Page 55 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

“You can.” Emotion and desire have ground my words to rough shards as they push from the depths of me. I want her like I want breath. It’s more than want. Deeper than need.

Focusing, I lift her hand in mine. I abandon the brush as I dip her finger into the paint I’ve mixed with the ash and blood.

She gasps. “It’s warm.”

The only heat I can feel is the heat of her little body against mine. I move her gold dipped finger over strokes of black and red. A crown of splintered thorns and melted gold becomes the unending prison that will, eventually, contain Hyperion. The wards of his current prison will soon fail. The glint of a broken gold crown is a mockery of the sun he embodies. The sun I’ve stripped him of both in Tartarus and within the prisons of my art.

I continue to guide her finger over the canvas, dripping paint into swirls of torment I’ve ensnared within the power I’ve lured from the depths of her. She doesn’t know it, but this prison is the strongest I’ve created in years. It’s the first of many, because she is feeding the God she left ravaged in the wake of her loss.

For her,from her, he feasts.

For centuries, hunger has gnawed the flesh from my eternal soul. Tonight is the first night since the Lethe stole her from me, that I feel a bud of indulgence.The flame of burning hunger is drenched in the cool wave of her everlasting power.

Demeter tried to take her from me. She tried to steal back the power she birthed. She twisted the Fates into a web of deceit that would remain tangled and ugly for lifetimes.

She almost succeeded. Almost won.

But now that I know the game, now that I have her back, I won’t be letting her go. I won’t let Demeter steal her from me again.

My free hand circles her waist at the thought. My fear of losing her opens the dam of possession that has my fingers curling into the fabric that covers her belly, pulling her back flush to my chest. The scent of flowers and sun erupts like a burst of flavour on my tongue. A low growl of need rumbles from the pits of me where a ravenous God lurks.

I want to make her hunger for me in the way that I starve for her. Drawing her finger across the canvas, I drift my hand up her belly to twist the mass of white-blonde hair she’s tied back in a ponytail around my fist. Tugging gently, I pull her head to the side to expose the pale flesh of her throat. Her flesh is petal soft like the inside of a freshly bloomed flower. She smells like a garden of narcissuses.

I inhale deeply. The scent of her goes to my head in a way that wine and drugs can’t. I am immune to everything but her.

I dip my head, my lips a breath from her flesh as I watchpebbles rise across her skin. Her eyes are open and on the painting we craft together. Ancient power pulses between us like magic, crackling in the air and tasting of spring.

I can’t refrain a moment longer. She’s stripped me of control, my need to taste her more potent than an addicts need to bow to his addiction. She is my substance.

A sharp gasp spills from between lovely lips as I drop my mouth to the soft flesh between neck and shoulder. She tastes better than I imagined. Better than I remembered. I part my lips and suck at her skin, aching to nip. Her head falls back against the crook of my shoulder and she shudders as I kiss her, tasting her skin.

Over her shoulder, I watch the soft swell of her chest rise as she sucks in a sharp breath. The tip of my tongue teases the flesh of her neck before lingering to play at the skin below her ear. She’s trembling against me now, even as I continue to guide her finger across the canvas.

“Hades,” she breathes my name, igniting my need for more.

Releasing her hair, my hand moves to her throat, her jaw. I guide her face to the side as I curl my body around hers until I’m able to capture her lips with mine. There is a flash of fear in her eyes, a moment of hesitation I know I should heed. I don’t.

I invade her mouth like I ache to invade her body. Against my lips, hers are beautifully soft and exquisitelyuntouched. At first, she doesn’t kiss me back. Stilled by shock or uncertainty or perhaps both, she is frozen in my arms. It does nothing to stop me as I push through the surprised part between her lips to stroke her hot tongue with mine.

She moans and I devour it. I feast on the taste and sounds of her like a starved animal. The God inside me hums his pleasure and flames roll under my flesh. I let my eyes shutter closed to hide the flames that burn there. She’s not ready to see them.

Not yet.

But I burn with barely contained control.

When she shifts in my arms, her body moving slightly away from mine, a little of that control just snaps. My hand comes to her throat, fingers curling around the slender column to hold her in place. Her pulse flutters erratically under my fingertips.

She whispers my name. “Hades.”

I plunge my tongue deeper into her mouth, the tenderness I do my best to cling to for her slipping.

She resists me, her hand falling from the canvas. I could force her, I know. I could have her now. Take her and claim her. Mark her…

I’ve done it before.

She forgave me once…

I release her. The claws of the God shredding the insides of this body that contains him.

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