She’d thought she’d been cured of this, cured of wanting her, but it seemed there was nothing in the underworld that Hades had not spoiled.

Persephone tried to put Hades out of her mind, to think of anything else. The plump pink bow of Aphrodite’s lips. The sleek, long legs of Artemis’s huntresses. That serving girl who had worked for Demeter one harvest, until Demeter had caught them behind a grain silo, their lips locked in a kiss.

None of it was helping.

Persephone bit her tongue in frustration. The sharp bright tang of ichor flooded her mouth, grounding her. She rocked her hips from side to side, seeking peace, seeking an end to the images that tormented her, but it would not come.

Was Persephone so debauched, so broken to need Hades’ touch and hers alone?

She pictured herself in the bathhouse again, but she was different this time. A huntress. She plucked the oil flask from Hades and took over, running her hands over Hades’ nude and warm flesh, kissing the surprise from her face. Pushing her onto the bench, pressing on her shoulders until she was at the perfect height. Entangling her hand in Hades’ braid, tilting her face upward. Watching the lust smoldering in her eyes. Jutting her hips forward and pulling Hades in to meet her, until her lips were upon Persephone’s sex, until her tongue was inside her, until—

Persephone pressed her face into her pillow and silently screamed, her hands fisted in the sheets. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

Her knees locked together as she shuddered, her skin feeling alive as though she had touched one of Zeus’s bolts. Her fingers stilled between her legs; her wrist ached.

She kicked off the blankets covering her and curled up with her knees hugged to her chest. Demeter had always said there was something wrong with her. Perhaps she’d been right after all, and there was some kind of sickness lurking inside Persephone, a sort of darkness only a mother could see.

No one in her position would want Hades. Would they?

Hades had brought her to ruin, made Persephone unfit for any virtuous marriage. The idea of someone else touching her—gently, lovingly—aroused nothing, no emotion either for good or ill, but left her feeling hollow and vacant. Even if she left the underworld, someday, somehow, she would never truly be free.

She sat up, went to her wash basin and cleaned herself up. She smoothed her tunic down over her hips and ran her fingers through her hair.

A sliver of light shone beneath the door to Hades’ rooms. Persephone had no idea what time it might be, though it felt late. She took a deep breath and knocked. Hades made an indistinguishable sound, and she took that as assent, opening the door.