Page 51 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

What’s the worst that could happen if I do this crazy thing and try my hand at tempting Hades? He could reject me, of course. But I don’t think he will.

“Persephone,” he presses when I give him nothing. I think I hear hunger in his voice, swear I see fire flickering in his eyes before it’s gone. “Tell me.”

I lean into the table, pushing my hair back as he drags his gaze over me. “You want to know what I was thinking? What made me blush?”

“Yes.”

“I was thinking of what it might feel like…” I pause, wetting my lips. He’s an artist, and I want to paint a picture for him. “I wonder what it would be like to feel your rough voice whispering across my naked body, painted in moonlight. To feel your touch burning into my skin, the mark of your kiss. I want to know; would you devour my sighs as you stole my innocence? Would you swallow them with your kisses? Or would you let the melody of them soar to mingle with the groans of pleasure you’d gift me?” He looks struck. A predator locked in a dance with his prey. I am hunted, and God, but I want him to devour me. Boldened by the hunger that flares in his gaze, I continue, “I wonder, Hades, what it would be like to be yours, if only for a night.”

Darkness bursts from the depths of him. A thing I’m not sure I should have tempted. But it’s too late now.

Excitement mingles with the trepidation as I shift in my seat. There is a part of me—the smarter part—that urges me to flee. I don’t. I stand my ground, heart pounding, desire building.

His voice is a lash of longing across my ravenous heart. A hunger yawns inside me deeper than the pits of hell and more vast than Heaven.

“It would never be just one night.”

Chapter

Twenty-Five

Persephone

I thoughtHades was going to steal me away to his condo on the top of the tower after the little picture I painted him, taunting him as I did. Instead, after I’d protested vehemently and rather loudly, he’d returned me reluctantly to the dig site with an ominous warning that has played on repeat in my mind since.

“It would feel better than you could ever imagine, my voice against your naked skin. I would spill your moans and devour your sighs. I would bleed myself into the marrow of your bones, and invade your very soul. I would steal your innocence, covet it. Treasure italways. I would make you mine, Persephone. Wholly and completely. Be ready for me.”

I’d been unable to think the rest of the day. I’ve drifted back and forth between excitement for what is to come and fear for the fact I’ve tempted a man obviously more experienced than me. What I don’t feel is regret.

Because even as I am afraid, I can’t stop thinking that this is everything that I never knew I needed. And it hasn’t escaped me that I haven’t heard that anguished cry of my name since I came here. Since the night I met Hades.

There is a part of me, a silly, childish part that believes in the fantastical just enough to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe that cry was my souls desperate need to find his. Or his to find mine. That silly part of me basks in the fantasy that maybe I was always meant to find Hades. Always intended for him. To be his.

I know it’s crazy. Ludicrous. But I’ve always believed in soul mates, even though I never felt confident I would find mine.

And Hades can’t be mine, either. Can he?

He’s so much older than me. More experienced. More wealthy. Moreeverything.

What can I possibly have to offer him other than my youth? What do I have to offer a relationship with a man who has everything? The whole world athis fingertips?

I’ve never felt so lacking.

I’d denied the car Hades sent for me to walk instead. I’d felt the need for the sun. To work off some of the agitation I felt coiling inside my body, tightening my nerves into springs a moment from snapping. I still don’t feel regret, even as I’m helpless to slip inside my head.

I’m unsure of what I started. What it really means—the structure of what we will become now.

I don’t know what I’m going to do now that I’ve opened a door, I’m not sure I can close. I’m not sure I want to close it.

No, I know I don’t want to close it. But I don’t know how to walk through it, either.

And I don’t know, once I’m through it, what I am supposed to do then.

I make the walk to the tower in a blur. It’s through that same blur that I ride the elevator, and stumble into Hades’ apartment. Wet noses bump my hands as three wiggly-with-excitement pups greet me. Okay, they aren’t pups. They’re full-on dogs, big and muscly and definitely capable of a great deal of danger. But they feel like pups to me.

“Oh! I missed you, too.” I give scratches where scratches are due. Then I stand, and with my heart slamming behind the cage of my chest, make my way into the kitchen.

I find Hades as I found him yesterday, withtakeout waiting.

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