05

It took several minutes for Kore to rise. He had left her there, had disappeared in the midst of speaking, leaving her bewildered. Her chiton was wrenched out of place and her back was damp from the floor of the grove. She stood, confused by his disappearance, and scanned the empty grove. Had he truly gone? Was he still somewhere nearby? What would make him leave her so abruptly? She would ask him later. Kore knew Aidon would come back; that he would return tonight.

A heavy feeling settled in her chest. No matter how natural she felt with him, she had no idea who he was. She would be surrendering herself to him— a complete stranger. Her thoughts returned to the wedding party in Eleusis, how the man had taken the woman in the tent, pushing in and out of her, the pain on the woman's face when they first joined. Would she feel that same pain?

She remembered Aidon in her dream, the unseen part of him that had pressed against her thigh as hard as stone, pulsing and hot. She remembered him drawing his heat away, stopping himself from taking her. Her heart beat faster and a shuddering need flooded into her at the idea of Aidon lying astride her, entering her slowly. Her flesh still throbbed from his touch as she left the grove and returned to the sunlit meadow.

The sun was lower in the sky. In a few hours, it would sink below the horizon and he would come to claim her. His queen. Queen of what?

She could still hear her heart hammering in her chest as she gazed across the field of Nysa, its rolling hills blanketed in a host of flowers. There was no sign of Artemis or Athena. Down the hill from the cypresses, she saw the little stone circle she had created as a girl and walked toward it, readjusting her crown and tucking stray hairs back behind her ears. She felt around the garland's edges, making sure the leaves and flowers weren't crushed or lopsided from lying in the grove with Aidon.

Your bridal crown...

Kore shivered again, and stepped into the stone enclosure. Her little garden was almost exactly as she'd left it centuries ago. She knelt to pick a tall crocus, examining the wide scalloped petals in her hand. As she walked on, she was tormented by questions, trying to fit all the pieces together. Her lady mother must at least know of Aidon. His demonstration of his power— appearing in her dream, calling to her and caressing her on the wind— meant that he wasn't just any immortal, but a mighty god. Perhaps Demeter was mistaken when she saw the asphodel, thinking it meant something else. Maybe she would rejoice when she found out that her daughter was to become a queen.

She picked an iris and a larkspur, blushing the same pink color as the flower she had transformed last night. In the end, wouldn't Demeter simply want Kore to be happy? She imagined her mother coming to visit her in a beautiful palace once she was queen of...

What's this? she thought. The very center of the garden had been carefully manicured, and not by her. The grasses were cut low in a circle, and in the center stood the most beautiful bloom she'd ever seen. Kore peered at the flower. Its white blossom stood out against the velvety green carpet of short grass. She walked toward it, mesmerized, her gathered flowers falling from her open hand. White, rounded petals perfectly surrounded and radiated out from a short golden trumpet. She gently reached out and turned the blossom over in her hand, examining it. It smelled so sweet, its fragrance heady and foreign. She reached for the stalk with both hands and gave it a quick snap.

The earth trembled.

Kore fell to the ground as it split underneath her, a great crack in the earth yawning through the center of her little garden. She looked around in horror and crawled backwards along the shifting earth, then got up with one knee. A rush of dark smoke jetted from the center of the chasm, surrounding her and obscuring her vision, clouding the sky and turning the sun blood red. Distantly, she heard horses galloping, their approach growing louder. She ran in the opposite direction, tripping once over the stone border.

A shriek from a horse split the air. She looked over her shoulder to see the silhouette of four horses against the darkened sky, drawing behind them a massive chariot. Their eyes glowed like fire and mist trailed from their nostrils. A cloaked shadow spurred them on.

Kore turned on her heels. "Athena! Artemis! Help me!"

The hoofs drowned out her cries. They were gaining on her.

"Mother!! Mother, please! Where are you mother?!" Kore yelled.

The rumble of the wheels and the dark shadow they carried were almost upon her.

"Aidon! Save me! Aidon!"

Aidoneus leaned hard over the side of the chariot, balancing on the edge for support, and grabbed Persephone around the waist, holding her in the crook of one arm.

