Descent Read online

  Descent

  Natasha Knight

  Copyright © 2020 by Natasha Knight

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  About This Book

  Prologue 1

  Prologue 2

  1. Persephone

  2. Hayden

  3. Persephone

  4. Persephone

  5. Hayden

  6. Persephone

  7. Hayden

  8. Persephone

  9. Hayden

  10. Persephone

  11. Hayden

  12. Persephone

  13. Persephone

  14. Hayden

  15. Persephone

  16. Persephone

  17. Hayden

  18. Persephone

  19. Hayden

  20. Hayden

  21. Persephone

  22. Hayden

  23. Hayden

  24. Persephone

  25. Hayden

  26. Persephone

  27. Hayden

  28. Persephone

  29. Hayden

  30. Hayden

  31. Persephone

  32. Hayden

  33. Persephone

  34. Persephone

  35. Hayden

  36. Persephone

  37. Hayden

  38. Persephone

  39. Hayden

  40. Persephone

  41. Persephone

  42. Hayden

  43. Persephone

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  Thank You

  Excerpt from Salvatore

  Excerpt from Collateral

  Also by Natasha Knight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About This Book

  Persephone Abbot is in my debt.

  Exactly the way I want it.

  The sins of the father should not be inherited by the daughter. It’s unfair, I know, but since when has life been fair?

  The events that brought us here began on Halloween night more than five years ago in that chapel ruin. I saved her that night. Carried her home through the storm that was the omen warning of what would come.

  I didn’t know it then, but I do now.

  Her father destroyed something precious. Someone innocent.

  I don’t believe in an eye for an eye. I won’t just balance the scales of justice, I’ll tip them so far in my favor his legacy will topple.

  I’ll take that which is most precious. His daughter.

  But I’m not the only monster lurking in the dark corners of her world. She’ll sleep in the bed of the beast but I’ll keep her safe. Protect her fiercely.

  And maybe I'll keep her.

  Prologue 1

  Persephone

  I close the bedroom door, muffling the sounds of the party downstairs. My hand still on the doorknob, I tell myself to exhale, to relax, but it doesn’t do any good.

  He’s here.

  He’s come home.

  Why? Why now?

  The beeps and clicks from inside still sound foreign to me. Unfamiliar. Like they don’t belong because they don’t belong.

  I steel my spine and take a deep breath in, preparing to turn around. To face this new reality.

  But there’s something else foreign here tonight. Someone else who doesn’t belong.

  My heart races as I inhale, smell the aftershave.

  No, not foreign.

  Familiar.

  But he doesn’t belong.

  Ice clinks against crystal and I turn. The silvery glow of the moon casts a haunted look over the sick bed. The machinery. But it’s not that I’m looking at now.

  It’s him.

  Sitting in my father’s favorite chair, drinking my father’s favorite whiskey, and that moonlight, the glow is almost eerie on the chiseled, hard lines of his face.

  For a long moment, the only thing I hear is that rhythmic beep, beep, beep. Six months of it, the machines never once breaking their cadence, the sound driving me mad.

  He clears his throat, interrupting that rhythm. Even that, the sound of him clearing his throat, it makes my heart beat faster, raising goosebumps along my bare arms.

  And then he speaks.

  “Persephone.”

  One word. My name. He draws it out, voice gravelly, thick, like he hasn’t spoken in a long time

  I shudder. I haven’t heard his low, rumbling voice in years, and I’ve forgotten what it does to me.

  He’s the only one who calls me by my given name, and it stirs something inside me I wish it didn’t. It has a power I wish it didn’t.

  “Hades,” I say, using the name I’d given him when I’d first met him as a child, back when my head was full of fairy tales and mythology and heroes and gods and happy endings.

  Now, well, now, things are different.

  He chuckles.

  I’m grateful it’s too dark for him to see my face, to see how his presence after all this time affects me.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, somehow managing a level tone.

  “Waiting for you.”

  Waiting for me. Of course, he is. I knew he would be, didn’t I? From the moment I heard he was back in town.

  I force my legs to move. To walk to the side table where my father kept his collection of liquor—where he keeps the bottles—on top of a mirrored tray. I have to remember to speak in the present tense. He’s still here. He’s not gone.

  I pour myself a vodka, taking my time while I have my back to Hades, the intruder, the unwanted, while I try to check my emotions. I swallow the contents of the glass, savoring the burning sensation as I pour another, listening to liquid spill into crystal. Listening to blood thud against my ears as my heart races.

  Leather creaks and I stiffen.

  He’s up.

  He walks too quietly for me to hear but it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to hear him. I feel him at my back.

