Debauched (Hades and Persephone Book 3) Read online

  I ground my teeth. Mother was getting to me with her poisonous ideas. There was nothing wrong with a wife wanting to see her husband, especially on his sickbed.

  “The captain updated me on what happened. I just tried to grow panacea, but it came out wrong.”

  Her gaze meandered to the little carnivorous plant snapping at the dryads from the tray, and her brows rose. “May I examine your magic?”

  “One second.” I placed a hand over the toothy flowerhead and pulled back my magic, turning it into a husk.

  This was a trick I could only perform on plants that I had personally grown. Mother had taught me this as a way to preserve my borrowed power. Hopefully, it would also work on plants that had been created using Persephone’s body.

  The dryads stood back as Healer Iaso raised her hands and bathed my body with streams of white magic. A wave of calm swept across my shoulders, reminding me of a gentle breeze. I let my eyes flutter shut and relaxed into the sensations.

  “Well, I see your problem, now,” she said.

  My eyes snapped open. “What is it?”

  “Residual malevolence.” She lowered her hands and burrowed into the pocket of her coat. “A common side-effect of having been possessed by an evil influence.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek. The healer was talking about how Mother had taken control of Persephone’s body. She had probably done so after rolling around with Samael. I swallowed back my disgust and focussed on the healer.

  “How do I get rid of it?” I asked.

  She shook her head and held up a crystal that swirled with smoke. “No need. We have an anti-possession policy in the Fifth. King Hades demanded that us healers remove any sign of foreign influences.”

  “Thank you,” I said with a smile. “Let’s see what happens when I try again.”

  The dryads produced another root of soil, complete with the pyramid-shaped leaf. This time, when I pushed my power into it, the plant developed without the malevolent flowerhead.

  I glanced from one dryad to the other, my brows raised. “Is this panacea?”

  They exchanged quick glances before giving me identical nods.

  All the air left my lungs in a rush. “Thank goodness for that. Now, it’s time to save Hades.”

  Chapter Seven

  My legs trembled as Healer Iaso guided me through the airlock, which turned out to be a giant void similar to the one that connected the war room to Hades’ throne. Darkness surrounded us at all angles, and small particles rose from my skin.

  “It’s just as I thought,” the healer said, her words clipped. “They embedded this new body with enough material to destroy His Majesty.”

  Hot blood surged through my veins. I clenched my teeth and held back a snarl, wishing I could throw back every nasty thing Mother had done to Hades right back into her smug face. Thank goodness I hadn’t been able to see Hades right away.

  “It’s hard to believe people could be that determined to murder someone for a grudge,” I said.

  “This is Hell, Your Majesty. You would be surprised at what people have done to earn their places in the punishment pits.”

  My gaze dropped down to the smaller woman, who stared up at me through eyes as bright as the stars. “I expect King Hades will be delighted that you’ve found a more permanent vessel. This one suits you better than the last.”

  I cringed at the words. It didn’t matter if I had the soul or past life of a goddess. Deep down, I felt like the girl who had spent her entire life in a mansion with only plants and Netflix for company.

  “Thanks,” I murmured.

  A huge set of double doors appeared in front of us, looking much like the entrance to St. James’s Palace.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “A secure pocket dimension within the Fifth I asked His Majesty to create for his convalescence.” Healer Iaso raised a hand, and the doors swung open, revealing a white, marble hallway that resembled the inside of a Greek temple.

  “Hades made all of this while he was sick?” I asked.

  “His Majesty can access the full power of the Fifth Dimension.” The healer stepped inside and beckoned at me to follow.

  With one last glance over my shoulder, I grimaced at the debris floating in the void. Stalks and vines and seeds and pollen drifted together to form a clump. I shuddered and stepped into the hallway, knowing that not all of it had come from my tussle with the brambles.

