Page 37 of Hades and Persephone: The Giftless Goddess (Gods of Myth #4)
Chapter
Thirty-Three
H ades
She’s troubled, I sense her unease as Hypnos wades us through the mess of her dreams. Tendrils of darkness creep along bright whips of light, as though fearful the lash it may bring, cowed by the glow.
From every direction, a horrified sound slaps back at her.
Screams, sharp and flooded with fear. Her eyes are wide, her head whipping side to side.
She is restless in sleep.
I ache to comfort her even as something darker, something violent, surges inside me. I have half a mind to tear through the wards that keep me from entering the realm in which was once, so long ago and for such a short while, my home.
If I could get my hands on Zeus now, I would take my time peeling the flesh from his meat, unspooling muscle and tendon to the black of his Gods’ bone.
I would revel in the symphony of his agony and encapsule his vicious soul so that he could watch as all the world forgot his name.
As all memory of him was wiped from history.
I would watch him fall into the despair of madness; his starved soul wrapped in isolation for all of eternity.
I would revel in every moment of his suffering, for the pain he’s caused Persephone. My mate.
Beside me, Hypnos touches his ghostly hand to my wrist. A tether of braided white and black, like vines of smoke and fog push from his fingertips to clasp my wrist.
“I will leave you now,” he tells me. “Follow the threads of my soul back.”
I look at my friend, nodding once. And then I watch as the form of him begins to fade and shrink, as though he’s moving backwards through a tunnel without any end or light in sight.
When I can no longer see or feel Hypnos, I turn back to Persephone. She lays in a bed that isn’t mine, and the sight alone has another surge of anger rising.
She doesn’t belong here, in this bed. In this realm.
She whimpers, her cry small and pained. I take a step closer but stop, sickness swelling, as the blankets beside her shift.
A hand snakes out to touch her back and a possession unlike any I’ve ever felt before in all my centuries flares red-hot and blinding inside me.
Jealous rage has flames edging my vision, and I hear a familiar voice whisper softly, “Just a dream, Persephone. You’re safe. ”
The hand on her back comes into focus as Persephone settles under the comforting touch blended with the soothing sound of Leuce’s tired words.
My gaze shifts from Persephone to Leuce in the bed beside her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the nymph look so tired as she flops onto her back, her hand sliding from Persephone as she slides back into troubled sleep.
For them, Olympus is clearly a place of torment.
But we don’t have much time. Hypnos had tried for hours to connect me to Persephone. For hours, she’d fallen in and out of sleep. Pulled from the peace of her dreams into the terror of her nightmares only to wake and shove us both from her mind.
I’d nearly lost my mind and Hypnos had nearly lost hope in his ability to connect to her, something I didn’t think the God of Dreams’ ego took kindly to.
Persephone whimpers again, but this time I waste no time in touching my own hands to her skin. I curse low at the feel of her icy flesh under my burning touch. Why is she so cold?
Lifting her into my arms, I envision our bed in our room. I envision the glowing ceiling of amethyst and the fall of stars that rain to the daggered points of the crystal.
In the weeks since Persephone has been gone, Hypnos has schooled me more than once on the workings of a dream. Particularly, how to guide a dream in a specific direction.
All I want now is to guide us home. Away from Olympus. Away from everything that causes her lovely soul distress.
It doesn’t take long for my desires to form around us, and as I lower her to the comfort of our bed her beautiful eyes finally flutter open.
Her hair is a golden blonde, and I ache for the familiar red that is the color of her hair while at home in the Underworld.
The sight of the blonde now reminds me that we aren’t truly in our bed in our room.
That she is not truly here with me in my arms.
That she is not truly safe.
“Hades?” Her brows pull in as she shoves up onto her elbows. Her eyes drift over the room and she stutters, “Wh-what’s happening? Am I—am I home?”
Fuck, home.
“You’re dreaming.”
“What?” Her brows slant in confusion.
“Hypnos connected us.”
“Hypnos,” she repeats, soft and slow. “Connected us?”
“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”
Her eyes narrow, and I can’t entirely fight the smile that hitches my lips as she demands, “How do you know I’ve not been sleeping?”
“Because I’ve been trying to connect with you in your dreams for weeks.”
She sighs, falling back against the pillows. I follow, crawling up her body on the bed so that I can continue to look down into her face.