Kore's feet left the ground and she screamed long and loud, kicking and flailing against the shadow. Her feet met a shifting platform and a gauntleted arm pinned her fast to its owner. Persephone looked up to his face. It was covered with a dark gold helm, crested with long black horsehair. Only his bearded chin and mouth were visible beneath it. She screamed again, beating her hands against the hard plates of his golden cuirass until they were sore and bruised.

Her screams finally started to form words. "Let me go! Let me go!"

"Hold on!"

Her blood ran cold and she stopped moving. That voice... She looked up into his eyes through the helm and felt herself tilt backward, the entire chariot driving downward as she squeezed her eyes shut and screamed. The earth swallowed them whole. Persephone heard deafening cracks as chasms opened before them and shut behind them, each gallop bringing the heat of the earth closer to her.

The sound of grinding rocks was replaced with a roar of fire. She opened her eyes. They had broken through the earth into a great glowing chamber. The air wavered and scalded. Bits of rock hung from above, red and heated, melting like beeswax, drips trailing embers downward all about them. The chariot shook, falling, plunging through the air, the whinnying horses guided by their master. She looked behind her at the gaping maw of molten earth far below and grasped at his smooth planes of armor, scrambling to find a handhold. Fathoms below, there was nothing but molten rocks and billows of vapor rising around them. She was going to fall. She needed to get away from him but without him, she would fall. What if that was what he wanted?! Persephone's eyes widened in terror pleading with the dark clad being who had stolen her. "Don't let me go! Please! Don't let me go!"

Persephone felt the heat grow more intense around her as they rode on. She smelled burning wool, and looked down to see flames licking up the side of her leg. The air itself had set the skirt of her chiton on fire, and embers started flying off the asphodel crowning her head. She shrieked and pulled it from her hair, using the laurels Artemis wove for her to fruitlessly slap at the burning fabric. Persephone felt her body wrench forward, the flimsy linen tearing away from her, splitting along her back with a loud rip, her thin girdle jarring her waist when it snapped in half. The flaming garments and the garland from her hair burned away in his uplifted hand, their smoldering remnants turning to ash as they scattered behind the chariot. Left with little choice, she grabbed onto the straps of his cuirass just under his shoulders and looked up to see him pull off his helm and smooth back his hair.

Wide-eyed shock replaced her screams. It couldn't be... it couldn't be... She shuddered and froze as Aidon looked down at her.

"Persephone!" he yelled at her over the sound of the horses and the roar of twisting molten earth below. "Persephone, I need you to trust me!"

She scrambled and grasped at his neck, barely registering the fact that she was now naked. Her bare feet burned and she jumped, inching them up his greaves, then his legs, wrapping herself around him to escape the heat. The blistering vapors seared over her back until she felt his great black cloak wrap around her, pressing her against him, protecting her.

Persephone felt him pull the reins hard with one hand and bring her body further up along his with the other, his arm encircling her. She locked her legs around his waist and was face to face with Aidon, his skin glowing in the red heat. Their eyes met. He looked tenderly at her for a brief moment, almost disbelieving that she was actually in his arms, then turned away from her to concentrate and steer them onward. She pleaded with him in sounds that weren't quite words to turn back, to not burn them both alive.

The molten earth rushed toward them ever faster. She closed her eyes against the heat and buried her face into his neck with a sob, surrendering herself to her fate, waiting to feel the deep fires of the earth consume and devour them. Instead, the roaring heat stopped, and all grew quiet and cold around them.

For a moment she doubted how deathless she really was. Her eyes were awash in blackness and void. Her ears still rang from their passage through earth and fire. The horses pressed onward, quietly shaking the cart. Their cries grew silent, the only sound an occasional snort or nicker. Lifting her hand up in front of her face, she realized with a gasp that she couldn't even see its outline against the darkness. She ran her hand through the messy tangle of her hair, checking to see if it were still there and unburnt. Her face was still smooth, unharmed. Persephone cautiously turned her palm until it met the side of his face. He was still there, unburnt as she was. She traced the outline of an ear and high cheekbones, making sure that he was whole and unharmed.

As her hand passed over his nose and in front of his lips, he quickly kissed her palm.

