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“Hades.” She said his name in a hushed tone, as if she feared he might be sleeping.

“Hmm?” He opened his eyes and met her gaze, not quite prepared for what she said next.

“What did you trade for your ability to have children?”

He wondered what had brought on her curiosity. Had it been their time with the children in Asphodel? The question gave way to more. Was she having second thoughts about their marriage? Had she decided she truly wished to become a mother?

“I gave a mortal woman divinity,” he said.

At the time, it had felt powerful, but it was also why Dionysus owed him a favor and had little choice but to bend to his will. The God of Wine had come to him after his mother, Semele, was killed by Zeus, her death ultimately the result of Hera’s jealousy. He begged Hades to set her free. Hades wished he could say he had been motivated to go to the Fates purely out of sympathy for the god, but he was more interested in binding Dionysus to do his bidding.

The Fates agreed to grant Semele divinity, but inexchange, Hades had to give up his ability to have children.

He hadn’t even had to think about the trade then. It was the easiest decision he had ever made. He had no great love, only lovers. This, he thought, was a true blessing.

But the Fates had known better.

He should have known better.

Now his head rested in the lap of his truest love, and he couldn’t make her a mother.

“Did you love her?” Persephone asked, misunderstanding his reasons completely.

“No. I wish I could claim it was out of love or even compassion, but…I wanted to claim a favor from a god, so I bargained with the Fates.”

“And they asked for your…our…children?”

There was something about the wordourthat hurt in ways he could not even express. What future had he sacrificed for them in exchange for the favor of a god who hated him?

He sat up and faced her. “What are you thinking?”

He needed to know if that was something she wanted, because if it was, he would find a way.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just…am trying to understand Fate.”

“Fate does not make sense. That is why it is so easy to blame.”

She held his gaze a moment and then looked away, and he could not help feeling like she was actually trying to decide if she could really do this.

He reached for her, letting his fingers linger on her skin as he spoke.

“If I had known—if I’d been given any inkling—I would have never—”

“It’s all right, Hades,” she said. “I did not ask to cause you grief.”

“You did not cause me grief,” he said. “I think back on that moment often, reflecting on the ease with which I gave up something I would come to wish for, but that is the consequence of bargaining with the Fates. Inevitably, you will always desire what they take. One day, I think, you will come to resent me for my actions.”

“I do not, and I will not,” she said, as if she were insulted he suggested it. “Can you not forgive yourself as easily as you have forgiven me? We have all made mistakes, Hades.”

He searched her gaze, uncertain of what he was looking for, but only felt her love and kindness peering back. Despite how hard it had been to handle her trusting view of the world, it was also something he admired about her. She reminded him of the good that existed, no matter how little.

He brought his mouth to hers and guided her to the soft ground. She felt so good beneath him, and his body filled with a delicious heat as her eager hands sought an opening in his robes. He drew in a ragged breath when she found his length, already throbbing with need, and jerked him up and down. Each time her palm smoothed over the head of his cock, he felt light-headed, but he kissed her harder and moved his hips, thrusting into her grasp until she released him and gathered the ridiculous cloud of tulle around her waist and guided him to her heat. Once he was inside, he lowered himself onto his elbows, his face only inches from hers, and began to move.

She shuddered on his first thrust and then moaned on the second. By the third, her head was pressed into the ground, and his mouth was on her neck, scouring her skin.

Fuck, she felt sogood, and it took everything in him to set a steady pace, to not drive into her as he had last night.

He had been a different person then, someone far more primal and possessive, but this…this felt like a claim of its own, a promise of something far greater than what had already been taken away.