Page 12 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

Seven

Hades

I can tellshe’s struggling to believe all that I’ve presented her with today. The Underworld. The Hydra. The souls I care for within this realm as earthly kings should care for their people. To the souls within my realm, I am not simply God, King, ruler. I am father. I fight for their comforts and securities. Yes, there are those who see me only as God. Those who were so despicably evil in their earthly lives, that they’ve earned the right to see me only as the God of Death.

But there are many who see me as simply theirs.

It is how I wish for her to see me.

My eyes miss nothing as I drink her in under the spill of starlight cast by her very own magic. Now that she is here in the Underworld, the stars are once again bright. Brighter than they have been in eons. I bask under the glow, even as I mourn the still absent moons.

She is far smaller than I am, and the shirt I slipped over her body in place of the blood-stained clothing that clung to herflesh when I first brought her here, is perpetually sliding down her shoulder to rest against one thin arm. This has stretched the buttons taut over the swell of her full breasts, and I can’t say I do not enjoy the pointed tips of her nipples on display beneath the fabric.

She is trying to appear at ease, but I can see the tension in the curl of her hands around the obsidian stone railing. It’s no wonder, really. I just told her I possessed an age far beyond the capacity for her human brain to stretch.

She has been silent since.

Perhaps I should have waited for such a truth, until the Goddess I know she harbours under her human skin births a form capable of accepting such impossibilities. But I do not wish to lie to her any longer. I do not wish to protect her from this world in which she belongs.

Now that she is here in the Underworld, deceiving her with half-truths feels wrong.

Instead, I move to cage her body with my own once again. I hope to ground her but reap the rewards I always reap when she is so close. I can feel the heat of her little form through the suit I wear, and I have never wanted to shed the clothes I wear more than I do in this moment. The scent of her, floral and sweet under the throw of perpetual night, taunts me with the need to possess her. Completely.

Dropping my chin into the crook of her neck, I don’t hide the fact I am breathing her in. Under the sweet floral tones that is entirely her, I scent the rich metallic undertones that can only be blood. For once, the God under my skin does not respond with desire at the scent, but rather rage.

Shuttering my eyes, I try not to see Demeter. Try not to think how her blood spilled from her vulnerable human body as her very organs trembled, on the cusp of rupturing under Demeter’sdeadly cry in the same terrible fate her friend, the reborn Adonis, had succumbed.

The image of the boy on the floor, his hands outstretched as though he’d been trying to claw his way to Persephone, my mate, even in death—it is an image that will eternally live within the cage of my mind.

Needing release from the binds of the deadly image, I let my lips slide over the warm column of her neck.

In response, she sucks in a sharp little breath.

She breathes, “Hades.”

I feel my name on her lips in the very marrow that moves inside my bones. It surges like magma on the path to destroy the centuries that yawn between us. Centuries Demeter stole from us.

I need to escape with her. Inside her.

I need to take this slow.

I swallow hard. “Will you bathe with me, Persephone?”

Pebbles of awareness and desire rise on her flesh. My gums ache as I restrain my fangs, not willing to let her see the monster under my flesh, the God who bows to her, just yet.

When she nods, it is all the answer I need to slide my hands down her arms. Curling my fingers around hers, I pull her gently from the railing. I release her fingers to circle my arm around her belly, walking us both into the dimly lit bedroom and beyond into the bathroom. It has been carved into the side of the black mountain, and like my castle, it hums with the low lullaby of ancient power.

Streams of water glitter blue as it trickles over the threads of raw blue aragonite that have been carved into the polished black stone before spilling into a modest pool also lined in raw blue aragonite, making the water appear as liquid crystal. The entire room comes alive under a high blue aragonite chandelier thatholds the ancient flame fed by the Hydra’s inky blood, spilled by the eternal curse of Hercules’ charmed blade.

“Wow.” Persephone freezes in my arms, her head tipping back to take in the sight. “This is…”

Her design.I’m not sure such a truth is one to reveal just yet. “The raw blue aragonite is highly known to Greece. It is revered for its calming properties, which is why it’s been so largely infused in the bathing room.”

Her head tips to the side and back so that she can glimpse my face. “Calming?”

“The crystal encourages relaxation. It stimulates the healing of,” I pause and feel her eyes on my throat as I swallow. “Traumas.”

I’d once thought she’d used this specific crystal because of what I’d done to her. How I’d taken her.Raped her…

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