Page 16 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

“You won’t know me by learning of them. I am my own man, and I am not very close to my siblings.”

“Who are you close to?”

I flash her a devilish grin. “I’d like to be close to you.”

“Hades.” She lets a frustrated sound slip from between her lips. I swallow back my laugh.

“I am close to Leuce and Minthe.” I watch hercarefully, not missing the curious furrow of her brows. “I have more close friends at my other home.”

“Where is that?”

“I will take you there,” I tell her. It’s a promise. “One day.”

“You will?”

Why does she sound surprised by that?

“I will.” I can’t take my eyes off her, but this conversation is edging on dangerous. She isn’t ready for all that I could share with her. She isn’t ready for the truth. “Will you feel well enough to accompany me to the gala this evening?”

Her eyes shift to the lightening sky, where feathers of tangerine seep from the maroon that bleeds from the ebony of a night not long enough. If there is something that makes me yearn for the Underworld, it is the scorch of the day. The bright exposure of the sun. I am a being that thrives under the throw of night, the scatter of stars.

She sighs a soul-deep sigh. “Are you sure you want me to go with you, Hades?”

“I am.”

She lifts a slim shoulder as she tugs her full bottom lip between her teeth. I am hit again with how delicate she is in her human body. How vulnerable. She’d been beautiful before, when her soul possessed the strong body of a goddess.

I never could have imagined that I would find her this lovely, this alluringly enchanting,with her eternal soul trapped within the defenceless body of a human. She looks remarkably similar, but I can’t ignore the reality that she is delicate. Fragile.Breakable. I admit I am lost to the possibility of how a creature such as her could hold the power I know she possesses within the casing of such a fragile form.

Yet I know it to be true. Her power.

I’ve seen the flare of it in the depths of her emerald eyes. I’ve tasted it in the deep of her kiss. It’s there, but hidden even from herself. She is unaware of the power she possesses. I’m not sure if that makes her more dangerous to the world around her—or to herself.

My eyes track her as she stands again, baring her lovely body to me. I feel like a predator in a cage, ravenous for the taste of her flesh so close and yet untouchable.

“I think I should try to sleep some more.” Her eyes drift over my face, and a sweet blush rushes into the pale of her skin. She asks softly, “Will you join me?”

I stand. The hunger in the deep of me feels as though it might shred me.

Pebbles rise on her skin as I hunt her from the other side of the tub. I am incapable of keeping my hands at my side as I near her. Incapable of this last restraint. Capturing her neck between my hands, I slide my thumbs under her jaw. With her face lifted to mine, I claim her mouth. It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s dominating. Hungry.

She opens to me. Surrendering to me. Taking me in.

She tastes like life.

I devour her sighs, kissing her deeper. Needing more than I can take. At the end of my willpower, I pull back.

And there it is. Shining in the depths of her emerald eyes is the light that feeds all life.

I know now with a certainty that cools the flame in my blood, Zeus was never her father. I don’t know how Demeter did it. I don’t know how she hid it for so long, but I know with a certainty that can’t be questioned, that the eternal soul this tiny woman possesses conceals a power long ago banished. A power I fought. A power I imprisoned. A power Istillhave imprisoned.

A power that could absorb us all—a power so bright and deadly.

A weapon they would all kill to possess, and if they failed, they would all fight to simply kill.

Impossible.

Chapter

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