Page 35 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

He raises a brow in question. “I won’t?”

“Minthe.” I chuckle. “I feel like the Underworld has literally crept to the surface to meet me. Did you know, since I’ve been here, I’ve met a Hades, a Leuce, and now a Minthe?” I laugh incredulously. “I mean, what are the odds?”

Hades simply watches me the way he so often does. Like he can’t look away.

Like he’s waiting for something.

My skin hums. My blood stirs.

I whip the eggs harder.

“Very few people even know who those—” he pauses, then murmurs, “Charactersare.”

I give him a dubious expression. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows who Hades is, Hades.”

“Hades, perhaps.” His smile is devilish. “But Minthe? And even less expected, Leuce?”

I shrug, conceding. “Minthe’s story is very known. Leuce, though, I’ll give you that. Her story is a bit less popular when it comes to the telling’s of Underworld lore.”

“But you are familiar with it? The myths of the Underworld, that is?”

Pouring the eggs into the buttered pan, I nod. “I love Greek lore. It’s been a passion of mine since grade six when we did a unit on AncientGreece.”

“What about it do you find so intriguing?”

“Everything.” I can’t help but look at him, my heart skipping in its cage at the intensity I find in his dark eyes.

His lips curl. “And who is your favorite God?”

I roll my lips, narrowing my gaze on him. “I don’t know why, but that feels like an awfully personal question.”

He grins, but his voice is deep. Husky, even. “How so?”

I shrug, biting into my bottom lip and instantly regretting it for the way fire erupts in his eyes, igniting my core in the same. I look away, busying myself with adding veggies to the eggs, topping with cheese. I flip the omelet before covering it and letting it simmer to finish.

“I don’t know. It just feels a little exposing.”

“Will you expose yourself to me, then, Persephone?” The way he asks makes me feel like he’s asking for more than to simply hear the name of my favorite God. Like he’s asking me to strip right here in his kitchen, to bare my flesh to the devil in his eyes. To let him feast on the yearning he sparks alive inside me.

There is a low hunger in the depths of his voice that will not be sated by the omelet I’m cooking.

I shiver, blaming it on the air conditioning.

Suddenly, it seems less harmful to tell him my favorite God. “I’ve always been fascinated by Hades more than the rest.”

“Is that so?”

Is that pleasure that hums in the deep of his voice?“Yeah.”

“What about the God of the Underworld fascinates you so much?”

I shrug again, wetting my lips. I feel oddly incapable of catching my breath. “I don’t know.”

It’s a lie. I know exactly why the God of the Underworld fascinates me. But I can’t tell him.I can’t.

I hear his stool slide over obsidian tile as I avoid his gaze, sliding the omelet off the burner. I sense he’s close when the air conditioning stops working, and heat erupts over every inch of my flesh. I don’t understand how his mere presence burns me like an inferno when so many others avoid getting close to him. I’ve seen it more than once; the wide berth people give him. As though touching him sparks fear and threat of eternal torture. Maybe that’s why he’s paying me to be his companion. Maybe my lack of self-preservation when it comes to this man has inspired his desire to be close to me.

He's at my back now and my heart is threatening to rip from the cage of my ribs. It’s beating so violently inside my chest; I imagine he can hear it. Breath tumbles from my lungs in tiny, sharp pants. As my hands grip the counter for purchase, they tremble.

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