Page 23

Chapter

Twenty

H ades

I sent Leuce and Minthe to tell Ares that Persephone would be ready tomorrow. If I have no choice but to give her to them as per the deal of the seasons, and I can’t convince her to stay at my peril, then I will at least have one final night with her.

It may very well be my last.

No. No, I will not think such thoughts. They are poison.

But Ares is dangerous. He is a ruthless God with little compassion and diabolical interests. I can’t see a future in which he becomes good .

He is a monster. He’s always been a monster, hungry for blood and death and destruction. One only has to look into the wars of human history to see the truth of such claims. Ares was there at the heart of them all.

And yet, when the Moirai pulled the souls of the Gods from the cauldron to bind to my daughters’ souls, I’d recognized one of them as Ares’ God of War. One of my daughters had been bound in a soul bond, a bond stronger than the bond of soul mates, to the God of War.

I’m not sure I’ve had a moment of true peace since.

Persephone lets loose a sigh that tightens the knots of unease around my heart.

I watch as she wastes no time loosening the ties of her dress.

The material falls to the floor around her feet, leaving her entirely bare.

There is the slightest swell to her lower belly.

A swell that infuses my heart with too much emotion. So much, I fear it may very well burst.

She steps from the pool of fabric to the warmth of the bathing pool, sinking her body into the water. Her eyes, so lovely and green, never leave mine.

The veins of magma surge faster as heat rises from the core of me. My cock begins to harden, lengthening for her.

My muscles coil with desire. Every part of her calls to me, calls to the want inside me. To the man, the beast, the God . All of me is addicted to her, craves her. Aches to possess her, to be possessed by her.

She is everything—mine. And I am hers.

Her eyes roam over my Gods’ Form, igniting with need I ache to satisfy. But tonight, I want her as a man. Skin to skin, soft and slow.

I want to make love to my wife.

She's always been my wife from her very first life, the vows stand true still.

I inhale deeply through my nose and scent her .

She smells of spring and life and sweetness. Under it all, there is a musky scent of warm desire I do not have the strength to deny. It's not the same need that spilled from her body to tease and taunt me. The need that drove me to take her as a beast.

This is natural. Her desire is not a desire woven by fate, manipulated by higher powers for a future in which we are pawns for the crafting of a new world.

This desire is inherently hers. It is warm and nurturing and soft.

It is everything that I want to sink into and lose myself in. It is her, love. My soul mate.

My fingers curl into fists as my beast form hums with need. I try again to center myself. Try again to soothe the raging flame that roars inside me.

I will not go to her in this form, not tonight.

When Hydra had flown with her on her back into the black mountain, fear unlike anything I'd ever known had expunged every ounce of rational thought.

Never in all my centuries had I transformed from man to God so quickly, so viciously.

I've tried multiple times to change back and failed.

I'd been so agitated, so afraid, I'd been unable to take the form of a man.

Now, finally, I feel that agitation soothing as I stare at my woman, my little goddess. My wife.

Finally, the tendrils of black smoke that curl around my body drift inward as though feasted upon by the magma in my veins. It's not long after that I feel the morphing, the change. The lessening.

Hard, rock-like black muscle softens to the flesh of man. The raging beat of my heart soothes to the symphony of humanity.

She smiles a slow smile that calls to me.

She invites softly, “Come to me, Hades.”

Her eyes never leave me, the hunger never fading. If I could look at one thing for eternity, it would be her just like this. With need and hunger for me burning in the depths of her eyes. With love and surrender and trust .

She is everything.

She is my everything.

She is centuries of dreams and wants wrapped up in the fragility of one small human woman.

The thought is terrifying.

I want to fall to my knees and beg for her soul, but something stays me. Something other .

It is not the time.

I am not sure if the thought is my own or planted there. I simply know it is true, even as I wish to deny it.

I bid her request as I begin to move slowly into the pool. Again, her eyes stay fixed on mine.

She is so beautiful, so sweet, and so mine .

I cradle her head in my hands, marveling at how delicate she is. How fragile and yet how strong. Her soul is iron encased in velvet.

Somehow, she is the one who will save us all.

I pray. I'm not even sure who or what I pray to, but I pray that in the end, she will not be forced to sacrifice all of herself for all of life .

Her full lips, stained a decadent deep red, part. She whispers a shaky whisper that strokes my very soul. “Kiss me.”

Who am I to deny?

I have spent my life as a God, but she somehow strips me down until I am only man. Bent to her beautiful will.

Lowering my head, I cover her mouth with my own. She sighs a sigh I am helpless not to swallow, and the warmth of it curls around my soul.