Persephone drew her hand back, startled and relieved, and listened to the sound of their breathing, the only noise now as the horses charged silently forward into the abyss. Persephone felt the heat of his face, the shortening of his breath against her cheek. She angled her head as he turned toward her and captured her lips. Aidon's arm closed tighter around her and she melted into his embrace with a tiny moan, feeling his mouth hot against hers, sighing against her lips in relief. She kissed him back, shy at first, then eagerly when he responded to her.

Her fingers bunched in the dark curls of hair cascading across his cloak. His lips possessed hers gently, nipping and pulling, his kiss filled with relief, need and an anxious hesitancy that flowed into her from every place her skin came into contact with his. Persephone was suddenly very aware of her naked body wrapped around him. Her hands felt the pulse and cord of tendons in his neck and shoulder. Her ankle brushed against his thigh. His free hand pressed into her back and she leaned onto his breastplate, shaking nervously. Aidon broke away from her to kiss her cheek and neck, and then lightly pulled on her earlobe with his lips.

"Don't be afraid, sweet one," he said quietly, sending a shiver through her. "We're only passing through Erebus. The light will return."

"My dress—"

"—and your crown. I apologize. Nothing mortal from your world can pass through the fire on the way to the Other Side."

"Wh-why... Aidon... Why did you take me like this?"

"You were in grave danger," Aidon said, relieved to hear his name on her lips. "I had no other choice."

He tightened the reins and leaned toward her, feeling her legs locked around his waist. Persephone pressed against the front of him, and need started to consume him. Heat flowed from between her legs, and the scent of her body enveloped him. She was still drenched from their time together in his sacred cypress grove. He felt the muscles of his stomach clench as instinct drew his entire body closer to the source of that heat.

Aidon kissed her, relishing the softness of her lips, the feel of her fingers weaving through his hair. Locking her arms and legs tightly, she copied him, kissing his cheek and earlobes. She pulled on one of them with her lips, tasting the edge with her tongue. Persephone listened to him take a long, ragged breath as he arched toward her, his hissed exhale grazing the shell of her ear and sending heat through her.

Persephone shivered, repeating his words in her head. Erebus... the Other Side...

"Who are you?" she whispered low into his ear.

"I am Aidoneus," he whispered back.

Ice ran down Persephone's spine.

Aidon...

Aidon...

Aidoneus...

Hades Aidoneus Chthonios, Polydegmon. The Unseen One. Receiver of Many. Ruler of the Other Side and Lord of the Dead...

Aidon crushed his lips against hers before she could respond. Persephone surrendered, opening to him and racing her tongue across his teeth, trembling. He moaned and smoothed his hand down her back to calm her. He is... he is... Her mind couldn't, wouldn't process it.

I am your lord husband. The lover from her dream, who possessed a tender fire, who had inflamed her, entranced her, awakened her, was none other than... She felt herself burning for him as her mind battled between the truth of the man encircled by her naked body and the feel of his tongue tasting and possessing her.

His hand rounded over one cheek of her rear and gripped her flesh as she returned his deeper kiss, savoring him. Persephone mewled a soft moan into his mouth, feeling his hand drift lower, fingers brushing lightly over her vulva. He pulled back on her bottom lip with his teeth, before plunging his tongue into her mouth. As he canted his head, he curled one digit forward to caress the wetness of her crease, cupping her intimately, hearing her mewl at his touch. He sighed and broke off the kiss suddenly, leaving her gasping.

"I'm sorry." His hand left her for a moment, reaching below her sex as he lifted the front of his short tunic and moved his loincloth aside. Persephone felt him grasp her below the tailbone, his fingers burying into her flesh. "I wish there were more time and some other way."

She didn't understand what he meant until she felt herself sliding imperceptibly down his body, a hard heat butting up against her entrance. Every jump of the chariot slid her closer to him until that heat parted her folds, perched outside her gate. She remembered the wedding in Eleusis and the feel of him pressed against her in the dream. Her eyes shot open and she searched in the dark for his.

The faintest of light grew underneath them, finally showing Aidon's face. He looked at her with a gentle intensity; his eyes dilated dark with passion and determination. She eased against him and sunk lower as he pressed closer, lingering at her core, throbbing against her, then a slow stretch as he slipped a fraction deeper.

