Hot as Hades Read Online Free PDF Page A

Olympus, but he looked relaxed and hearty, his light brown hair long and flowing. He had grown facial hair since she had seen him last, a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard. His eyes were a matching light brown and danced with merriment, but Persephone knew they hid a ruthless and cunning mind. He wasn’t completely solid; she could see the door through him. “Is that really you?”
    “Of course.”
    Her eyes narrowed. She may not have spent a lot of time around gods, but she knew their trickery. This could very well be some plan of Hades. “Prove it.”
    “Oh, my suspicious rose. Okay. First time I met you, you were crying.”
    Of course she was crying—she’d been running from horny Hermes. Little winged bastard could flit around fast. That didn’t prove Zeus’s identity, as any number of people could have seen her or heard the story from him. Gods were a gossipy lot. “You need to do better than that.”
    He glowered. “Fine. Last time you saw me, I was crying.”
    Wincing in remembered sympathy, she smiled. “I’m sorry that nymph kicked you where she did.”
    “Trust me, so am I. Ugh. So this is how Hades decorates, huh? It’s so garish.” Zeus studied his surroundings with a small curl to his lip.
    “It’s not so bad.” As she said the words, she wondered why she was defending that boor. To cover her slip, she rushed to speak. “I assume you’ve never been here then?”
    “Nope. Hades forbids all of us from entering.”
    He sounded remarkably cheerful for someone who was breaking a massive rule. “So why are you here? For that matter, why am I here?”
    “Well, I’m here—sort of here—to put some of your worries to rest. Don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to have to use my considerable soothing powers to calm you quickly.”
    His angelic countenance didn’t fool her. “And why am I here?”
    “Oh, that. I put you here.”
     
    The third time Cerberus cleared its throat, Hades poked his head out of his large walk-in closet. “What?” he snapped.
    Only his demon dog would dare intrude upon him when he was in this mood. Middle spoke. “Sire, I merely wanted to assure you that Lady Persephone is settled nicely in the red room.”
    “Great, good.” The red room, which happened to be next to his room. Not that that mattered—he had a better chance of fucking Medusa than he did Sephie.
    Once again…not that that mattered.
    “She is quite an interesting young lady.”
    He grunted, which shut up Middle, the very proper and conscientious head, but had no affect on Bob, who set the hound’s tail to wagging in its eagerness. “Do you know what she’s the goddess of, master?”
    “No. And I don’t care, as long as I can figure out who has the giant balls to fuck with me.” He found what he was looking for shoved into a corner on the bottom shelf of his closet, and he grabbed it.
    There was only one person he could think of who had the aforementioned testicles, the absolute gall, to tamper with his life. He pulled the silk wrapping off the large glass sphere and thunked the priceless artifact on his desk. “Zeus!” he yelled. “You stupid git. I want to talk to you.”
    The black surface shimmered and then began to swirl, galaxies drifting across it, until a face he hadn’t seen in centuries—which wasn’t long enough—appeared. “Is that any way to talk to your brother?”
    “It is when I’ve been cursed with you.”
    “Tsk, tsk. That world you live in has completely stripped you of all pleasantries. Here, let me help. Hello, Hades. How have you been? It’s been, what, a few hundred years?”
    “Cut that out. I want to know one thing and one thing only…did you send this Persephone to me? Are you preventing me from sending her out of here?”
    “Yes and yes.”
    Hades opened his mouth and closed it, completely unprepared for that fast and calm mea culpa . “I… What?”
    “Hear me out, Hades. She’s in danger. I had no choice.”
    Hades dropped into his chair. “Make