  A white door stood at the end of the hallway. My pulse quickened as we walked together, and my hands drifted to the base of my throat. Hades had finally expressed the depth of his feelings to me—not as a version of Persephone, but he’d appreciated our differences.

  What if Hades was disappointed that I was no longer the same person?

  My throat constricted. Hades had been opposed to me returning to this body, and I’d gone ahead and made the swap without telling him. Maybe I shouldn’t have worried about his disappointment. Maybe my biggest concern was his fury. Or perhaps his disgust.

  Afterall, this was the body who had reduced him to his current state of weakness.

  I gulped over and over, the roar of blood surging between my ears drowning out our footsteps. The hallway’s white walls closed in on us, and even Healer Iaso seemed to be walking too close. I rolled my shoulders, trying to get a grip of the situation, trying to focus on my mission:

  We were here to save Hades from Mother’s accursed plants.

  Healer Iaso placed her hand on the door. “Your Majesty?” the healer asked, her voice hesitant. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I croaked.

  “If you’re worried about the intricacies of killing the parasitic plant, please be assured that what you did to the carnivorous aloe is all that’s needed.”

  I gulped. “All right, but what about the pollen eating his lungs?”

  She exhaled a long breath. “We’ve tried telekinesis, but that resulted in extracting diseased tissue as well as plant material.”

  “That’s bad?” I asked.

  “It meant that His Majesty took longer to regenerate his lungs.”

  I shook my head. “Let’s just concentrate on killing that plant and giving him the panacea.”

  She pushed the door open, and we stepped into a vast white room that was empty, save for a four-poster bed that seemed to be made of polished bone. Net curtains obscured its interior, but there was an outline of a tall woman standing at the bedside, bent over a man sitting up.

  My heart skipped.

  “Captain Caria?” said the healer. “Her Majesty has produced a version of panacea.”

  The curtains parted, and Captain Caria strode out with her hands behind her back. She stared at me through red-rimmed eyes, her expression held in a neutral mask.

  My heart ached. I had no idea what she was thinking. Was she disappointed that I didn’t recognize her as my daughter? If Mother had lost her memory—I tossed that thought aside. Mother was a monster. If she lost her memory, I would celebrate.

  “Have you tested its efficacy?” asked the captain.

  “It worked on two convicts infected with the flesh-eating pollen,” replied the healer.

  Captain Caria raised her brows. “And they recovered.”

  “Well enough to face execution,” Healer Iaso replied. “But it took a few minutes, suggesting that the panacea isn’t yet at full potency.”

  The captain’s gaze slid to me. “What will it take to produce the best version of the plant?”

  I shook my head. “These powers are still new to me.”

  Her lips tightened. “One would have thought that getting your original body would trigger something from your old life.”

  My shoulders sagged, and I dropped my gaze to the white floor. My suspicions had been right. Captain Caria was disappointed that I wasn’t Persephone—or at least that I hadn’t acknowledged our special relationship.

  Before I could muster up something to say, she stepped aside and swept her arm towa
rd the bed. “His Majesty awaits a cure.”

  Healer Iaso placed a hand on my back and ushered me toward the bed. “If you could kill the parasite first, I can apply the panacea. I believe that will give His Majesty the best chance of a fast recovery.”

  I stepped toward the four-poster on legs that felt like wooden stakes. The healer parted the curtains to reveal a shirtless Hades, sitting up in bed. Even though the green had faded, he still looked terrible. His eyes were closed, and blood streamed from the corners of his lips, down his chin, his chest, and onto the sheets.

  “What’s this?” I cried.

  “Because of the constant damage to his lungs, I had to arrange His Majesty in a seated position to facilitate effective breathing during his enchanted sleep.”

  “And the blood?” My voice shook.

  “One of the side-effects of being constantly eaten alive,” the captain muttered.

  I gulped, trying to hold down the nausea swirling through my gut. “Can you wake him?”

  “Yes, but let’s wait until we’ve completed the treatment,” replied the healer.