  The hair on the nape of my neck stands on end and I wish I had more protection than this dress with its open back offers.

  “Vodka still your drink?”

  Heat radiating off him roots me to the spot before he even touches me. Before the knuckles of one hand brush the exposed vertebrae of my spine leaving goosebumps in their wake.

  I remember the last time he touched me. I wish I didn’t, and I try very hard to push the memory away as my body craves something it can’t have. Something it will never be allowed to have.

  “Time.”

  The word has an energy all its own and it makes me think about Hades and Persephone.

  The abduction of Persephone.

  Hayden closes his mouth around the beating pulse at my throat and I stop breathing.

  My glass slips from my hand. It bounces on the thick carpet, unbroken, splashing vodka against my legs.

  He dips his head closer as I turn mine ever so slightly. I inhale deeply, taking in his scent and for one crushing moment, I close my eyes and I feel him.

  I just feel him.

  He makes a sound, something primordial. And when he moves, the scruff of his jaw brushes my cheek, warm breath tickling my neck.

  I hear his moan before he pulls away and I stagger at the loss of him. I shift my gaze up to his, the green-gold glinting in the moonlight. I force myself to breathe, command myself to be unaffected. I fail at both.

  His gaze hovers at my mouth before returning to my eyes and I feel his body tighten.

  And this is my power. This one thing.

  He wants me as badly as I want him.

  Bu
t Hades condemns Persephone. He tricks her and steals her away, carrying her to the underworld, to his Kingdom in Hell.

  That’s what Hayden Montgomery will do to me if I’m not careful.

  And just like that, the spell is broken.

  He knows it too.

  I turn to face him as he steps backward and looks me over. His gaze stops at my left hand and one corner of his mouth curves upward when he returns it to mine.

  “My brother couldn’t keep that pussy happy?” he asks crudely.

  I narrow my eyes, tilt my head to the side and watch him swallow his whiskey.

  “What do you want, Hayden?”

  His eyes darken. “You really want me to answer that?”

  “You can’t be in here.”

  “I’m paying my respects to your father.”

  “Like hell you are. You’re not welcome. Not in this room. Not in this house.”

  “Wasn’t always the case, was it?” His gaze skims over me and he leans forward, trapping me between his massive body and the wall at my back.

  I have to remind myself that he cannot see the pounding of my heart as it tries to beat its way clear out of my chest.

  I have to remind myself that he’s only human.

  A man.

  He is no more Hades, God of the Underworld, than I am Persephone, daughter of Demeter.

  He’s just a man.

  Human.

  The grin that spreads across his face makes me wonder if he’ll prove me wrong as he brings his glass to his mouth and drinks, then sets it down on the mirrored tray beside us. I half-expect him to touch me. To kiss me.

  But he does neither.

  Instead, he walks to the door, places his hand on the doorknob and stops. He turns back to me, eyes narrowed. He looks me over once more and I shudder again.

  “Time.” He repeats it, that one word, and then he’s gone.

  I don’t need to ask what he means. Just like I didn’t need to ask what he wanted. I already know.

  I knew it before either of us walked in here tonight.

  Prologue 2

  Hayden

  The sound of the party below grates on my nerves the moment I’m in the hallway.

  I walk down the stairs, ignoring the curious glances. I’m no stranger here. And I’m sure before I’ve even walked out the door, the gossips will begin spreading their poison.

  Good. Let them. Let my family learn from them that I’m back.

  I glance into the various rooms I pass on my way to the front door noting the furniture still inside the house. How opposite the bare rooms upstairs.

  She’s desperate.

  And I won’t let the opportunity pass me by.

  Because it’s high time the Abbots pay for what they did. Persephone will be sacrificed, but that can’t be helped. It’s fitting, actually. Almost poetic.

  An eye for an eye.

  A girl for a girl.

  I pull the front door open, the gust of icy wind sobering as I step outside.

  I climb down the stone stairs passing the handful of idiots freezing their asses off for a few puffs on a cigarette. I bypass the cars along the circular drive, bypass the paved walkway to the street. Instead, I make my way over damp grass to where our property lines meet. I stop there, glancing at the ruin of the chapel in the distance remembering the last time I saw Persephone Abbot.

  She was sixteen.

  Vodka was her drink then, too.

  I remember carrying her home that night. Bringing her into her bedroom before all hell broke loose over our houses.

  I shake my head, crossing the property line. I look up at what was once the Montgomery estate. Dark vines like long fingers claw almost every inch of what’s left of the once beautiful stone walls as if taking it back into the earth.

  I wish it would take the past with it. Take the ghosts that still haunt the damned place.

