Page 1 of Seph

Chapter One

1024 A.D.

“Vampire.”

“No. Not for this job.”

“It’s one of Echidna’s children,” Zagreus tugged on his father’s sleeve, hoping to jar the gloomy immortal out of his mood.

Hades sat up, bleak eyes taking in the sights around his darkened throne room for the first time in months. Lilith was powerful, a demon of note, some distant descendant of Zeus’s first brood of monsters. Ha. Zeus, mighty King of Gods, mighty hero, and married to the Goddess of Marriage... Zeus didn’t have a faithful bone in his body. Hades had seen the way his brother had looked at Persephone. It didn’t matter that Persephone was his own child.

Hades knew godly bloodlines muddied the waters of relationships, but there was something...sickeningin the way Zeus eyed the girl as she turned into a woman. Something that made him act so stupidly that one summer day, scooping Seph up and carrying her off as she was tending her favorite patch of wildflowers.

“Dad. Father!” Zagreus poked his elbow to jar him out of his reverie. “I think you should give her the job. Please. If anyone can track down Mom, it’ll be her!”

Hades shook out his long, black robes and adjusted the iron plate across his chest. “Let her enter.”

Lilith had pretty manners and a beautiful form. Though she was more demonic than god by this point, Hades could still see a slim resemblance to his brother, the expressive eyes, the sensuous mouth. The fangs... those had to come from her mother’s side, right along with the hellfire eyes and the taste for blood. The endless urge for pleasure? Well, that might have been a gift from Old Zeusy, too.

“You wish to leave Tartarus. Why?”

Lilith gave him an insolent glare. “Have you seen your basement lately, sweetie? It’s in a horrid state. Monster shit and bodies everywhere. Not to mention this Tantalus fellow you’ve got down there. Massive flooding. And the rock fall! I—”

“All right, all right.” Hades gave the newcomer a sidelong glare.Impudent. Rash. No one speaks to the Lord of the Dead like that. Except for Seph.

1000 B.C.

Seph looked like a summer flower, with sunflower-yellow hair shot through with sunset reds and bright green eyes the color of spring.

She hit him, kicked him, and spit on him. As she struggled, her mouth spewed forth enough profanities and curses that Charon dropped his oar.

He should have let her go right then.

He’d put her down with a frustrated hiss. Then, in the echoing, fearful nightmare tones that mortals dread and even gods can’t shut out, he warned her, “Zeus will have you.”

“What? Zeus?” She stopped shouting long enough to listen. “He’s my father!”

“I know. I am your uncle.”

“I never see you.”

“Yes, well... I don’t like Olympus all that much. And many Olympians don’t like me. I’m too different, too serious, with no time for their petty power squabbles. I will let you go if you listen to me.” It mattered more at that moment that she was safe than that she was his. “Zeus will have you. He will claim you like any other maiden. Like your mother.”

“Wh-what? Mother said—”

Hades told Persephone the details. He told her lots of details, details that made his nerveless stomach twist and burn in ugly shame. He didn’t look at his unwilling guest as he did so. He was good at punishing, good at causing pain, but he didn’t want to give her any. “I know it doesn’t matter with immortals. There are no ‘bloodlines’ to speak of when two gods mate. I only thought you... ought to have a say in it.” Some of Zeus’ partners did. Some did not. Funny how his brother, god of kings and King of Gods, was so haphazard about rules when it came to his own appetites.

In a very different voice, a voice covered with frost, Persephone asked, “May I stay here for a bit?”

“Of course. My home is yours. Ah—but not the kitchen. Don’t eat a thing. Not a crumb. If you taste the food of the dead, then you’re stuck with us. Me. In Hades, I mean.”

“Name and place, one and the same. Convenient.”

He’d tossed her a smile before he left her beautiful ebony rooms. “Well, yes. I suppose it is. Anyway, I like it.”

She’d smiled back.

1024 A.D.

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