Receiver of Many (Hades & Persephone, #1)

by Rachel Alexander

“What is happening to me? I can’t stop thinking about her; it’s as if she’s possessed me.”

Your true nature may yet be shrouded to her eyes, but another part of her knows you very well indeed.”

Then Hades did something he had never done before in all his ageless years. He blushed.

“And every larkspur in existence, which for all the ages have been white, are now crimson, purple and pink? Hades Aido...

“Because I’m not supposed to feel… alive! Look around you. These foolish— these dangerous passions have no place here!”

The future. Red flowers clinging to a tree that rose from the field of gray, branches entwining through others’ branches. Red, ripe fruit hung on interlocked boughs. Radiating out from the tree came soft grasses and flowers that spread over immeasurable ground. Hecate imparted in three voices what she saw.

“You need to feel her again and know that she feels you— don’t you, Aidoneus?”

He wanted to give her anything. Anything and everything.

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

The bedroom opened into a large antechamber, with ceiling and walls of solid, smooth amethyst illuminated by the soft light entering through the columns outside.

as though the necklace were designed to fit only her.

But his guilt warred with the desire to hold her as close as he could as soon as he could.

kneeling in front of her and lifting her chin to face him.

“It’s a name that would have lost you to me.”

“You…” he said with a voice like gravel as he waved her hand away, “You ride for free, my queen.”

It was the first time his wife had laughed in his presence— by far the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

This was impossible— no one could bridge the ethereal reach this way. Except for his wife. Aidoneus had been wrong— intriguingly wrong about her— Persephone was a goddess beyond his reckoning.

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

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

“You were magnificent.”

should never have brought you here. My life was ordered; it made sense before you threw it into pandemonium. And when you do spread your legs for me, Persephone, when you welcome me inside your body, you turn me into a fool— an idiot— that thinks you are capable of loving me.”

thrice-chosen Consort in the ancient manner, the way it was done before the Tyrant.”

When she plucked it, she laid aside her old life and chose us and our ways. She chose him as her mate in that moment, whether she knew or not.”

Nearly anything can be forgiven, if one is willing to open their heart completely.”

“Persephone, I have loved you and only you for forty thousand years. And I will love you and only you until the stars are shaken out of the sky.”

She was Persephone Praxidike Chthonios. The Queen of the Underworld. And, she thought with a delighted quiver, the Queen of Hades, her husband.

She desired Aidoneus completely and wanted to claim him as hers.

As his arms wrapped around her waist, he silently wondered what in the name of the Fates he’d ever done to deserve her.

The more we attempt to control our destiny, the less it bends to our liking.”

fated Consort of the Queen.”

One day, they too will be forgotten as surely as all the tongues the mortals once spoke and the cities they

first built. But you and your consort will endure.”