  I turn to look back at the Abbot house.

  My house now.

  It will rot, too, the earth swallowing up our sins along with our homes. But not before I’ve had my fill of Persephone Abbot.

  1

  Persephone

  Time.

  I shudder as the rumble of his voice echoes in my head, that one word carrying so much weight.

  Time.

  Time for the Abbot family’s reckoning.

  Time for Hayden Montgomery to collect what he thinks he’s owed.

  I still smell him when I inhale and some part of me is greedy to savor that scent before it vanishes, like he just did.

  Here, then gone.

  Like before.

  I’ve known Hayden Montgomery since I was a little girl. I grew up with him next door.

  The bastard son of the Jeremiah Montgomery. Bastard but first-born of a set of twins. Hayden and Ares Montgomery. He always thought that would mean something. That the fact he was first-born carried more weight than it actually did.

  I bend to pick up my glass and set it on the tray. Instead of refilling it, I take the one he left behind. I bring it to my mouth, inhale the scent of whiskey as I put it to my lips. I swallow the last drops and when I do, I swear I feel his mouth on me. Feel his hands on my skin.

  I was ten when I first met him. His sister Nora and I had been playing with my stepmother’s antique doll. I knew we shouldn’t. I’d been punished for it before and you’d think I’d have learned.

  She’d told me the doll was one-of-a-kind. A gift from her mother, a woman I never met.

  I remember the instant it slipped from my hand and I heard the crack as the head hit the pavement and broke in two. I remember sobbing because I knew I’d be in trouble. And in our family, my stepmother was the one to watch out for. My father was—is—the gentlest man I know.

  That rainy morning was when I’d first met Hayden Montgomery. Already back then, he wasn’t welcome at home and when he was there, he was only ever coming or going. Mostly going.

  He’d walked out of his house and stopped when he’d seen Nora and I sitting on the curb trying to fit the two pieces together. He’d crossed our cul-de-sac and come to sit beside us.

  He was a little scary back then. Well, he’s still a little scary. But I’d had this strange fascination for him. The prodigal son. The one who I only ever saw shadows of.

  Neither Nora nor I had had to say a word as he looked down at the doll and I remember studying the yellowing remnants of what I knew even then was a bruise along his jaw.

  “What have you done?” he’d asked.

  “We broke her stepmother’s antique doll,” Nora had whispered.

  “Oh dear.” He’d taken the doll and looked at it.

  “She’s going to kill me,” I’d said, fresh tears forming.

  “She can’t kill you,” Nora had tried to reassure me in that matter-of-fact way of hers that made her sound like an adult even though we were the same age.

  “Nora’s right. A murder on the street would send property values way down. Can’t have that,” Hayden had said.

  Nora had giggled. I hadn’t understood a word. But he’d smiled and the dimple on his cheek had made me smile too.

  “This isn’t too bad. I know someone who can help.”

  “You do?”

  “My brother knows everyone,” Nora had said proudly, her smile beaming. She’d always talked about him like he was some mythical hero.

  “I won’t be able to get it back to you until tonight though,” he’d said.

  “Don’t worry, she won’t be home until late.”

  “All right then.” He’d stood and held out his hand. “I’m Hayden Montgomery by the way. I’d better know your name if we’re to be co-conspirators.”

  “Hayden.” I’d stood too. He was so tall the top of my head came to the middle of his belly, so I’d stepped up onto the curb. “Like Hades.”

  I’d thought myself in love at that moment. I still remember it so vividly.

  He’d just looked confused. But then I’d placed my hand in his and introduced myself.
“I’m Persephone Abbot. But everyone calls me Percy.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, I’ll call you Persephone. Now go inside. You’re already soaked through. And Nora you’d better get home. Your mother’s looking for you.”

  “You’ll bring her back?” I’d asked him.

  He’d nodded. “I’ll meet you here at eight o’clock sharp.”

  “Thank you, Hades.”

  I exhale at the memory, put the glass down. “You’re not a little girl anymore,” I remind myself and walk to my father’s bed.

  He’s mostly unchanged, his still-handsome face just a little older. His salt-and-pepper hair more salt than pepper now. I tuck him in and give his hand a squeeze.

  “I love you, dad.” I bend down and kiss his forehead.

  No change. But at least he’s alive.

  I walk out of his bedroom, pausing at the top of the stairs to look down at the party my stepmother is hosting just six months after the accident. With my father up here like he is. With our finances what they’ve become.

  But I guess this is her show of defiance. Her revenge against me because my father left me in charge of the estate. Of Abbot Enterprises. Of everything.