Page 7

Chapter

Seven

H ades

Being inside her is everything. For millennia, I lived in the prison of my father's stomach. For millennia, the shrapnel of my soul warded off the acrid acid of his belly—but I was not unscathed. My soul had been worn to tatters, bruised and on the cusp of ruin. My formative years stunted under the crushing fear of a Titan’s collapse.

Then I emerged into the world in which had fallen into great corruption. I was swiftly employed to fight alongside my brothers in a battle that would see me no glory.

I roamed, for eons, lost. I had no home or purpose.

And then I was given Tartarus to swallow. From the regurgitation spilled the foundations of the Underworld. It had been a place of desolate pain and sorrow and darkness.

I roamed.

My only company was the screams and the sorrow of the souls who had lived and lost. The souls who had died to find nothing in the life after. Until her.

Until she poured love and life into Tartarus, birthing the Underworld as we know it today. As I hope to always know it.

I have been in many places.

I have lived in many places.

I have fought and warred in many places, and yet, the only place I have felt home in all the realms is inside her.

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.

I thrust harder, deeper, grazing the womb from which her innocence birthed a realm.

She cries out. I moan.

And then we come undone together, shattering. Pieces of us explode like stars into the sky only to settle like dust in the aftermath of our lovemaking.

I waste no time gathering her into my arms, against my chest. I do not want to let her escape me this time.

For the last week, she loves me and leaves me quickly.

She is grieving, that much I know. I simply do not know what she grieves. I do not know why she doesn't tell me.

Something happened in that cave with Hydra. Something happened that hurt her. The thought sours the afterglow of having her.

My fingers tangle in her hair, and she sighs against my chest.

“I am taking you to see the Moirai.”

She stiffens, and then she peels her face from my chest to look at me.

Her deep green eyes are troubled, and the tiny wrinkle between them tells me she's terrified. But I don't think she's terrified of the Moirai.

I think she's terrified of what they might reveal to me. That they might uncover the secrets she keeps.

She finally responds. Her voice is soft with the undertones of pain. “I don't want to.”

“We don't have a choice.” I force the words through the blade that cuts me deep. Her pain is mine. It will always be mine. “We need to discuss those carvings on the cave walls.”

“I told you everything I saw.”

“We both know that's not true.” She stiffens. I hold her eyes. “I know there's something you're not telling me.”

She sniffles, cutting her eyes from mine.

“Hades, please.”

“Persephone, this is important.” I know she knows this.

“Those carvings foretell that you will return to Olympus. That you will walk the halls with Zeus and Demeter.” The very idea is enough to spill fire through me.

I know my skin heats. I know she feels it.

But somehow, it does not scorch her even as it threatens to incinerate the very bed we lay on.

I force myself to cool as I ask, “Is that not what you saw on the walls of that cave?”

“It is but?—”

“No buts. We don't have time for buts.” Tension is growing inside me. “We must take action, and we must take it quickly. The Moirai gave you those visions for a reason.”

“Hades.”

“They pulled you to Tartarus—to Hydra—for a reason. So that you would again see those carvings. So that we would be prepared for what is to come.”

“Hades—” There is sorrow in my name on her tongue.

I've never hated the sound of anything more.

I sigh, pleading, “What aren't you telling me, little goddess?”

Her eyes mist, and she pulls her body from mine. Her hands find the sheets crafted of the weeping pines, and she gathers them around her body, hiding herself from me. The God inside me simmers.

I remain still, patient, waiting.

Finally, her voice so small, she whispers, “I'm pregnant.”