  “Right.” My gaze dropped down to his bellybutton, where the lotus flower had grown to the size of my thumbnail. “This one is drawing on his power?”

  “Correct, Your Majesty,” she said. “Killing it will quicken King Hades’ recovery from the pollen.”

  Without another word, I placed my hand over the flower and pulled its essence into my fingers. It was the same process I used to destroy the plant I had grown from the panacea seed and the same process I employed all the time when working the greenhouse.

  The green flower’s petals shrank before withering to a brown husk.

  “Well done, Your Majesty.” Healer Iaso reached for the dead plant.

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  She pulled her hand away. “What’s wrong?”

  “If it’s anything like its larger version, the roots will have spread throughout his body.”

  “And you’re continuing in case there’s a living piece?”

  “That’s right,” I murmured. “The trouble with these kinds of weeds is that if you leave even a wisp of a root, it will regenerate and sprout again.”

  “Pretty dastardly,” Captain Caria muttered.

  “Plants are determined to survive, no matter what,” I said with a sigh. “Mother developed this plant to adapt to attacks. I’ve got to chase every strand to make sure I’ve got it all.”

  The energy pooling into me dwindled until I could barely feel a trace of the plant’s malevolence. I continued drawing it into my fingers, long after its magic had stopped. After what felt like a minute, a tiny surge seeped into me before coming to an abrupt stop.

  “There.” I stepped back.

  Healer Iaso reached for the withered plant and pulled it out from Hades’ navel. Instead of just the flowerhead, a network of brown roots came out, some of them as thick as my little finger.

  I placed a hand over my mouth, breathing hard through my shock. In all my years of tending to plants, I had never seen one with such intricate roots. The healer handed the flowerhead to Captain Caria, and she leaned closer to Hades and pulled out more and thin rhizomes with her fingers.

  “It’s no wonder we couldn’t kill it,” she muttered.

  “The longer it remained, the more invasive it became,” I said.

  Eventually, the roots became thinner than string and then barely visible to the naked eye. Captain Caria placed the plant on a tray the size of a serving platter, and its roots piled up like a mound of demonic brown spaghetti.

  Hades exhaled a long breath, as though his unconscious body knew it was free of the parasite. Even more blood bubbled from the corners of his lips and spilled down his chin.

  “May I have a cloth?” I asked.

  Captain Caria handed me a silk handkerchief. I took it with a murmur of thanks and dabbed the blood from Hades’ face.

  “Your Majesty.” Healer Iaso reached into her bag and extracted a panacea leaf. “If I may?”

  I stepped back, giving her space to approach Hades. “Will you pour it in his mouth?”

  She pressed her palm in the center of his bloody chest, making his insides glow with white magic. Hades sucked in a noisy breath, and she withdrew her hand.

  “I’ve just administered my most powerful painkiller and pulled out the enchantment that put him to sleep.”

  My heart skipped, and I stood straighter at the bedside, my gaze fixed on Hades’ handsome features. This time, when he exhaled, even more blood poured out, and my stomach twisted with sympathy. It looked like the healer had put him to sleep both so he wouldn’t have to suffer so much and to keep his breaths light and shallow.

  “Hades?” I whispered into our bond.

  “Kora,” he said out loud, his eyes still closed.

  Captain Caria placed a hand on my shoulder. “Did you tell him you planned on switching bodies?”

  I turned to her and frowned. “No.”

  “Then I suggest you step back. The last thing His Majesty needs to see as he wakes up is the face of his attacker.”

  A protest formed on my lips, but I shook it off. Captain Caria was right. I withdrew from beneath the white curtain, pulled it shut, and waited.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked through our connection.

  “Still shitty, but I no longer feel like an octopus has taken control of my insides,” he said with a growl. “Did you do something?”

  “I have a new set of powers,” I said.

  Hades paused. “What does that mean?”

  “Do you remember when Mother said my vessel was leaking magic?”

