Page 14 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

I snap my mouth closed when he comes close enough to smell before he stops moving. His dark eyes are fixed on me, and only me. It’s like he’s drinking me in, devouring me without even touching me. Trepidation runs a cool finger over my soul. I swear to all that is holy, I feel a pull in a place so deep inside of me, as though the very core of my being is threaded to this man, and he’s just given it a single firm tug.

He dips his head only slightly, hishands still twisting in the rag between us. “What is it we’re not going to do, Persephone?”

Holy crap—I can’t think when he’s this close. Forming words is a struggle, so I don’t think about what I say before I say it. “Fall in love. Escape to the Underworld together.”

I’m blowing this interview.

“Is that what they did?”

I blink. “What?”

“Did Hades and Persephoneescapetogether into the Underworld?”

“I don’t know.” His eyes lift from mine to the frown between my brows. “I—he—he abducted her.”

“He did.” His voice is a low, rough purr. “He saw her in a field of flowers, playing with her little friends.”

“She was a child.”

“Not quite a child. Not entirely a woman,” he corrects. I shiver under the sweep of intense eyes. “Times were different.”

Something about his final statement has a laugh bubbling between us. I slap my hand over my mouth to sever the sound before saying with confidence, “It’s myth. None of it ever happened.”

He’s not dissuaded. “Do you think she loved him?”

“I don’t know. Can a woman love a man who abducts her from all that she knows?” I’m lying. I’ve been obsessed with the love between Hades and Persephone since I learned of their existence. But I don’t want him to know that. Not yet.

He’s so still, I’m not even sure he’s breathing. “Do you think he loved her?”

I shrug. It’s a small lift and fall of my shoulders, but his eyes catch the movement. I think he catches all my movements, every breath, every flutter of my pulse. No one has ever looked at me the way he looks at me.

Or maybe my infatuation with my potential boss, who happens to be way too old for me, is putting hopeful things into my mind. Things that don’t exist.

I need to put an end to this. So, squaring my shoulders, I say, “I don’t think they were real. I think ancient people were desperate to make sense of things, of their life and their death, and they created elaborate stories to explain away these unexplainable things. There is no Underworld or Hades. There is no Persephone or pomegranate or abduction or love. There is only myth.”

Hades wets his lips, tosses his rag now streaked with blood red paint to the table next to his easel, and moves to put space between us.

I should be relieved, but I’m not. The space feels somehow wrong. Gaping.

With the heat that clings to him now gone, I’m enveloped in a bone-deep cold. Hugging myself, I wait for him to speak again, watching, as he lifts the black dress shirt from an obsidian topped desk. He dons it slowly, long, thick fingers working deftly at the buttons until he’s appropriatelydressed for an interview with a potential employee.

As for my part, I feel entirely undressed and stripped raw.

No man has ever affected me quite like Hades affects me. Maybe it’s the dark romance of our ancient names, and the myth of the couple before us. The legend of their love. Maybe I really do have a thing for older men, and I’m only just now realizing it. Whatever it is, I endeavor to find a way to cut the head off this snake of infatuation before I am bitten and consumed by the venom of it.

I lift my chin. “I want to thank you for this opportunity, Hades, but I don’t think I am suited to this job.”Whatever the job is.

His black eyes lift to pin me in place. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. And sadly, I don’t particularly want to.

Even though I know I should.

Working for this man—spending time with him—it would be dangerous.

And yet, even though I sense deep inside I should flee him, I can’t make myself do it.

“I disagree,” he says softly, but there is an edge of warning to his tone that suggests I don’t tempt him.I want to tempt him.“I think you are exactly the thing that I need, Persephone.”

Chapter

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