Page 37 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

A painful throb echoes inside my body, escaping from my lips on a shallow cry. The flames in his eyes darken, and he tips his head on a sigh. It's a broken sound. A resolved sound. I think I want to question him again, but his lips are on mine, and they're so warm.

He's pushing the fire in his eyes into me with this kiss. I feel it burning, singing my insides in the most decadently pleasant way. I don't realize that Alastor has stopped walking until Hades severs our kiss again.

My eyes drift open, and my world has completely changed.

Nothing is familiar, and even though the dark sky and the twinkling starlight has been entirely blocked out, everything is illuminated in strokes of soft violet and silver. It reminds me a little bit of tinsel, the way it falls from the pretty violet and white blooms that sprout from the needled pines surrounding us.

My heart heaves what can only be a sigh.

I am truly home in this place. In this grove of magic. But I don't get the chance to think about how beautiful this exquisite sight is. My body is still demanding something from Hades, and he responds like a beast scenting blood. From the corner of my eye, a shadow amidst magic, I catch him stalking toward me. Hungry.

His steps are long and determined. I don’t even know when I put space between us, only that he is not pleased with it. His eyes dance with flames as he hunts me, paralyzed prey that I am.

There is a dark determination in his every step. The sight of it twists the knots of need in my belly tighter.

Excitement flutters my heart.

Anticipation is a quiver in my belly.

Desire is a quake that threatens to rip me apart.

Need has me frozen to the forest floor, a gentle breeze that is warm and comes from—I have no idea where it comes from—but it plays with the gauzy skirt of my dress. It parts the splits in the gown to tease Hades with the sight of my legs.

Again, I watch as his nostrils flare.

When he reaches for me this time, it is with that same dark need with which he took me the first time, when the Underworld was not yet formed. When there was loss clinging to the scent of the air. He has been touched by that same madness. But now, he is not the only one. For it stirs inside me, too.

I welcome his aggression when his hand twists into the knots of my hair, yanking hard enough to pull my head back.

He takes my lips like he is a dark God demanding their sacrifice.

I willingly open to him, kissing him back with just as much violence, just as much hunger, just as much desperation as he kisses me. I don't know how it happens, but the rough bark of a tree stings my back, threatening to cut into my skin.

The pain dances with a delicious pleasure, surprising me. I have never been one for pain—and yet…

I feel as though I will forever surprise myself, as I learn more and more about the woman I am becoming. About the Goddess I was always intended to be.

My fingers dive into his hair as his tongue dives into my mouth. His knee throws my legs wide, as he grinds his arousal into my core.

The slit in my dress falls apart to invite his hand inside, and he does not deny as he pushes his hand between my legs. A breath hitches somewhere in my lungs, and my fingers twist in his hair, my nails biting into his scalp in violent anticipation. In response, he groans a sound of pure, dark pleasure.

It wrenches those knots in my belly tighter. And I rock my hips as his fingers hover a breath away from me, promising to slide against me, into the slick wet slit of my core.

He pulls his head back, his eyes fixed on mine. A hunter tracking his prey in her final moments. When he finally touches me, the connection is a whisper of teasing pressure that parts me just enough for him to stroke the tip of one rough finger over my clit. I feel as though I could fall apart. Could shatter into a million pieces. Could combust into dust.

I am a fawn in the jaws of a beast.

I will forever be ruined after this, and yet, I do not care.

He teases my entrance with the tips of his thick fingers, promising pleasure, even as he builds the pain of a desperate hunger with every slow stroke.

I hook one leg up around his waist, aching to climb him, even as the toes of my other foot dig into the soft bed of the ground beneath my feet.

“You are so beautiful,” Hades murmurs darkly.

His lips are wet and red from our kiss. I have marked him, as I know he has marked me. I'll never wash him from me, not that I want to. I want to engrave him into my very skin. I want to weave the essence of him into the fabric of my soul. I've never wanted something so elemental in my life. This need is vast. Primordial. It is awakening me, spilling desperation and hunger and awe.

I shift my hips closer to his fingertips, the tinsel-like spill of the weeping blooms whispers a lullaby of sighs into the forest.

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