Page 27 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

Fuck, but I ache to cover her mouth with my own. If she weren’t so skittish about the gap in our age, I might have done it already. But she is skittish. She’s overly prudish in her unwillingness to act in a way that goes against the appropriateness of our restrictive rolls as employer and employee. I am confident all this is owed to the web Demeter weaved into the curse she cast on our great love.

She took her case to the Fates centuries past. Sheclaimed that together our power was too vast, too much, too unchecked and dangerous.

There must have been some truth to that which she claimed, because the Fates acted. They weaved. And the fate they weaved was the thing that punished us for too long.

I am reminded, yet again, that I must visit theMoirai. Yet the very thought leaves my flesh feeling chilled, unease icing the very bones beneath my skin. For the webs the Fates weave is never in black and white. And fate, even written, is ever-evolving.

Their riddles, even for a God, are spun in threads lacking transparency and dipped in the rivers that flow from the Three Mountains that overlook the Underworld, ruling like overlords in a realm that is entirely their own. For the Three Mountains in the Underworld are only the base of what is known above as Mount Olympus. Incorrectly, from the dregs of an ancient myth, it is presumed Mount Olympus is the home of the Gods. Instead, it is the passage of theMoirai. The heart of all that is. Her roots so deep they sew into the earth of the Underworld, so wide her skeleton stretches into the sea, so vast she plunges into the sky. It is a realm unto itself, the home of the Fates, tying all that is and all that has been or will ever be, together as one.

For the most part, I leave theMoiraito themselves, as do the other Gods. Not even the Gods wish to command their scrutiny. Look what has come of meunder their disassociated ire. The punishment I suffered for daring to command the rare and coveted power of true love.

Persephone’s hand falls from my shoulder, calling my thoughts back to the present. To her.

Confusion knots her brow, and I ache to wipe it tenderly away. To give her words of assurance.

I need to find a way to break through her barriers. To make the want she already feels for me, even at her denial, too strong to refuse.

Our time is limited, and passing quickly. Every second that passes, the danger she is in increases.I must claim her living soul.

I force a smile to my lips, watching as her eyes drop and her full breasts rise with her inhale. Then she whispers, “Let me tidy this up and I’ll join you.” More to herself than me, she repeats, “For conversation.”

Chapter

Fifteen

Persephone

Something is up with Hades.I’ve only worked for him for a week, but I can tell that something isn’t right. Most nights, we sit at the table and talk about lots of nothing. Hades likes to hear about my uneventful life as a farmer’s daughter, which, after four nights together, I swear he knows inside and out. I’ve come to note that he loves his dogs deeply, which makes him feel more human and less—massive—to me.

His boy and two girls, I’ve come to realize, are big teddy bears. They are named after the night and his night blooming flowers, which I find entirely too endearing. The boy, Nocturnum, is alwaysbetween his girls, Jasmine and Primrose. Hades calls them Noc, Jas, and Prim, and as such, do I.

It doesn’t take me long to clean up after dinner, packaging the left-over grilled fish into a container for tomorrow’s lunch. I feel strung with nerves at the thought of spending my first full day with Hades tomorrow, leaving for my one night at the house with my friends on Sunday. I’d considered asking for Saturday to be my free night, but since I don’t enjoy clubbing, which is a big Saturday thing with the others in my program, Sunday better suits my day off all around.

“Can I pour you a glass?” I shift to find Hades with a bottle of red wine in his hand.

I push the towel I’m drying my hands off on into the rail on the oven, and ask, “Are you trying to turn me into a lush, Hades?”

He arches one brow. “Hardly.”

“You’re always offering me a drink.”

“Only with meals.”

“And now, too.” I gesture at the bottle. Since our first night, when I felt the wine we’d indulged in after dinner sway the rational flow of my thoughts, I’d been cautious about sticking to tea in the evenings.

His lips quirk, and something lightens the shadows that swirl in his eyes. The shadows that have been there since he got quiet over dinner, and whatever it was that happened to him during the day sucked his thoughts into a dark vortex thatshifted his easy mood from comfortable to dangerous, fast.

“You are off tomorrow. I thought maybe you’d like to let loose a little.” He swirls the bottle. “Have a glass or two of wine with me, Persephone,” he dares, his voice dropping to a dangerous pitch that instantly pulls an unwilling, and dangerously sharp response from the depths of my core. I shift, squeezing my legs together in a way I desperately pray is imperceptible. I think, maybe I’ve failed, when his eyes snap to mine, dipping low and dragging hotly over the length of me. His nostrils flare and his throat works with a hard swallow.

Run. The word is shrill in my mind. A voice that is not my own, and I am helpless.

I am rooted to the floor.

Fear and something else, something I think, terrifyingly, might be arousal, thrums an intoxicatingly unwelcome tune within my body.

“Hades,” I breathe, shuddering.

His eyes snap to mine and I swear, I see flames dancing in the depths.

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