Page 88 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“Yes.” The word sounds as though it was strangled from a place so deep inside him, a place so dark and dangerous. And yet, I revel in it. Pleasure prickles my skin, sliding over my spine. I have to steel myself against a shiver.

“Then, no. I’m not afraid.”

He inhales a sharp breath. “I don’t know if that makes you a fool or incredibly brave.”

I lift my chin. “It makes me yours.”

His rumble of agreement is deliciously dark. Of both monster and man—God. It reaches across the space that stands between us to caress me, and my body responds in a very, very physical way.

So physical, I watch as his dark eyes alight with fire, and drop to my breasts where my nipples are pebbled under the silky fabric crafted from the threads of the weeping blooms.

Heat strikes hot and violent in my core. I lock my knees to remain standing before him. His nostrils flare. An ominously low roll of thunder spills from his chest on a decadently soft growl.

My stomach flips.

I ask, or more like wheeze, “You said I loved to look at your Gods’ Form, but never touch.”

“I did.”

“Why?” It’s impossible to ignore the blazing fire between us. It threatens to pull me in and trap me for all of eternity.

How doesn’t it know I’d willingly offer myself to the destruction? Willingly spend the rest of forever cocooned in the warmth of its burn.

“My Gods’ Form is intended for Tartarus, Persephone. Specifically, The Pit.”

“Okay.”

“I can swim unscathed in the boiling River Phlegethon.” I nod but feel dizzy with hot awareness. “I am unaffected by the eternal flames that torment the souls of Tartarus. In fact, sometimes I think those flames are of me.”

He watches me look at him, as though seeing the beast that lives under his skin.

I recall the transformation Demeter had undergone in the ancient temple deep below the earth—the one where she’d stolen Addis—Adonis’life.

My distorted memories of that night had returned after learning of Adonis’ fate. I don’t blame myself for blocking it out. It had been horrifyingly impossible, and I was already facing so many impossibilities.

Still, now I remember the way her flesh, so lovely and flawless morphed over sharp bones of ebony, visible through the translucence of her tightly pulled skin. I recall the way her jaw unhinged, and her eyes changed to pit-less orbs of terrifying black.

Her hands had thickened, fingers stretching into claws that threatened. Her feet were taloned and curled, like an owl’s or eagle’s feet, perfect for shredding the flesh of her foes. The wings that stretched from her back, black and terrible, flapped a call of vicious wind even as the deadly screech tore from between her lips. She’d been a terrible monster, vicious and true to the legend that whispers of such vile creatures.

And Poseidon.The Leviathan!?How can such a thing be?

My mind races over the magnitude of his claim. The impossibility of it. How can he be so massively powerful—a thing so deeply ancient and truly terrible that the threat of it remains today?

My eyes drift back up to Hades’. He’s waited patiently as thoughts whirl in my mind.

I croak, “Demeter is a harpy.”

“Yes.”

“Poseidon is the Leviathan.”

A muscle tics in his jaw. He doesn’t like it when I speak of Poseidon. There is a niggle of pleasure in the ember of his jealousy, but it is quickly snuffed when I recall the reason for his possessiveness. The way I was manipulated into playing the strings of his heart, crafting a terrible melody of betrayal and pain that has lasted millennia.

Guilt burns like acid in my belly.

Hades’ nod is clipped. “We’ve established this, little goddess.”

“Why is Poseidon so powerful when Demeter is…” my words drift off when his brow arches high.

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