Aidon looked at her as she stared up at him. The growing light framed lips swollen from his kisses, a thin Grecian nose, and wild and wide pale blue eyes. He heard her heart beating, listened to her shallow breathing. He felt her open to him with a shiver and a gasp, and her flesh start to envelop and close around his, heat pouring out from her in this final moment.

Eyes locked to hers, Aidoneus quickly thrust upward.

...and now she was his Queen.

Persephone cried out in pain and squeezed her eyes shut, stars trailing behind her closed lids. The length of him sent fire through her as she struggled to stay still and not make the throbbing of her torn barrier worse. The fullness stretching her made her legs shake around his waist, offering no quarter against how completely he possessed her. Persephone realized that he had not moved within her at all as she adjusted to him. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him; his head was tilted back, his face strained, his eyes shut, his breathing shallow.

Aidon lowered his gaze to her, pleasure and remorse feuding within him. But above all else, he could feel the exquisite pressure of her surrounding, enclosing, the heat within her seeping into him. He gripped the reins with his free hand and watched her face, not moving until her pain subsided. Aidon kissed away a tear from the corner of her eye, and muttered half-formed words against her skin that wavered between an apology and a prayer. Her breathing started to grow ragged as his lips trailed down her cheek, searching for hers.

Trembling, she kissed him back, her heart at war with itself. Maiden no more. The man from her dreams that she desired so, who had caressed her in Nysa, who had just consummated his union with her in the dark, suddenly, fully, completely joined with her was... Hades.

Her anxiety melted in searing heat as he withdrew ever so slowly and reclaimed her gently. The pain dulled. She felt him touching every nerve within her, pushing upward, unfamiliar pleasure shooting through her. Her arms tried to gain purchase on his shoulders, holding him closer to her. Persephone willed herself to look at him, to know him, to see the face that had burned itself into her dreams— the face of the man who burned inside of her. His gaze met hers with the same intensity.

She instinctively squeezed around him and saw his eyes roll back and close. A low growl emanated from deep in his throat. Persephone met his next thrusting response to her with a sharp gasp of pleasure. The pain dissipated into the background as he pressed into her again, forming a rhythm between them. It was too much— too raw to look and feel and know all at once. Persephone closed her eyes and kissed him again, feeling— choosing to feel. She moaned into his mouth, everything but their joined bodies disappearing and falling away as he held her to him and she held him within her.

Persephone raked her fingers through his thick black curls of hair and felt his beard graze and chafe her chin as their tongues mated in concert with their bodies. She broke away and he gasped for air. He rested his forehead on hers and she locked eyes with him again. Aidon pushed into her, their breathing becoming one, her fingers interlacing behind his neck to pull back and see him. The angle forced him deeper and she cried out, feeling his fullness within her, her insides coiling again, reaching.

His eyes darted across every inch of her body, watching her breasts rock back, the liquid flesh moving of its own accord. Aidoneus saw surrender cross her face and felt her tightening around him with every thrust. He brought her against his body, looking deep into her eyes. "Persephone..."

Shuddering against him, she tilted her head back and exposed the long line of her neck. He kissed it as she rocked forward, moaning wordlessly, rippling around him, her fingers clawing his neck, heat pulling and stroking his shaft as he made his final thrusts into her depths. Molten fire shot through him rising from where they were joined, arching his spine and erasing all conscious thought, the sharp pleasure of it shocking him. Aidon threw his head back and cried out loud enough to nearly spook the horses. His shuddering body matched hers as she clung to him.

They stilled. In the distance, the outlines of his kingdom came into view. They were nearly there, and his shattered thoughts started to piece themselves back together, considering the gravity of what had just been done. He focused on her. Persephone. His wife. Aidon wrapped the heavy cloak around them once again, cradling her, protecting her. Her eyes fluttered closed.

Very slowly, he slid out of her with a shudder, the cool air hitting his softening flesh. Her shaking legs disentangled from his waist and her body started to go limp, overwhelmed and exhausted. Aidoneus held her close. The arm she had wrapped around his neck draped outside the cloak, her head craned back against his shoulder. Her breasts rose and fell in shallow breaths.