Page 87 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“Demeter turns into a Harpy,” I say quietly, still looking at the beastly demon that comes together in strokes of black with veins of burnished orange, red, and gold. Magma.

“Yes.”

“Did you know that Poseidon’s Gods’ Form is the Leviathan?”

His voice behind me is much closer now. So close, that I can feel the heat of his body through the thin silken material that weaves my robe. “Yes.”

God, but his nearness is all it takes to stoke the flames of hunger inside me.

I ache with need I refuse to sate.

I refuse to break first.

My breaths are shallow. “Why does this painting feel so familiar to me, Hades?”

He shifts even closer. There is little more than a hair of space between us. If I inhale too sharply, I will graze his chest.

“It feels familiar because you painted it.”

I feel the truth of his claim despite the fact I possess no talent with a brush in this life. Still, I can’t help but mutter, “I can’t paint.”

“It was because of you I learned to craft with brush and canvas.”

God, but his breath is warm against my neck. I ache to lean into him even as I hold myself steady.

Keeping my attention fixed on the painting, I ask hoarsely, “Why would I have painted something like this, Hades? Why does it hang over our bed?”

I feel his touch before it lands hot against my hips. The sear of contact there charges the heart that thunders in my chest until the roar is so loud, it’s nearly all I can hear. I think maybe he can hear it too, because he twists me to face him. His eyes drill deep into mine as though he can break the mold of shadows that conceals my past life, shedding light over the dark truth of us.

Slowly, his big hands climb from my hips, over my ribs, shoulders, to finally cup my neck. His thumbs press gently under my jaw to tilt my head back so my eyes can connect with his. The same magma that veins the painting swirls in the sparks that escape the flames dancing in his eyes.

Heat spills from him, and the flames in his eyes ignite the wick of need in my core. There is gravel in his voice as he admits, “You painted it because it is my Gods’ Form, little goddess. A form you once loved to look upon but could never touch. It hangs over our bed because you put it there. And after your murder—when I locked away all your other paintings—I found myself before this one and couldn’t…”

My breath hitches. “Hades.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to remove this one. You hung it here.” His voice is so quiet under the ragged fall of his uneven breaths. Each one teases my lips with a fiery warmth as he holds my face in his hands. “You used to sit and stare at it with this expression of longing on your face.” His eyes drift closed, as though the very memory causes him pain. “It kept the hope alive inside me that you would one day look at me and wantonlyme.”

If a blade sliced my heart in two, I think it would hurt less.

The pain I caused this man in my past life. The regret and blame he steeped in for millennia.

I want to burn it all away with the flames of us.

Catching his face between my hands as he holds mine, I rise onto my tiptoes as I pull his face down to mine. I watch the lash of pain as his eyes shutter. Black lashes women would kill for fan the blade of his cheeks.

I feather the tip of my nose against his and watch as a pained smile cracks the ancient grief that paints his face. I stroke the blade of his nose with the tip of mine, and a ragged sigh tears from the cracks of that painfully beautiful smile of his.

“I love you, Hades.” I let my lips drift across his, branding my declaration into the whisper of a featherlight kiss. When I pull back, the flames in his eyes haven’t lessened at all. If anything, they’ve grown.

I don’t heed the threat that they may grow out of control. Don’t bother to worry that they might devour me whole.

He asks, deep and low, “Are you afraid?”

“Why would I be afraid?”

“There is a monster under my skin, Persephone. It’s never far from the surface.”

A flush rises under my own skin, so hot it threatens the fire in his eyes for the chance to incinerate me. “Does he love me like you love me?”

---