Page 105

Her hand connects with my cheek, the flames in her eyes dulling to the galaxy of her Goddess’ eyes, dawn-touched in a realm of night.

She smiles a soft and pained smile as she touches her palm to the earth where our babies forever lay. An arc of pain lashes quick inside my chest. I’m not sure if it is hers or my own. I only know that there is a quiet but strong peace that follows.

“They’re happy and so, so loved.”

Through the emotion that threatens to suffocate me, I nod. “Yes.”

“And they’ll know us, Hades. One day.” Her eyes shine with a universe of emotion, but through it dawn breaks like hope. “One day, our girls will know us.”

“Yes,” I confirm again.

I place my palm on hers over the grave of our daughters, and at the contact, the earth splits.

Shallow creeks cut the land like arteries stemming from the heart. Their stone beds glitter under the shimmer of night. The veins all colored in differing hues, brightnesses, and colors. Blue, galaxy purple, night black and veined in deepest blue, pure pink, and sun gold. The colors of the blessed twins ofus.

The colors of consciousness.

They stem from the Tree of Life as arteries from the heart of all that live, spreading through the entirety of the Underworld.

The urge to drink deep from the streams is so strong, I am unable to deny the pull to cup my hands and drink. Beside me, Persephone does the same.

Instantly, I know what this is. The elusive stream of consciousness and everlasting life. The life of the soul. Thememoryof the soul.

The beginning of everything.

Epilogue - Part One

Hera

Blood beads on his golden chest as I ride him, taking from him all that has ever been taken from me under the vicious rule of his father, my brother.My husband.

For the first time in centuries, I don’t have to hide my attraction to my adopted son. Hercules is inside me, and the doors are thrown wide for all the realm to hear my moans of pleasure. My cries of desire finally unmuffled after millennia of pain and tears shed for the public to consume.

Finally, without Zeus, I can demand the power I am owed. The power that has always been rightfully mine.

I pull out and roll my hips around his tip. My lips curl to the sharp hiss of pleasure that splits from between Hercules’ straight white teeth. His gold wings, so much like his father’s wings are bound with gold rope I have curled around my fists.

I like the sound of his pain when I tug, revel in the feeling of power that blooms in the wake of his submission.

I sink over him again, feeling the tip of him in my womb that has been barren for centuries, just the way I like it.

A soft click and the door breezes open. There is only one who would dare interrupt me now, and as I look over my shoulder to see my sister strolling closer, I ride the demigod harder.

He groans and I moan, wetter now that she is here. Demeter. The heart in my chest that I’ve kept eternally hidden.

Her hand sinks in my hair and she tugs my face to the side, kissing me deeply. I ride Hercules harder, tugging on the ropes that bind his wings and reveling in his cry of pain as I clench around his cock, my core filling with hot seed that will forever remain dead in my cold womb.

Demeter pulls back, her wheat-colored eyes and scent of sun scorched earth invading the air in my lungs. Her hand is still tangled in my hair when she speaks. “We did it, sister. We finally did it.”

My lips curl. “Zeus is gone.”

“And now it’s our time to rule.”

Excitement is a match that strikes the spill of oil inside me. Dark and violent and decadently delicious.

“But it’s not over,” I breathe. New need spilling in the deep of me.

“It won’t be over until we possess all the realms.” Demeter replaces Hercules’ cock with three fingers—and‘ahhh, so good’.