She is kindling to the everlasting fire that burns inside me, feeding the realm we both love so deeply.

I lift her into my arms and water splashes between our bodies as she locks her legs around my waist. Her arms tighten around my shoulders and my head tips back as she deepens the kiss, taking from me all that she desires. All that she needs.

All that she demands.

I want to be her everything, as she is mine.

Words climb from the depths of my being to pour past my lips into her.

“I love you, little goddess. I am so in love with you, I cannot imagine—cannot fathom a life in which you do not exist. If I lost you again, I’m not sure I would have the strength to carry the realm.

To carry myself .” I kiss her again. “If I lost you, I fear I would allow the flames of Tartarus engulf me from the inside. Engulf everything, because living without you is no life. I have done it, for centuries, and I know this to be true.”

Her hands move to cup my face. Her lovely eyes search mine. There is a little frown between her brow that drives a blade of emotion between my ribs. I’ve displeased her, and I do not like to displease her.

“Don’t think of losing me. You’ll never lose me.”

“I’ve already lost you once.” I am so desperate to keep her here with me, safe, even though I know she will leave. She will travel to Olympus where I cannot go. Where I cannot protect her.

She shakes her head. “No. I wasn’t gone. I wasn’t lost. I was traveling a path I needed to travel so that I could become who I am today. So that I could love you and you could love me freely . So that the binds of our past could no longer hold us locked in the prison of torment we called love.”

“I’ve always loved you.”

“It was a prison.” There’s a sheen in her eyes now that threatens to spill over. “It was a prison we were both trapped in, and when I died, we were set free. We were set free from everything Demeter and Zeus did to us. Free to truly love and be loved the way we were always intended to love.”

Never, not once, have I looked at the tragedy of our past through this lens.

“You are so beautiful.” My eyes roam over her, but I’m speaking of more than her external beauty. I marvel at the wonder of her exquisite mind. The softness in which her thoughts take form. “I am so in love with you.”

Persephone touches her lips to mine. They are so soft against my much rougher lips. She is so small in my arms, and yet there is immeasurable strength living inside her.

She doesn’t pull away from my kiss. “I love you, Hades. All the dark and wonderful parts of you.”

She deepens the kiss, opening to me and stroking her tongue against mine.

That fire that lives inside me, present both in man and beast, floods every inch of me.

It leaches from my flesh to invade hers and she moans, always so eager for my flame.

So untouched by the harm it bestows to every other soul.

When her hips rock into mine, searching for a connection only I can give her, another surge of blood rushes to the already hard, already engorged piece of me that was crafted to fit exclusively inside her. The piece that was intended to connect two as one.

Breath shudders from my lungs as need hums under my skin, rippling, alive. I kiss a path from her lips, down the line of her jaw, to her neck.

Her head falls back, and her body lowers just enough to graze my sensitive tip with the swell of her ass. I jerk my hips, stroking my needy tip in the crack of her ass. She moans and the scent of her arousal nearly steals my control.

I watch as she shoves her hands between our bodies, angling her hips so her core is in line with my tip. Then I watch as the hard length of me sinks inside her.

So fucking beautiful. So fucking perfect.

She moans. The sound of it is music that feeds the ravenous hunger for her that yawns in my soul. Pleasure grips me and my control slips, as I pull out and sink inside her tight warmth once again.

Gathering her in my arms, chest to chest, I kiss her as I rock a rhythm of love that has survived centuries into her body.

She takes every thrust, meeting me in this place of blissful insanity that only true lovers can know.

There is clarity in this insanity, hope that all will work out as it should.

That all we have sacrificed and all we will sacrifice will be worth it in the end.

That in the end, true good will win. That in the end, the world—Gods and humanity alike—will see through the forgery of good to the evil that lurks beneath. That love will prevail.

I bow my face into the nook of her neck, sealing a sob against her smooth flesh as I thrust long and slow into her body.

I lose myself tonight inside her. I let myself, for the first time in as long as I can remember, shed every ounce of armor I cling to.

I let myself be vulnerable with her, because with my very heart and soul wrapped up in her, I’ve never been more vulnerable.

Not even in the belly of the monster who sired me.

I make love to her over and over until her body can take no more, and she falls into sleep. Even then, I yearn for her.

Even as I pull her close, and she sighs warmly against my chest in sleep, I can’t ignore the cool swell of dread that rises inside me. Can’t ignore the blooming fear I feel in the face of the future I cannot flee from.

I press my lips to her forehead, a palm to her belly where the souls of my daughters grow. And again, I pray to the Fates for mercy.