Hell, but I’ve missed her face.
The last couple weeks have been torture. I don’t know how I survived without her for centuries.
“Olympus isn’t a nice place, Hades. It’s—there is evil lurking within all the light.” She shivers, and a low growl climbs my throat in response. Her eyes snap to mine when the sound crawls between us.
I can no longer resist tasting her, and I’m thankful that when I cover her mouth with my own, she opens for me as she always opens for me.
And she tastes as she always tastes. Sweet with those floral undertones that drive me wild.
The sound of her moan shoots blood straight to my cock. When she lifts her hands to grip me around my neck, tugging me closer, I’m helpless against the groan I bury into the soft skin of her throat. We may be dreaming, but this feels entirely real and so, so fucking good.
“Hades.” The sound of my name on her lips now, after the days and days of torture—it’s almost more than I can bear. “Oh, God.”
“Yes, little goddess.” I nip at her skin, reveling in the little gasp that freefalls from her lips into the space between us. “I’m your God.”
“Yes,” she vows. “Only you. Only ever you for as long as I live.”
“You will live for eternity,” I promise. My hands hook the hem of her night dress and I push it up and over her head, baring her to me.
Her flesh is more tanned than it is when she is home in the Underworld, her hair golden, her eyes a brighter, lighter green as she looks up at me with kiss swollen lips a softer shade of rose than the darker stain of night-kissed red that paints her lips under the glow of everlasting night.
Still, she is no less lovely.
“I could look at you for the rest of eternity,” I rasp, emotion threatening to seal my throat.
“These last weeks—it’s like I’m walking around with no air.
The beat of my heart is dull, an echo of the life I feel when you are home with me.
” My lips drift over hers, whisper soft.
“I do not wish to live, to suffer the burn of breathing, without you.”
Her fingertips sink into my hair. She holds my face between her hands, her eyes capturing my own. I could drown in their pools of endless green if it meant I would forever be surrounded by her loving warmth.
“I love you, Hades.” Her words are a vow I entomb in the deepest depths of my heart. “I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.”
The swell of emotion, like the surging wave of an uncontrolled sea, takes me by surprise. Never in my life have I been so swiftly cut to the quick by an overload of affection for anyone. Not even for her. It’s new, this overwhelm. This complete sensation of absolute need to be one with her.
“I need to be inside you.” The words rush to fall between us. “I need?—”
“Me too.” She spreads her legs around me, her hands no longer in my hair but pushing at the pants I wear. My cock springs free, instantly finding the slick wet of her sweet heat.
I sink inside in one quick thrust, rooting myself deep inside her and reveling in the little cry she lets loose.
I groan at the feel of her, taking her lips in a deep kiss as I stay buried, unmoving inside her. She is heaven. Being inside her, above her, around her, with her— is heaven .
I’m pulled back from the brink of bliss when her body rocks with a sharp sob that splits from the deep of her.
My head notches up and my eyes search hers in the seconds before she pulls me to her, sealing us together chest to chest as she buries her face in the crook of my throat.
Another sharp sob, her body tightening around and beneath mine.
“Little goddess?”
“I just miss you so much,” she gasps. “I want—I wish this was real.”
“This is real.” I press a kiss into her golden hair, swallowing the burning ache for the red. “I’m here with you right now.”
“In my dream,” she cries. “You’re here in my dream, but all I want is to be home with you.”
“I’ll find a way to storm Olympus,” I vow. “Even if I have to burn the realm to the ground with the flames of Tartarus, I will find a way to destroy the deal that stands between us. I’ll bring you home.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t.”
“I can.”
“No.” Her palm in my chest pushes me back so that her eyes can find mine. “There is something here that is meant to be—meant to live.” She shakes her head. “But right now, I need you. I need you to make love to me, Hades. Remind me that I’m not alone.”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I pull back and sink in, growling low, “You will never be alone, little goddess. You will always have me.”
“Always,” she gasps as I pull back and sink in again. “I love you.”
“I’ve always loved you.” I press a kiss to her forehead, her lips, her chin and down the line of her throat.
I kiss her chest, between her breasts and listen to the roar of her heart that soothes the rage in my own like a balm crafted solely for me.
I make love to my wife, the eternal keeper of my soul. My bonded mate. My Goddess.