Page 23 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

There is power in her eyes now. Within the emerald, glittering strokes of malachite burn. There is raw strength in her voice, love in the exposure of our past. “Iforgive you, Hades. No one decides who I forgive, butme. No one dictates the truth in my heart, butme.I forgive you. And you aremineto forgive.”

She climbs higher in my lap to drop her mouth to mine. That scent—the new darkly rich scent I cannot place bursts from her to infuse the very air that surrounds us with the heady scent of its warm allure.

It feels wrong to want her like this after everything, but I can control my body’s longing response to hers no better than I can control the tides of Poseidon’s seas. Still, as she rocks her core into my aching length, my hands move from her back to her hips. I hold her in place, unable to take from her right now even as she kisses me deeper, her tongue slipping past my lips to stroke against my own.

She’s usually so hesitant, but not now.She’s driving me mad.

“Kiss me, Hades.” Her hands fall from my face to the sheet that separates us. She nips my bottom lip, soothing the sting with the tip of her tongue. I am a moment from breaking. “Please.” My lips move against hers and fire burns so hot in my veins it spills magma.

I claim her mouth like I want to claim her body, pushing inside her the only way I can allow myself in this moment. She moans again, a husky lullaby of enchanting need I know I will never forget.

Her body jerks as she yanks at the sheet, spreading her legs wider as her little hand comes around the pulsing length of me. She strokes me once, twice, and hungry need spills from the tip as she continues to kiss me. We trade breath, nip, suck, and groan. She spreads her legs wider around me as my hands fist the sheet over her hips, my fingers knotting into the fabric in an attempt to cling to control as she guides my tip to the crease of her—sliding my tip through the wet of her core.

Stars wink behind my eyes as a blazing inferno of need ruptures deep inside me. I fucking want her like I want—I’ve never wanted anything like I want her.

This is more than need. It’s more than madness.

“Little goddess.” It’s the only warning I am able to give her.

That scent, the new scent is so strong now. It’s permeated every molecule of air I drag into my starved lungs, feeding the hunger that roars deep inside me. The hunger only she can sate.

She rocks her hips into me as the sheet pools around her hips, exposing the milky pale of her back and the red-tipped ends of her hair to the stars that wink down on us. My hands move from her hips to the swollen globes of her ass, and I squeeze as she teases the tip of my cock with a taste of her sweet cunt. And then she pulls back to line my tip with her entrance, her exquisite eyes locked on mine.

The heady scent spills from her in intoxicating waves that nearly blurs my vison of her with the need to consume. My jaw locks and the muscles in my back and legs tighten with restraint. I could shift my hips and dive into the deep of her—so deep I spill every last drop of my seed into her sweet womb—but I don’t. I hold my restraint as I hold her lovely eyes.

She whispers, “I forgive you.”

With an agonizing slowness, she lowers her body over mine, sheathing me in the sweet, warm wet of her. She doesn’t stop taking me, every inch, until I am fully rooted inside her—my tip pressing into the very womb I ache to fill with a need that is more than primal. Older than ancient.

A deep groan looses from the cavern of my throat as she rolls her ass back into my hands, rolling back down into the thickness of my cock that longs to fill her so full, she screams into this night. Screams to the realm that she is home.

Instead, I remain perfectly still as I offer her the use, the submission of my body. I watch, mesmerized by the wonder of her as she moves over me, taking her pleasure from me. The pace of her rhythm picks up, turning desperate. She pulls back to plunge down harder and harder. Her breasts bounce and little cries spill from her parted lips.Music in the night.

“Hades,” she cries my name.Yes, little goddess. Say my name. “I need—I need…”

“Anything,” I gasp. “I am at your mercy.”

“I need you to hold me. Kiss me. Touch me.” Unable to refuse her, I tip my head forward to taste the trickle of sweat that beads between the pale globes of her breasts. It tastes of that scent. The scent that urges me to slip into madness. “I need—” Her head falls back as that scent explodes into the night. Erupting from her as the climax she seeks finally builds to a point of rupture.

I am ensnared in the trap of her as pleasure is pulled from my body in response to the tremor of her undoing, and the scent that floods the air around me.

With my eyes fixed on her, I see the moment her head tips back and she sighs her pleasure to the sky. See the moment the tear in the darkness of the eternal night splits, and the two moons that have been absent since the day of darkness—the day ofherdeath—appear.

Only, they aren’t the brilliant white they once were.

No, now, they are blood red and burning bright. One veined in molten gold. The other threaded with liquid onyx.

The twins.

Chapter

Eleven

Persephone

I’m notsure how long I’ve been in the Underworld, but the fact that I’m here, and this is real, is becoming more and more believable as the hours stretch into days.

Days. Funny, I still think of the passing of time as days here in the Underworld, when night is an eternal beast.

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