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The scent of need that had poured from her for months is now gone. In its place is a sweeter scent. It is not the scent of madness and hunger that drives a man to insanity. To possession.

But it is a slow, gentle need. Like quenching a desert thirst with cool water.

With her like this, my mind is my own. My actions are my own.

I do not miss or crave that overwhelming sense of need in which I was helpless to sate, to take.

She moves over me slowly. Her hips roll into mine, her breaths fanning across my lips, promising a kiss that finally comes. It is sweet and soul deep, like all her kisses.

Outside, Hydra casts a shadow over the moons that peer down on the land. Now that her pain does not bind her to the sinkhole, she is free. She is taking advantage of her freedom in the sky, spreading her wine-red wings wide.

Unable to help myself, I rock my hips up to meet Persephone’s slow thrust. I watch as her full mouth parts, her eyes fluttering closed. She pulls a breath into her lungs, her chest swelling with it.

She is beautiful.

I will live another millennia with her by my side, and I will never not think that she is the most beautiful creature who has ever lived.

Her slow love making is a wonderful torment, but I am at the end of what I can handle.

I sit up, my mouth connecting with the smooth skin of her neck in a kiss I know burns. And yet she does not wince away from my touch. She never winces away from my touch, not in this life.

In this life, the heat of Tartarus does not touch her as it did even when she was protected by the flesh of a Goddess. She is immune, truly crafted to stand as the lover of the God who lives beneath my skin.

I press an open-mouthed kiss to her neck, traveling to the underside of her jaw and then her cheek. She twists, her lips seeking mine.

She kisses me back, echoing all the love and need that I feel for her.

I drive higher into her, thrusting harder.

I'm edging release, but I can sense she's not there with me.

With my hands curling in her red hair, I flip her onto her back, driving into her body harder. Grinding, sinking, claiming.

She moans.

“Hades.” My name is delicious sin on her lips.

She opens her body to me, spreading her legs wider, pulling me deeper. And still, that thing that she is keeping from me—whatever it is—scratches at the back of my mind.

I know she is keeping secrets. I've known it since she relayed the sketches on the walls inside Hydra’s caves.

I've known it since she told the Gods who stand on our side in this war what she saw—what her ancient soul carved—visions given from the Moirai; visions we've all agreed cannot come to pass.

And yet that terrifies me. Because in all that she relayed, there is something she keeps.

I've seen it in the way Hydra meets her eyes, urging her to speak the truth she fears.

I've seen it in the way Persephone looks away, avoiding the truth she cannot speak. I've seen it in the way she gazes out into nothing.

This past week, I've seen it in the pain that flashes in her eyes, the tears she refused to let fall.

Something is wrong.

My mate is keeping something from me. Something important.

I thrust harder and faster inside her. My tongue tangles with hers, silently urging the secrets she keeps from the depths of her aching soul to the surface where I might uncover them.

Her nails rake into the skin of my back. My fingertips bite into the flesh of her hips.