Page 61 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Sleep took Persephone almost instantly.

But Hades lay awake, watching her in the firelight.

New freckles dusted the bridge of her nose, a new constellation from the sun’s kiss.

They’d not been there before. Proof that she’d been drawn away from him. And still, she had returned.

A tendril of hair fell across her face, and he brushed it back. Slowly, her eyes opened, emerald and steady, finding his. They lay in silence, watching one another.

“I missed you.”

Her whispered confession expanded in his chest, flooding it with warmth. Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her in, smoothing his fingers over her skin.

“What did you mean by going to the pool?” he asked, rougher than he intended.

Her eyes widened. Swiftly, she sat up, clutching a blanket to her chest. “I have much to tell you.”

He remained lying naked against the furs they’d tangled in, one arm bent behind his head. His free hand trailed along her thigh as he listened.

She spoke of her dreams—of Thetis and Achilles, of the path to the Underworld, of memories unraveling before her eyes like a prophecy long buried.

The words settled over him like lead. When she finished, he said nothing. Instead, he pulled her down against him until she lay indelicately across his chest, locked in his arms.

Her fingers traced idle patterns along his ribs, reminding him that she was here, in his realm. With him, safe. He inhaled deeply, forcing his wrath to curl inward, banked but not extinguished.

Persephone tilted her head, watching him carefully. “You are angry.”

His jaw tightened. “That is a shadow of what I feel.”

She rose up, a hand pressed flat to his chest. Her hair spilled over him in a silken wave. “Do not be angry with Dionysus. I sought him out.”

His fingers idly skimmed the curve of her spine.

Dionysus. Of course it had been him.

Hades had never begrudged the wild god’s indulgences.

Dionysus was as he had always been—a force of appetite and abandon.

Sensual as a panther, languid as wine. Men and women, gods and mortals alike, found themselves tangled in his arms, in his bed, in the velvet-dark of his worship.

Drawn to the unbound god who offered pleasure and ruin in equal measure.

It had never mattered to Hades. He’d never cared.

Until now.

Now, Dionysus had led Persephone into that spiral of ruin, setting her on a path that could have consumed her entirely.

“He was fortunate to escape my wrath when he dared to trespass before,” Hades said darkly. “And stole a soul, no less.”

“He is...” Persephone hesitated, searching, “untamed.”

A humorless sound left him. “A gentle word for what he is.”

The memory of her in Mnemosyne’s waters still burned through him. His arms tightened around her. “You could have been lost to me. Or harmed by Cerberus.” His voice was low. “Why didn’t you call for me?”

She paused. Then bent her head, pressing a soft kiss to his chest. It scorched through him, stirring coals back to flame.

“I knew you would come,” she whispered. The words were soft, certain. “But your agreement with Zeus... it would’ve been broken. And my mother—I could not let the earth fall into ruin again.”

It made sense, but the logic meant little. His heart didn’t answer to reason.

His fingers slid into her hair, tangling there—commanding, possessive—as he tilted her face to his. His lips hovered near her jaw, the heat between them humming, alive.

“I am your husband.” His voice was dark as the Styx, deep with the emotion churning in his veins. “I am stronger than you. Older. More powerful. I’ve held dominion longer than the earth has known your name. ”

His thumb brushed her chin, reverent. “There is no force on Olympus or beneath that I wouldn’t face for you.”

A shiver passed through her. But when she looked at him, her eyes were shadowed, pained.

“Do you see though?” she asked quietly, edged with urgency. “I know his secret, Achilles. The power to end the mortals’ bloodshed lies with me.” Her hand curled against his chest, as if anchoring herself in him. “Help me. Take me back to the mortal world, and I—”

He stiffened.

She wanted him to —

Anger surged, raw and volcanic, cracking his composure like fault lines beneath the earth.

“No.”

The word fell harshly.

He rose abruptly, still naked, leaving her in the tangled furs. Shadows licked along his back as he stared down at her.

“You would ask me to deliver you over to Zeus’s wrath?” he demanded. “I lost you once. Do not ask it of me again.”

Anguish rippled across her face. She rose too, drawing a blanket with her.

