Page 36 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“I raped you.”

I fight the urge to flinch at his ugly interruption. This is too important to let weakness and past pains taint the way of our future.

“Stop talking and listen to me.” A hint of ruefulness drifts into the sadness that mars his captivating eyes. When I’m confident he’s going to do as I say, I tell him, “I remember, Hades. All of it. The pain and horror—and the moment that pain and horror turned into something else. Something beautiful and bursting with life.” Fire swims in his eyes as he holds mine. “I don’t regret any of it. If I could go back to that moment, I would not change anything about how our beginning played out. Not a second of it.”

His fingertips curl into my sides. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I do, Hades. That moment made me yours, and I would never want—could never want for more than that.” I search his eyes. “You were hurting, too.”

A shuddering breath falls from his lips as his forehead tips to connect with mine. His hot breath whispers against my lips as hebreathes raggedly, as though my words possessed the power to cleave him in two, and he’s doing his very best with needle and thread to stitch the torn parts of him back together.

“You are so innocent, even now.”

“I’m not innocent, Hades.” I brush my lips softly across his, but it’s not a kiss. “I’m just in love with you.”

“I don’t deserve your love.” He can’t seem to help himself as he answers the brush of my lips across his with a gentle kiss that quickly throws a flame on that ever-present hunger that lives inside me. “That does not mean I will not take it.”

I moan, my lips parting in a plea for Hades’ invasion. He doesn’t deny me, kissing me deep and inhaling just as deep. His tongue sweeps against mine, his hands tightening on my waist.

I get lost in his kiss. In the stroke of his hot tongue, and the feel of his hands on me. His fingers bite into the flesh of my hips when I shift hungrily closer to him.

My body is humming with need now, aching to be filled in a way that hovers on painful. There is an emptiness inside me, a gaping cavern of need.

There is no other way to describe it, this hunger that burns inside me.

It feels ancient, like something from another time. I don't know how to answer the call. The demand. I don't know how to give this need what it wants.

It must want more than simple sex. I've had Hades. Hades has hadmeso many times.

Yes, when he’s had me, this ache is dulled, if only for a little while. But it doesn't take much for it to come rearing back with a violence. A brutal, painful, demanding violence.

I whimper now as that violent pain crashes inside my womb. It thrashes, demanding for him. And I am helpless to deny it.

I don't want to deny it.

I don't want to deny this hunger, the connection that lingers between us. It feels primordial, like an ancient call I must answer.

The tips of Hades’ fingers dig into my hips, a pulse, a silent answering that he knows my body hungers for something only he can give. Against my lips, he inhales deep into his lungs. So deep, I think I hear the burning rattle. The Echo of desire that promises to feed the emptiness that lingers in each of us. He rips his mouth from mine, and I whimper.

It is a silent plea that he returned to me.

“Hades,” his name sounds on a rattled breath. My fingers twist in the lapels of his jacket, desperate to keep him close even as he pulls away. He tips his head back, and I watch as the cords of his throat work on a hard swallow. His eyes are closed against the night sky, and he is so achingly beautiful, so magnificent, and dark, andeverything—everything that is mine.

He tips his head back to me, and when his eyes open, all I see are flames.

They rage like an inferno, a forest on fire. He is destruction, and I would willingly walk into the heart of it.

“Hades,” I call again, even though he's looking right at me.

He answers with a flare of his nostrils.

The sight of him doing that, inhaling deep likethat, when I feel likethis—well, heat sears through me. I know he can smell the desire that burns beneath my skin like a bloodhound scents blood.

Still, that raging need inside me is not a thing to be ignored. I need more of him, and the fingers I have twisted in his lapels tighten, tugging him closer. Or maybe pulling myself nearer, I'm not sure.

I just know that I'm driven on instinct, by desire. By a need that is deeper than lust.

This is so much more than that, even though I can't explain what it is. There are no words for the all-encompassing desperation I feel to be filled by something only he can offer.

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