  “Kora, what did you do?” he said, his voice tinged with suspicion.

  “Your Majesty.” Healer Iaso’s voice cut through our conversation. “Queen Hades has created a new version of panacea. Would you take a bite, please, and see how it helps your lungs?”

  I exhaled a breath of relief, took another step away from the four-poster, and wrapped my arms around my middle. He didn’t need to know what I had done until after his treatment.

  A rattling cough echoed across the vast chamber, followed by a low groan that made me shudder. As long as the pollen remained in his lungs, it would continue to eat him alive.

  Hades bit into the panacea with the crunch of someone taking their first bite of a ripe apple. I held my breath, waiting to discover if he would continue coughing, or if the healing plant would repair his lungs quicker than the pollen could consume them.

  He continued eating the panacea in silence until he said out loud, “It’s worked.”

  “Really,” I also asked out loud.

  “Are you in the room?” Hades said.

  My spine stiffened with apprehension. “Ummm… yes?”

  “Why are you hiding behind the curtain?” he asked. “Come inside.”

  Captain Caria stepped out from beneath the four-poster and walked toward me with her brows raised. “Good luck, Your Majesty.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed her arm.

  She raised her brows. “Yes?”

  “Could we spend some time together?” I swallowed. “Just you and me? My memories haven’t yet returned, and I still feel like I’m only twenty, but maybe you could tell me things about your childhood?”

  Her eyes softened, and the corners of her lips curled up into a smile. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  “You don’t have to call me that.”

  She inclined her head. “All right, Persephone.”

  With a sigh, I released her arm, letting her stride toward the exit. I watched her step out into the void and make her way back toward the palace, wondering if we would ever connect. My jaw clenched. Damn Demeter. She was so obsessed with keeping me under her thumb that she had not only destroyed my relationship with Hades but with my own daughter.

  “Kora?” Hades’ voice filled my ears.

  “I’ve got to warn you about something,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The on
ly way we could remove that plant was with Persephone’s magic.”

  He didn’t say anything for several heartbeats. “You made a deal with Demeter?”

  “Yes,” I murmured.

  “What did she demand of you?” he growled.

  “Your assassination, mostly,” I muttered.

  Hades chuckled, but the sound was rusty instead of sensual and rich. “She handed you the cure for the satisfaction of having you kill me? That’s rich.”

  My intestines twisted into knots, and I edged toward the bed with both hands on my belly. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “Why are you so nervous?” he asked.

  “I didn’t exactly make a bargain with Mother, and she didn’t give me a cure.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Tight strings of apprehension wrapped around my lungs and cut off my air. Was Captain Caria correct that he would see me as his attacker? How would Hades react to what I had done? It took every ounce of effort to reply, “My body was about to disintegrate—”

  “Kora,” he snapped. “If you don’t stop hiding from me this instant, I will climb out of this bed and drag you here myself.”

  “Fine.” I sucked in a deep breath and filled my lungs with enough air to push down my anxiety.

  A blast of Hellfire burned through the curtains, making the healer yelp. Hades sat up on his bed and stared at me though wide eyes.

  Every drop of moisture in my body evaporated under the heat of his glower, and the deep breath I’d just inhaled remained trapped in my lungs.

  “Leave us,” he said to the healer, his gaze still fixed on mine.

  She cleared her throat. “Your Majesty, I still need to conduct tests—”

  “Out,” he roared with a blast of magic that made my stomach lurch.

  With a low bow, she scuttled away from the bed and paused as she passed me. I was only aware of her in the periphery of my vision because I was trapped in Hades’ gaze.

  Right now, I knew exactly what it felt to be a prey animal facing an apex predator. Hades’ irises went from blue to fiery red to black, even though his features never shifted from the mask of fury.

  I swallowed hard, trying to muster up something to say, but my mind went blank. In all my twenty-and-a-bit years of life, no one—not even Mother—had ever been so furious.