Receiver of Many (Hades & Persephone, #1)

by Rachel Alexander

“It's becoming unbearable,” he started slowly. “I love her.”

“I want her to want me to be more than just her lover.” Aidoneus paused, frowning. “I want to be her husband. I want her to be my wife; my queen.”

She is my consort; she’s ready and willing for me when I go to her, and I should just be content with that.”

😭😭😭😭

“She’d only been here for a matter of hours, and from what I heard from Menoetes, your big black three-headed puppy gave her quite a scare.”

I love you… She had said it first.

She couldn’t bring herself to say it again.

Hemera,

My girl!!!

This was the only reason she thought he would ever visit her. Then again, it was the only reason he’d ever given her.

Go to your father. Do not fail my stolen Kore.

😩😩😩😩😩

“You ask me to challenge the Receiver of Many, do you? Because your mistress cannot abide her daughter being rightfully delivered to her promised husband?”

“Your mother cried out another’s name when I lay with her, the very night you were made!”

“You ride for free, my queen.” Aidoneus gaped at him before composing himself. “In all the years I’ve— Why?”

Can we safely assume the bad harvest is winding down?”

“My mother…” Demeter throws a tantrum, Aidoneus thought, and the mortals suffer.

“I pride myself on having no need of slaves here.

Charon and Aidoneus exchanged a glance, then stared at her. Persephone shivered before answering her own question. “The Titans.” “Yes,”

“Oh, you were terrible, Aidon!” Charon interrupted, making Persephone smile.

Aidon would have reprimanded the boatman, but he was too busy melting. It was the first time his wife had laughed in his presence—

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

“I don’t understand why you have any interest in me at all,” she said under her breath. “I know nothing about your kingdom—”

“I’m just a flower goddess, Aidon; I’m an afterthought compared to my mother. I have no idea what I’m even doing here…”

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“Yes. It would be my pleasure to show you how,” he said. “All you have to do is hold on.” “We should wait?” “No,” he said with the faintest hint of a smile. “I meant hold on to me.”

“Everything about this place…” “You don’t like it here…” Aidon’s face fell and his eyes looking away.

Her hands came up to his collarbone, her index finger slowly winding through her favorite lock of hair at the nape of his neck; the one that was always too short to be caught in the band he wore to pull back his unruly hair.

😍😍😍😍

“I won’t run away,” she blurted out. “What?” “I won’t run away,” she repeated quietly.

Kore is the concubine of the Lord of the Dead now.

I WILL GUT YOU!!!

It was the grove; this was Hades’s sacred grove at Nysa.

His teeth were chattering. “Aidon, you’re freezing…” “Don’t worry about me,”

“Aidon, I’m not powerful enough to—” “Yes you are.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you to do this unless I knew you could.”

There is only you, the immortal goddess, and there is only the place you want to be.

He opened his eyes wide and a very old emotion he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in aeons came rushing through him. Fear.

Persephone felt his fear pulse into her hand and looked back to comfort him. “It’s all right, husband.”

“They all say that,” he scoffed, withdrawing from it. “Sisyphus…” Aidoneus stopped. Now that was a name he recognized.

They presented her as Sisyphus to you and you sent her to Tartarus.”

The people of Thessaly don’t build pyres; they bury their dead. Unless…

Persephone Praxidike Chthonios. She Who Destroys the Light. Carrier of Curses. The Iron Queen of the Underworld.

Her name is Merope, and she was sent there in place of Sisyphus of Ephyra. I command that you release her at once from the Pit.”

🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

“The sorcerer king must be brought to judgment for what he did to her.” As you wish, Praxidike.

His wife was a darkly magnificent creature, stepping through the ring of fire she created with him at her side. Persephone— his Queen.

He closed his eyes and inhaled as she sweetly attended to him; it smelled like her now— lilies, ocean mist, and warm earth.

“Pomegranate, I think? …Hard to tell when they’re so young.”

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That what I did would somehow make you feel… emasculated…

He grabbed her wrist and stepped toward her, pressing her hand over the hardness quickening under his clothes.

“Tell me again, Persephone, how you think I could feel emasculated by you,”

“I’m through hiding in the dark from you.” Her eyes lit up hearing him say it, he sat next to her, quickly removing his sandals.

“Then don’t leave before the light comes,” she said. He stroked her face. “I won’t.”

I leave so that I don’t have to look into your eyes and see that you do not yet love me,

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“If you keep doing that, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself…”

“What makes you think I want you to hold back?”

“Aidoneus!” She screamed, clinging to him.