Page 38 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

This forest feasts on my cries, desperate to taste my pleasure.

I know it in my bones, this forest is mine. It ismyplace. It is the thing in the Underworld that was spun from the very essence of me. There is recognition here, and yet, I am too strung out with need to fully realize it.

The ache becomes unbearable, his fingertips stroking the button of my pleasure until I can take no more. I close my fists around his hair and shove my back into the bark of the tree, ignoring the bite.

No, I don't ignore it. I revel in it.

I do my best to slam my hips down on his fingers, to sheath the blade of him deep inside me. But he pulls away as he shoves his other hand into my belly, pinning me to the tree.

I whimper. “Hades.”

I think in this moment, I would say anything, do anything, promise anything—to have him inside me. To have him fill that awful emptiness.

“Please.” For him, in this moment, I would kneel in the burning embers of the deepest pit.

“I like it when you beg.” His voice is dripping with darkness.

A shaky laugh spills from my lips. “You're awful.”

I try again to shift my hips, but he's far more powerful than me. His strength has been honed over an eternity, while mine is young and fragile. There is something exciting about that, about knowing that this man could break me, and trusting that he won't.

My head falls back against the bark as another surging wave of aching need rolls through me. This hunger is sentient, and it is demanding to be heard. It bludgeons my core with the violence of a battle ax. Around his hips, my legs quiver. I can hardly catch my breath even though I am pulling deep, gulping gasps into my lungs.

My breasts spill from the gown with every heave, taunting the predator that peeks at me from the depths of his eyes. I sense that there is something more to him in this moment. Something deeper. Something he has yet to let me see.

Maybe it's a knowing from my past. Maybe I'm really losing my mind, but I want it all the same. I want to taunt and urgethat predator to play. It's a dangerous thought. It's not one I recognize in myself, and yet it is there all the same. I can deny it no more than I can deny I was made for him.

My eyes flash to his when he clenches his jaw hard behind his lips. His teeth grind and that dangerous darkness that plays in the depths of his eyes, fails to wane. It is there, hovering at the edge of his sanity, toying with his control. I want him to free it.

I want to meet the darkness that lingers inside him.

I want to play with it. No, tame it. No. I want to love it.

I understand this part of me no more than I understand the reality that has become my life. But it is no matter. I don't need to understand to know that I want, that I crave, all that he has to give me.

“I—I need,” my voice breaks off on a gasp of breath. I finally make out, “You. I needyou.”

From between tight lips, he demands, “Tell me more.”

I’m not sure I know what he means, but I decide to give him the truth of exactly how I feel. “There's a hole inside me, Hades. It's been there forever, but it's growing, and it hurts. And I think that you are the only thing that can fill it. Ineedyou to fill it. I need you to fillme.”

He curses low under his breath, tipping his forehead to touch mine. When he pulls away, there is a sheen on his forehead, as though he is working to restrain himself.

I bite down on my lip and watch as the predator drinks in the motion.

I tell him, “I don't want you to restrain yourself.”

He growls. “You don't know what you're asking for.”

“I'm asking for you. That's all that matters.”

“No.”

“Please, don't tell me no, Hades.”

He shutters his eyes, but I know I'm getting through to him.

“No,” he says softer this time.

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