Page 53 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Hades

“Oh my God, Hades!”Persephone’s cry is one of complete distress. Shock fills her emerald eyes and her pretty lips leech of the rose petal pink that has taunted my every thought since the moment I met her.

I want to taste her mouth.I’m so close.

I place the blade now stained with the deep red of my blood onto the table, curling my hand into a fist as blood drips into the bowl filled with ash. She’s too horrified by the fact I’m spilling my own blood to ask questions about the ash rock I’m pouring my blood into. There is a slight sizzle as my blood meets the ash.It’s a reaction, a repelling of my blood mixing with the parts of Uranus’ flesh that remain, fueling the Underworld and the prisons in which I contain him and the beasts he spawned.

Persephone misses the sizzle too. Her eyes haven’t left my hand as her own far more shaky hands search the table for the rag I dropped. She finds it, and I squeeze my fist of the last of my blood.

I can already feel my flesh closing. The wound sealing. The only thing the rag will do is wipe my hand clean of the blood.

She grabs my hand between her trembling ones. Prying my fingers back from the fist I’ve curled them into, she presses the towel down on my palm. She’s trying to stay the bleed by putting pressure on the wound. The only thing she’s putting pressure on is the ugly raised scar that scores across my hand.

As a God, scars are a rare thing. I wouldn’t have this one at all if it weren’t for the fact I’ve reopened this wound thousands of times over the centuries.

“I can’t believe you did that.” Her voice rattles. Her entire body rattles.

I’ve shaken her.

I find it interesting that this woman who harbours the soul of an immensely powerful Goddess is shaken by a little blood.

“It’s nothing. Just a little blood.”

She scoffs. “There’s almost enough blood here to fill the bowl. I can’t believe you’re stillstanding.”

She’s being dramatic. She’s adorable when she’s being dramatic.

I don’t tell her it’s an illusion. A result when my blood mixes with the ash rock spit from the boiling river Phlegethon. I also don’t tell her the bowl she’s referenced isn’t a bowl at all, but the skull of one the Primordial Gods—the creators—and, in human terms, my grandfather.

“You do this every time you paint, don’t you?” I want to push away the white blonde fall of her hair so that I can see her face. I want to look into gems of emerald and lose myself in them. I want to mine every crevice of her human heart and etch my name into her eternal soul.

“Yes.”I want to possess her soul. I need it.

Heat surges inside me, rising to the surface of my flesh. In my mouth, my gums swell, desperate for a taste. I feel the burn of flames in my eyes and am grateful her focus is entirely on the towel she pushes into my palm.

Today, I am God and man. In ancient times, I was all God. In ancient times, I lacked the desire to walk the realm above my own and therefore I forfeit humanity. One of the very few times I ventured from the darkness of the Underworld; I had abducted Persephone. It was the lack of human emotions,humanempathy, that resulted in the baser instincts of the powerful God who stole her innocence and manipulated the loss of her power to flee.

In all the centuries that passed, I’ve never understood how she came to love me. I put her through so much. I gave her reason, time and again, to mistrust me. But she loved me still. Even as she loved others—my eternal punishment—she loved me. Even as she loved the sun above, she lovedmy darkness.

“I don’t understand why you would do this.” I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to herself. “You don’t even sell your art. Yet you spill your literal blood into your pieces.”Definitely talking to herself.“Why?”

Oh, she does want a reply. Too bad it’s not a truth I can share. Not yet.

“It is my process.” It’s as truthful as I can be. I don’t relish the idea of outright lying to her.

“It’s barbaric. Do you advertise this?” Her eyes flicker to mine. She adds a little more pressure to where she believes the wound is on my palm. “Is this why you’re so popular?”

“I can’t say why I am so popular. To answer your question, no. I don’t advertise that I put myliteral bloodinto my paintings.” Doing something so foolish as advertising my blood in my art would pull suspicion from the Olympians.

Her eyes narrow, but her voice is exasperated. “You’re being funny?”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

“You are.” She looks utterly dumbfounded. “You sliced your hand so deep I’m confident we’re going for stitches, and you think it’s funny.”

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