Page 50

Chapter

Forty-Three

H ades

Even as she wipes away her tears, more fall. I can taste her grief with every breath she expels. It permeates the air, feeding my own.

But even as I ache for all I have lost; my body responds to the situation. Behind my lips, my fangs lengthen.

Overhead, the Moirai depart, but they leave behind their magic which ignites the Tree of Life in the everlasting glow of the power that pulses inside the cauldron of souls.

The tree shimmers so brightly under the teal light, it’s almost as though it now burns in blue flames that feed rather than destroy.

“The power of the twins’ sacrifice will forever feed the quenching flames that burn life into the Elysian Tree.

Their bodies will never decay, but instead become one with the roots the Tree of Life.

It is connected and fed deep underground by a spring which suckles from the cauldron of souls.

They knew their fate, their sacrifice, before they took their first breaths.

Like all souls, the contract was written and signed on the soul.

This is their choice. Their great sacrifice, and it is the beginning of unity. ”

I know without asking that the words sound in Persephone’s mind as they do mine. Sharp pain scores into the beauty of her face where grief I wish I could carry for her already lives.

“I can feel it, Hades.” She moves closer to me, close enough that I don’t hesitate to pull her into the circle of my arms. “My soul feels it.”

“As does mine.” I don’t tell her I’ve felt this need, this ache to pull the part of her that has always been missing from me into myself. To fuse myself so completely to her that there is no end of me and beginning of her. That we become one as we were always intended to be.

Her eyes flick to the crowd, and red climbs in her face.

I can feel the Gods and Goddesses who have devoted their gifts and eternal life to the workings of the Underworld, calling this realm home, standing close.

I can feel their eyes on us. And beyond them I sense the souls of the realm waiting as this moment of monumental history is made.

Somewhere deep in Asphodel City, I can feel the ground break as another statue in the colors of a bright dawn-touched galaxy is birthed from the realm. Us. Together. As one. Soul bound.

Persephone’s eyes tip upward a moment before her hands rise overhead.

Following the path of her hands in the arc from her sides to the sky is that same color of a dawn-touched galaxy.

I realise then that it’s the same colors that overtook her eyes when she created the realm in which was promised to Uranus.

It is the power of her. Of Chaos inside her.

The haze of it deepens until it’s just us and the glowing blue tree inside the dome of a star struck sky with brushstrokes of mauve touched by the dawn. All sound of the realm is cut off, and we are left alone to this moment in which our souls have forever been guiding us.

I touch her face gently, my heart squeezing as she leans into my palm.

She whispers, “My heart hurts so much.”

I wish I could make it better. “I know.”

Her hand comes to my chest, and she lays her palm on my heart. Her eyes flick up to mine, glassy with emotion and the ocean of tears I know she could cry. “You’re hurting, too.”

I can’t speak, so I just tug her closer. She settles into my chest and together we stand solid in our grief.

The longer we stand like this, the deeper the need to have all of her connected to me burns. My fangs lengthen, aching. My blood burns in my veins.

Persephone’s hands curl in my shirt as she tips her head to the side, offering me her throat. Hot venom drips onto my tongue.

She whispers, “Make it better. Give me something other than the pain in my heart.”

I don’t deny her. I don’t have the power to deny her.

I never have.

Holding her gently, I lick the skin of her throat with my tongue, spreading the venom. She gasps, lovely lips parting. “It burns.”

“Is it too much?” My voice is so rough, struck with longing and pain. It’s an odd combination I am unsure how to cope with.

She nods, breathes. “In a good way. I think I need the pain right now.”

A shudder of longing pulses through my body as I pull her closer, crushing her to me.

Desire heats my blood, but she is human and has just given birth.

And the desire that pulses inside me isn’t that of a sexual nature, but instead it is a desire of a soul connection.

My soul—my entity—aches to sink inside hers.

To wrap myself so completely up in her that there is truly no unthreading the strings of fate which weave us.

I don’t hesitate as I lower my lips to the quickening flutter of her pulse in her throat.

She inhales sharp and quick. I sink my fangs deep and her breath stutters and stalls.

The sensation of sheathing my venom coated fangs deep in the warmth of her skin is akin to thrusting my cock into the warmth of her womb.

Waves of pleasure erupt in an overload of sensation.

Her head lolls back on a moan that is both pained and bursting with pleasure. I cradle her head in the palm of my hand, angling her for a deeper invasion.

Blood, sticky and sweet like the nectar that is the source of all life, floods my tongue.

I drink deep, so deep. With every swallow, I seal the deal that is the binding of our souls.

It is an ancient contract drawn from the essence of the stars.

Whispers of her soul taunt the venom which seeks it for its own.

A dance of push and pull, of submission and binding takes place in the moments before her soul is bound to the venom I pull from her blood and into my belly.

When I am so full of pleasure, of her , I pull my fangs from her throat on a groan that rips into the folds of time and space and consciousness.

The pleasure is more than an orgasm. It crashes in wave after wave through my body and mind and spirit.

Pleasure turns me inside out, sewing sense into the pain of loss as I see a glimpse into a future that must be .

I don’t think it takes long to come down from my high. My vision sharpens on the tiny woman in my arms. She gasps on the brink of death, chest heaving with breaths that burn.

I steal this selfish moment to glimpse the woman as she will never be again. My tiny human. So soft and vulnerable.

So alive .

When her eyes flutter closed, the last threads of her life unable to hold them open a moment longer, I shred the flesh of my wrist with my fangs and press the wound to her pale pink lips. Blood trickles between her lips onto her tongue.

“Swallow for me, little goddess,” I urge, and sigh in relief when she does.

She swallows once and then again and again. The weakness fades for a strength she has never before possessed as that dance of venom and soul battle again with my own. There is submission and binding between me and her until we are no longer two, but one.

Now, the threads of my life are entirely bound to her life as hers is bound to me. Her suffering will be mine. My pleasure will be hers. Our fate is linked eternally.

She pulls her mouth from my wrist on a moan of pleasure that I feel deep inside me.

Wave after wave of it rolls through all of me again and again until I am to overcome to stand.

I lay her down where the bodies of our daughters will forever rest, and my heart feels a little less sore as I pull their mother into the circle of my arms. She lays, panted breaths spilling from her bloodstained lips.

And she is no longer human. She is Goddess. Immortal.

She is so incredibly beautiful.

Her eyes tip up to mine and all breath rushes from my lungs. In the galaxy of her eyes flames dance.

“I saw them, Hades.” She breathes. “Did you?”

I nod, but I can’t speak. I’m enraptured by the devastating beauty that is the aweing power of her. Of us.

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 of us .

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. The memory of the soul.

The beginning of everything.