“Look at the Styx,” she begged, the words splintering. “Innocents by the thousands, slaughtered. I see their bodies in my dreams!”

The words dug into him like talons, digging into the darkest parts of him, long-hidden. His jaw clenched so tightly, it throbbed.

“I hold the power to spare them. To stop this,” Persephone said, her voice steeped in sorrow. “How can you, who hold justice above all else, stand silent while they suffer?”

Her words were the final blow. The stone that shattered the dam.

Bitterness, old and buried, burst forth in a torrent. It burned the back of his throat, acrid and suffocating. The truth came, bitter as ash, cracking like thunder against stone—

“I did not turn from them. They turned from me!”

His eyes were shadowed as they found her, cold as glacial steel.

“I offered them justice, mercy. Peace after their short and brutal lives. I built all of this”—his hand slashed to the balcony, toward the endless landscape beyond—“for them .”

“And still, they fled. They looked at me and saw only death. Decay. They shuddered at my altars, cowered in their prayers, always afraid of the one who would greet them at the end. ”

He choked back the rest, silencing the tide before it could rise again. With a sharp turn, he jerked his himation over his shoulder like armor, stepping away before his fury could lash out again.

He’d been a fool to speak, to try to explain what could never be understood.

She was bright as starlight, the cherished goddess of spring. Mortals welcomed her with garlands, with songs. He was the god they feared to name. The end of all things.

They didn’t see the justice he upheld, the mercy he granted to the otherwise forgotten. Only death.

And the cruelest irony of all—

The Fates, in rare mercy, had entwined them together. Him and her. The only soul who had ever turned toward him instead of away. Yet even she stood for them, the mortals who rejected him so utterly.

Her hand touched his arm, soft as rainfall.

He looked down to find Persephone gazing up at him, sorrowful.

A long silence stretched between them, thick with words unspoken. Then, finally, her voice broke through quietly.

“You once told me I was more than the goddess of spring. More than what mortals and gods believed me to be. That I was meant for something greater, something deeper. Even when I could not yet see it, could not yet name it.”

He remembered. She’d stood barefoot in his stables, eyes wide as she beheld Alastor for the first time.

His arms crossed tightly, guarding the last vestiges of resistance. “I would’ve said anything to keep you from climbing onto Alastor’s back,” he muttered gruffly.

Her lips curved, a hint of a smile tugging at her mouth, but her gaze stayed on his, solemn and steady. “But you are more than I understood before I came to you,” she said. “You bring justice, peace. Mercy to those denied it in life, to those left broken by the world above.”

She lifted her hand, flattening it over his heart. Her touch bled into him, seeping past the cold barricades he’d built around himself long ago.

“Do not turn from them, Hades,” she pleaded. “Do not forsake them.”

Then softer still—

“ Please .”

Her words soaked into him like cleansing rain, and she rose onto her toes, brushing her lips against his. It was soft, chaste. But it burned through him all the same.

When she pulled back, her eyes blazed with the fierce light of spring’s fury. “I do not fear Zeus. And I am no daughter of Olympus.” Her voice was a quiet storm. “I am Persephone, the wife of Hades. Queen of the Underworld.”

A deep chord was struck, reverberating in his marrow.

Slowly, he reached out, his fingers slipping into her hair, weaving into the silken strands. He let them twist around his fist, resting it against the nape of her neck.

With a gentle pull, he brought her mouth to his. Not tender, nor careful. A collision of breath and soul. He drank in everything she gave and poured himself out in return, until there was no beginning or end between them.

When he pulled back, their breaths tangled between them, harsh and uneven.

“You are my wife,” he vowed, voice thick. “My queen. Always.”

His thumb traced her cheek in a slow, lingering caress. Then, softer, slower: “But you were born of Olympus, not this kingdom. Mortals cleave to the Underworld in death. But for immortals—”

He stopped. The words hung there, suspended in breath.

“There is only one way,” he finished.

Persephone’s brow knit, but she didn’t falter. “What is it?”

His hand stayed at her nape, fingers curled in her hair, holding her close as his eyes roamed her face.

