Page 19 of His in the Dark

PERSEPHONE

I did not wish to see it. I knew of course. I can admit that to myself. I’ve heard the tales. I know the God Hades is. But to witness it… I could never have imagined the pain he so easily delivered.

The cracking is what led me. I swear I hear it more and more down the dark obsidian halls. I know not what it is but I followed it to the darkest corners and the ancient wooden door was parted, granting me entry as Minox fled. It led me to witness the kind of God Hades truly is.

I have never seen Hades like that before. Nor any God. There is fury and wrath, there are stories as well, even of my father and his brutality. But I have yet to witness such things, guarded by my dear mother.

I know as soon as I leave the torture chamber that I might have made a mistake. I do not know exactly what the mistake was , and I do not know how to fix it.

I do not know if I should fix it.

There is a darkness I innately wish to fight against and he embodies that. At the same time … I am drawn to it but fearful. What plagues me now? Another spell that drains me?

For a few moments, I consider returning to him. To speak freely and demand his attention. I do believe he would assert that darkness against me. That he would listen to me if only to hear me speak to him. There is a power I know I have over him. I do not even know why I stand so against him in that moment. I am tormented myself.

But more screams echo into the hallway. The whip cracks down against a soul’s flesh. The man—the soul—whoever it is lets out an anguished sound, and I picture Hades’s face. There was something raw in his expression. Something I had not seen before. Something painful in his words as well.

If I press him, will I learn more, or will he push me away? Sure that it would be the latter, I do not go back in. It feels like a delicate balance. One move could ruin everything and I lack this knowledge of what is to come.

With haste and tears in my eyes, I go back to his bedchambers, rather than walking on the path, and pace around in a circle on the rug. The debate in my mind circles with me. I saw something about him that I had not known was there.

I wish to see it grow although it torments me and some parts of me stand against it. I wish to see it rise out of the grounds of Hades’s realms and bloom. What shape would it take if it did? I shake my head, trying to settle my thoughts. It is strange to think of him as someone with secrets that could grow and change. He has seemed to be solid and unchanging. Uncompromising.

I pace around the rug some more, then force myself to stand still and breathe deeply.

I’m still standing there when a single footstep in the hall catches my full attention. A warmth runs through me but then a chilling cold. I turn toward it, moving without thinking.

Hades is at the threshold. He stops, studying the bells I enchanted, then brushes a finger across them. The chime they make is light and welcoming—so unlike the rough, almost anguished tone of his voice when I found him at his work.

He lowers his hand slowly and meets my eyes. “Your magic, my queen?”

I swallow a sudden lump in my throat and nod. Dried blood is splashed against the cream vestment under his black robe. I imagine the robe itself is also disturbed in such ways.

Hades nods in acknowledgement. For a moment, the quiet between us is charged with possibility.

“It pleases me,” he says finally, then enters, closing the door behind him. Hades goes through to the bathroom and shuts that door as well. Softly, the water runs and I take it that he’s washing away what happened. Although I don’t believe I can do so easily.

As soon as he is out of sight, I move, my heart fluttering and my hands shaking. I’m sure now that I am in the wrong. Something I said in that room, or something I did—perhaps even something he saw in my eyes—it was not what I should have done. My blood singes with a feeling of betrayal and guilt.

I’ve been filled with fear and anger, and lately with all Silvie could tell me about magic, and there is something I have missed.

Or something that Hades has kept from me. Something I did not know how to ask about. The conversation we had brought it to the surface in a way I have not seen before.

My nerves force my hands to tremble when the running water is silenced.

And wasn’t Silvie right? I have found power here. Look at the enchantments on the bells. I have found respect here, too. I am not confined to a cage, but may look upon Hades’s realms. I may speak to the souls there.

I do not need to keep anything hidden, unlike in Olympus.

This is a seemingly simple thing, but it hits me like a great gust of wind or a bolt of lightning. I might have been able to convince myself that I hid nothing on Olympus, but what I kept hidden was the most important thing—the failure of my powers. I prayed in secret over those. I did not go to my mother in transparency, I went in desperation and still refrained from truthfulness. I spent hours trying to force my powers to obey my commands out of sight of anyone. The only person I confided in was Beatrice.

