Page 84 of Shattered & Returned

I’d shattered her sheltered world and brought her to my cold, dark one. I’d seduced her, tricked her into eating the passion seeds of the Underworld, and trapped her in my realm.

She’d hated me even as her body sang for mine.

The day I first glimpsed her in her garden still seared my agony-filled memory. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. When I finally saw her face, unveiled, thunder had roared in my skull, lightning had struck my heart, and shadow had pulsed in my bloodstream.

I was hers from that moment.

I waited, biding my time. She was always guarded, so I watched from a distance until, one afternoon, she was alone. There, among the roses, she plucked a thorned stem with gloved hands, unaware of my presence.

I approached her with a smile—unpracticed, unfamiliar, because I never smiled. Not for anyone.

Her gaze, bright and piercing, locked onto me. It traveled over the cut of my chest, the strength of my legs. I had chosen my clothes carefully: a dark tunic that clung to my muscles, leather pants tailored to every shift of movement.

Her heartbeat quickened. The sound pleased me. She liked what she saw—and I was, undeniably, a man worth looking at.

I grinned, surprised by how easily it came. I wasn’t known for being friendly.

“Hello, Persephone,” I purred, knowing the effect of my voice on women and amplifying it.

She drew a sharp breath, and spring flowers burst to life beneath her feet. The air around her brightened, and for the first time since my brothers stabbed me in the back, casting me into the Underworld, something in my chest eased, and my heart lightened.

“Are you my new guard?” she asked, hopeful, almost delighted at the idea.

“I’m not,” I said, feigning regret.

Her gray eyes turned molten in the sunlight, silver flashing with sudden suspicion.

“Then how do you know my name?”

I smiled, letting the deep resonance of my voice thrum with deliberate allure. “I have my ways.”

She blew a breath over the dew on the petal of a blood-red rose. My gaze locked onto her lips, imagining their taste, the sound she’d make when I finally claimed them.

She hesitated, flustered by my boldness—but enthralled. Her teeth caught her lower lip, pearlescent and untouched. I ached to close the distance between us, to seize her and claim that mouth no one had ever kissed. Her mother, the Harvest Goddess, had seen to that.

“I know more than just your name,” I continued. “It’s the loveliest in all the worlds.”

No lie. I was many things, but a liar wasn’t one of them.

Heat rose in her cheeks as she recognized the hunger in my stare. She might have been innocent, but she wasn’t naïve. Beneath that soft exterior lurked something wild, untamed—a pulse of desire waiting to be unleashed. And I would be the one to free it.

“You don’t think Aphrodite is the loveliest?” she inquired.

I barely suppressed a sneer. Aphrodite had been…memorable—clingy, after one night, but hardly worth repeating.

“Love’s her domain,” I said, smirking. “Not pleasure. She’s too busy admiring herself to be worth admiring in bed.”

She flushed furiously. “You shouldn’t say such things.”

“Shouldn’t I?” I stepped closer. “Truth isn’t always pretty.”

A breath hitched in her throat. “Have you…uh, bedded a lot of goddesses?”

The question trembled between curiosity and sharp jealousy.

“I’ve sampled every kind—mortals, immortals, goddesses,” I admitted. “But after today,” my gaze held hers, deliberate, “there’s only one I’ll ever want.”

She blinked rapidly, her breath quickening, her breasts rising with each unsteady inhale, nipples pebbled against the thin fabric of her sundress. The sight sent a jolt of hunger through me. I wanted to taste them, to tease with my tongue, to bite just hard enough to make her gasp. My cock strained against my pants, aching.

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