She was breathtaking. Radiant. Fierce. As untamable as the wild vines of the earth, sweet as their blossoms. The same brilliance that had first ensnared him in a grove of sunlit cypress.

No longer the young goddess who had stumbled into his arms that first day. Now, the queen who had defied all the forces that would pull her away. Who had risked everything to return. To him.

And everything— everything —within the Lord of the Underworld bowed to her.

***

Hades held her hand, guiding her through the shadowed garden. Twilight lingered around them, indigo hues of the coming nightfall.

The flowers bent toward Persephone as she passed, as if whispering secrets to her. In the wake of her bare feet, delicate white crocuses bloomed .

At the edge of the garden, his chariot awaited. Alastor stamped impatiently, smoke blowing from his nostrils. But Hades did not lead her there. Instead, he drew her deeper, toward the garden’s heart.

There, the ancient tree stood, its branches stretching overhead, heavy with crimson fruit.

He stopped beneath its boughs, turning to her. “When I was crowned, your mother rejected my gift in your honor.” He lifted his chin toward the towering tree. “So I planted it here.”

Persephone’s gaze lifted to the branches above, wonder lighting her eyes. “This is the tree you created,” she said breathlessly. “For me.”

Hades’s gaze found hers. “The very same.”

Reaching up, he plucked one of the pomegranates. Its skin was smooth and glossy, dark as a garnet. He broke it open, the rind splitting with a soft crack. Inside, the seeds glistened like rubies. Juice slid down his fingers like wine as he held the broken fruit between them.

“There is a law,” he said, “older than Olympus, older even than the Titans. To eat of this realm is to belong to it not just in body, but in soul. A bond even gods cannot sever.”

She watched him in silence, eyes still and deep.

“When I was named ruler,” Hades continued, “I ate from the mountain’s wild grapevines, then drank from the Styx to seal my throne.

Its waters carved my name into the stone foundation of this realm—its land, its roots.

I am not merely its lord. I am its weight, its breath and law. Without me, the gates do not hold.”

He paused, then looked at her again. “If you eat, the same will be true of you.”

Her gaze dropped to the fruit in his palm—glistening, waiting.

“Persephone.”

He said her name softly, and she looked up again.

“This cannot be undone,” he said quietly.

Twilight deepened around them, settling over the garden. A soft breeze stirred the branches, rustling like a sigh between lovers. An intimacy deeper than touch wove between them, a thread unbroken.

Then, silently, she stepped closer. Her hands slid over his, warm and calm, steady as she lifted the fruit between them, bringing it to her mouth. Poised at her lips, the seeds tipped onto her tongue.

And she swallowed.

Breath left him in a rush. His heart thundered in an ancient, savage rhythm, breaking and reforging around her. The pomegranate rind slipped from his fingers, forgotten.

He gathered her into his arms, pulling her close until their foreheads met. In the hush of twilight, their breaths mingled—shallow, steady, shared.

Her hand rose, softly cradling his jaw. “I am already yours.”

Possessiveness surged through him, fierce and absolute, shaking him with its depth.

It was true. She had always been his, as surely as he had been shaped for her. But now it was sealed, sanctified by the most ancient of laws. She would walk beside him here, her soul entwined with his across the star-strewn expanse of eternity.

The truth of it burned in his chest, and Hades lowered his mouth to hers. Her taste mingled with the tart bite of the fruit, ripening on his tongue.

Then he lifted her easily, her body curving against his, arms winding around his neck as he carried her through the garden—their garden—the hush of the trees parting around them.

In a shifting of shadow, his himation hardened into black armor, sculpting to his form like night given form.

He stepped into the chariot, placing her before him. At her back, he stood, one arm wrapped around her waist as he had the first time. She leaned into him, fitting there beside his heart, in his arms.

He took the reins.

“Alastor,” he commanded, voice like distant thunder.

The great horse reared, smoke billowing from his nostrils like storm clouds. With a furious lunge, Alastor surged forward. The other mounts followed, hooves roaring over the ground as they charged.

The air screamed past in a tempest of shadows and starlit jewels. The chariot roared upward, a storm of obsidian and darkness, carrying them together—king and queen—toward the world above.