I did not walk the paths there, greeting those I met with a nod and a smile. I hurried from place to place, thinking only of my magic and how I would stop it from fading completely, or how I would get it back.

And here…

Here, in Hades’s realms…

It is not so different than it has been, but it feels like everything has changed. I undress, laying my silk garments over the back of the lone chair, and slide under the plush blankets. The sheets are cool on my naked skin. I do not pull them close to my chest. I just lie there, struggling to calm myself, thoughts buzzing in my mind.

About Hades. About me. About what I crave from him and what he craves from me.

About my purpose. About his . About his promise of my powers and about the magic I have found.

The way he said, It seems you’ve found your strength. He did not even need to look at me. He sees me in other ways and I do the same to him, but what I see is startling.

How his eyes went black with an emotion I dare not name when he said you know not what you do.

All these thoughts and more speed through my mind. An eternity seems to pass before Hades returns to the room and approaches the bed. His chest is bare, a smattering of hair that I crave to touch above his hardened muscles. The lights in the room dim, which gives me only a little relief. It is not so dark that I cannot see him although the shadows only outline the curves of his muscles in a seductive way. The corded lines of his arms and the strained veins that promise his powerful touch. They all tempt me. His flesh is divine, my Lord of the Dead and Damned.

He watches me, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathes.

Summoning all my courage, I lower the sheets, baring myself to him as he likes. The air in the bedroom is slightly cooler than the sheets, but my nipples are already peaked. That might’ve happened when he entered the room. That would not be surprising, because what moves between us is far deeper than hatred.

Hades’s gaze stays on my face for a few beats, then skims down over my naked body.

“How angry are you?” I ask. “I do not wish to fight,” I whisper the words with emotion I did not realize I had.

He is slow in returning his gaze to mine, lingering over my hips and breasts and throat first as I swallow thickly.

“My love will always be greater than my anger.”

My heart hammers once at the word, love. I do not know if he is aware of what the word could possibly mean. He lacks it so. But I know truly what it means and I feel something there. Something forgiving. Something merciful.

Needing his touch to soothe the uncomfortableness for I do not wish to go backwards, I hold my arms out for him, then, and Hades climbs onto the bed. In his masculine form, he allows me to hold him and in return he shifts his body to his side and holds me back. His embrace full of comfort and security.

With a soft gasp from me, he claims my mouth in a hot, possessive kiss, balanced over me. I run my fingertips over his shoulders and down his flexing arms as I moan.

It is like touching a stranger, but it is also familiar to me, as if I have done this many times before. Only for him. This dangerous and powerful God.

I have done this in my dreams, I know. And who is to say that the dreams were less real than this? Hades’s realms have taught me that many things that are seemingly impossible—even for Gods—dwell in the Underworld.

I kiss him back, tasting him. He tastes fresh, like running through a garden on a clear night. The act is natural and in an instance, the pain and uncertainty is lost. I know not what I feared before or the anxiousness that ran through me.

My body responds as it has never responded before. My hips rock toward Hades on a wave of desire. It’s a new heat, and I feel like I’m coming awake a little more every time he touches me. Every time his strong body meets mine, he is showing me where my own power lies. He maneuvers me beneath him and I love it.

I wrap my hands around his neck, loving how hot the skin to skin tension is, and hold him closer, arching up towards him. For a minute, nothing else seems to exist but his mouth on mine, and his tongue exploring me, and his weight carefully above me, keeping me in place but not caging me. His pulse races underneath my fingertips.

Hades spreads his fingers at my ribs, and I move into his touch, craving more of it. His hand moves down to my hip and moves me with him as he pleases.

The rhythm of it is familiar, too. It is the rhythm of my own desire. Our hips touch. Hades is hard against me, but for these moments, he does not enter me. It is just the two of us, moving together. It takes my breath away. I do not know how he has made it so intimate. Maybe it is not him. Maybe it is the two of us. But kissing like this, moving like this?—

It is tender and raw and I’ve never felt so close to him or to anyone. I can barely breathe at the revelation. I need this. I need him.

He groans my name in the crook of my neck and my head falls back loving the warmth and the timbre of his tone.

It makes me crave even more.

I spread my thighs and hook my heels around the small of his back. Hades lets out a low sound into my mouth and presses closer, his cock dragging over my clit. Pleasure unfolds from that place like an entire garden in bloom, and I gasp as it travels down to my toes, making them curl.

