Page 68 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

My eyes snap open at the searing hot of the—oh, God, we’re just in the pool. I am so cold that even the cool water of the pool feels as though it’s boiling the flesh from my bones. I cry out as I cling to Hades, desperate for the soothing heat of him rather than this searing hot of the water that claws at my skin.

“It hurts,” I manage.

“I know,” he grits through the ringing in my ears.

“Out—I need out.” I’m clawing at him now.

“You need to warm up.”

A whimper of agony breaks from the prison I’ve contained it for far too long. Through the invasive cold of the prison world of Hades’ creation.

The harsh exposure in which I’d been forced to face my truth through the lens of my past.

This burning heat that my body repels…

It’s all too much.

“I don’t know what to do.” Hades holds me tighter.

“M—my clothes,” I stumble over the words. “Your skin.”

He clearly understands my need through the plea of my disjointed words, because Hades’ hands work quickly to remove first my clothes, and then his own. I plaster my body to his, aching for a closeness that feels too far away.

His heat warms me unlike any other.

My vision begins to clear as the need that hums ever-present in my body, grows. It sweeps like a caress of tender kisses along chilled bone, igniting embers in my marrow.

“Little Goddess,” Hades whispers a desperate sound as I stroke my core against his responding body.

“Don’t say no,” I plead. “Don’t ruin this with that.”

He must know what I mean. He was there for the conversation with Uranus.He knows now.

I never wanted to takethem.

My hunger was always for him.

“Persephone.” His head bows and his mouth latches on my shoulder. I feel the graze of teeth far sharper than they should be before he rips his kiss from my skin, leaving my body bereft of something I cannot name. My core yearns a song sung by my ancient soul for this man I have had—and yet not.

I sense on a level that is deeper than comprehension, that I have not had all of him. Not ever. Not in this life or the life I lived before. He’s always held himself apart from me.

But I want him. I want to take him as he has taken me. I want to be the only thing that answers to the call of need deep inside him.

With my hands gripping his shoulders, I align myself with his tip. He’s so hot, burning hot in the most decadent way, as he enters my body.

His whimper is one of release and relief. Fully sheathed, his will finally breaks. He pulls out and rocks back in, a slow, smooth, purposeful stroke of the soul that has been woven to his own, sewn by the very threads of fate in which weave the wonders of this world.

His lips move over mine, chasing the line of my jaw and devouring the chill that threatened to claim all of me. His hands roam over my body as he thrusts powerfully inside me.

My eyes drift closed as my head rolls back. Teeth, sharp as a blade drift carefully over the column of my neck to the hollow where he dips his tongue. “The taste of you,” he rasps, “addictive.”

I whimper, because I want—no, Ineedmore.

“Deeper, Hades,” I plead as he thrusts deeper, to a point of delicious pain that only needles the need that rages inside me. “Harder.”

“Tartarus,” he curses. “Any harder and I’ll break you apart.”

“Never,” I vow. Because I was made for him. To take him.

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