Page 19 of His in the Dark

“In exchange for what?” she whispers although she already knows.

Persephone is no fool. She knows that nothing in the Underworld comes without a cost.

I lean closer. Her eyelashes flutter. When my breath kisses her cheek, her body arches toward me ever so slightly.

“If you submit.”

Persephone sucks in a shallow breath. She cannot know that her body arches toward me more with every moment that passes.

The tension steals my breath as much as it is stealing hers. It would be a matter of a moment to lean down and capture her mouth with mine. I let her feel the closeness growing taut between us, alive with heat.

And still she fights.

All she would have to do to submit is to lay down her arm. All she would have to do is stop pushing against me. It is the most delicate fight.

And yet she resists.

“Submit to me,” I tell her. It is an order. Anyone else in the Underworld would know it for what it was, but Persephone bares her teeth.

“Never.” Her voice is cold. “I willneversubmit.”

It takes great restraint on my part to do nothing, because I want to kiss the pulse at her wrist, but I turn my back on her and stalk away.

Persephone does not call after me.

The silence stretches between us, charged with the tension of her every breath.

I can feel that tension behind me and within me—the heat of her defiance—but I ignore it and throw the windows open. Her powers… she will need time to regain them.

Time. Patience, I remind myself.

Cold from outside gusts in. The icy cold dispels the heat on my face.

It will do far more lovely things to Persephone’s body.

I inhale the fresh air and let the cool fill my lungs.

Then I turn and leave the room, leaving Persephone exposed to the frigid chill of my absence and the assurance that the room will turn cold as ice.

I will force her to need me. I will force her powers to return as well.

I do not crave her weak. I demand that she be mine as promised. The powerful queen by my side.

PERSEPHONE

The chill is barely a thought as I grasp at my wrists and then my surroundings. My throat is tight and my body stiff. How the hell did this happen? I can barely remember the chain of events that led me here.

The shackles that bind me are not metal, but magic. That much is obvious. From deep in the pit of my womb I attempt to gather my power, praying for it to course through me and yet I feel nothing of it. A faint semblance of what used to flourish is managed and it is useless against the chains.

They are as strong as anything I've ever encountered in Olympus. Stronger still, though I do not wish to acknowledge such truth as I scream out and tug with all my might. I do not wish to feel powerless. But as my breath comes in pants and all my might proves useless, I’m left with the dread of what is.

I am powerless.

I have been kidnapped, I have been chained. All to the will of Hades.

Submit, the single word echoes in my mind and a chill flows down my spine. A deep seed of power brews within me at the memory of his whisper.

With a gust of wind, my thoughts are broken and I turn to the open window.

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