Hades makes another sound, this one more curious, and repeats the motion. The evidence of how much I desire him is between us. It is yet another thing that seems new and familiar and forbidden and sacred at the same time. The wave of pleasure becomes a wave of heat and turns back into pleasure again.

I am not only his queen when I am like this. I am also myself. It is the first time in many months that I have felt the power of my own body. And I have needs and desires that no one else has ever brought out in me.

Hades repeats the motion a third time, even more slowly, and a moan escapes me. He says something too low for me to hear, his body pressing even closer, the hard muscles of his abs against the softness of my belly. This is a realm I have not had enough time to discover. My curiosity grows until it is the size of the Underworld, and I feel I must have it all now.

I must know all of him now . I must have all the pleasure he can give me now . I must know all the ways we can fit together and move together and find pleasure together.

“Please,” I beg of him. His answer is only another rough grunt from deep in his chest.

I gasp in another breath and he lowers his head to kiss the side of my neck, sucking the spot until he must be leaving a mark.

I run my fingertips down the back of his neck to where his shoulders work as he braces himself, one thought demanding to be voiced.

“Love or desire?” I ask. I must know. For my sister speaks of both things. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. And at this moment, when I feel such things for him, I must know.

Hades lifts his head and stares into my eyes with a depth that seems to see through me. “Unlike you, I mean what I say,” he tells me, his voice steady. “I will always love you.”

My lips part with wanting. I cannot help shivering as the words hit me and sink in. I do not know what to do, or what to say, when there is no doubt in my mind that he has just spoken a plain truth. There seems to be only one path forward.

I kiss him quickly, pouring all my emotions into it. Hades groans into my mouth, and then, without breaking the kiss, he repositions himself over me and notches his cock to my entrance.

He breaks the kiss, his eyes closed in peace before opening them again with a striking primitive need. “You’re prepared for me,” he says, his voice full of lust. “My Queen.”

“I need you,” I confess to him in response. “My King.” I offer him the respect of his title as I offer him my body. Knowing who he is and even so, I desire him.

I spread my thighs wider, although my body tenses. Never have I done this. He sinks into me slowly and my lips part. The slow stretch and slight pain is nothing compared to the overwhelming and instant pleasure. I cling to his shoulders, gasping at the sensation. There is power in taking him inside me. His breath hitches as he buries himself deep, pushing forward until our hips are even. My head falls back and I close my eyes, relishing the feeling.

Then the only sound in the air is my breath, and his. Every nerve ending is lit aflame as if he himself is fire.

I close my eyes, letting my body adjust to him as he rocks against my clit.

“You were made to take me,” he whispers at my neck as he pulls out slowly and then slams himself back into me. My nails dig into his flesh as the wave of pleasure crashes against me. “You were made for me to have like this,” he murmurs in reverence and does it again and again. Each thrust forcing small gasps of pleasure from me.

I have never felt so exposed and so covered at the same time. The width of his body between my thighs is perfect, but heady. I’m nearly dizzy from the intensity of him and his words and need.

The shock of it fades quickly and it is replaced by an intense craving. My clit throbs. I need for him to take me. Not just enter me, but take me.

“Yes,” I breathe into his mouth, and work my hips.

Hades lets out a growl, rutting recklessly so I cannot rock myself on his length. “Is this what you want?” He slams into my body and I press into the mattress, screaming out in pleasure.

“Please,” I beg.

It is the last word I say for some time. Only sounds come out of my mouth. Sounds that I cannot stop, and do not want to stop, because I can feel nothing but him.

Hades fucks me like I am his queen—body and soul, possession and partner, and fills me with pleasure and heat. I am lost in the hard strokes and orgasms that continue to peak until I am all wrung out. Until my body can give nothing more. I scream his name as I climax the highest of highs and love every moment of his devouring of me.

Hades captures my mouth again as he pumps his release into me. Thick and pulsing. Claiming me as I have claimed him.

Even then, it does not end. There is too much energy between us to stop. I kiss him until he is hard against me again and it does not matter how sensitive the softest parts of me have become. I need more.

The last thing I am aware of is his arms around me and his heart beating hard and him groaning my name as if a prayer unto itself. It is this sound that lulls me to sleep.