Page 17 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Attraction.
Not longing, not hunger. But the first echo of something quieter and instinctive, drawn from deeper.
He hadn’t expected it. The realization struck deep, quiet and unwelcome. Still, he held her gaze, studying the soft tension in her brow, the rapid beat in her throat.
“Why do you watch them?” he asked at last, his voice a shade gentler now.
The silence stretched, a thread pulled too taut.
She swallowed, then the words tumbled out swiftly. “Eros, he said… passion was to be seen. I didn’t mean to—” Her voice caught, the words tangling. The rest fell away.
Her embarrassment pulled at something in him. Amusement stirred—faint, fleeting—but beneath it rose a gentler pull. Reluctant. And unexpectedly tender.
Hades glanced toward the terrace. There, beyond the veil of lamplight, two shadows moved in a slow, intimate rhythm. The soft creak of a bed accompanied, breath and pleasure mingling in the night.
When he spoke again, it was a low murmur. “You are missing the heart of it.”
Her gaze followed his instinctively. Then a soft sound escaped her, not quite a gasp. She turned away, color blooming high on her cheeks.
“My lord... I must go,” the goddess whispered, “My mother will be looking for me.”
She turned, but before thought could form—he moved. One step forward, and his hand caught hers. Not forcefully, just enough to still her.
Her pulse fluttered wild beneath his touch as slowly, carefully, he guided her to face him again. They stood closer now, her eyes level with his collarbone. With a slow lift of her chin, her gaze found his once more.
He held it steadily. “Who is your mother?”
The silence that followed trembled—charged, volatile. She was overwhelmed. He could see it in her eyes, storm-bright and restless, as tension thickened the air like heat rising off sun-warmed stone. His power stirred in response. It pressed in around them, brushed softly against her, like a hand poised gently at her back. Felt more than seen.
He leaned in, just slightly. Enough to let nearness speak where words would not.
“Who is your mother?” he asked again, a murmur pitched only for her.
The answer spilled from her lips in a whispered confession. “Demeter, goddess of the harvest.”
The name struck him, cold and clean. An anchor sinking deep into the maelstrom of memory.
Hades went still. Completely, utterly still.
Demeter’s daughter.
She stood before him. Daughter of earth, cloaked in shadow.He stared down at her, shock buried beneath the stillness of eons as history and memory twined like grapevines, twisting sharply within him.
Then—slowly—he exhaled, releasing her wrist. His hand didn’t fall away. Instead, it rose. His fingertips grazed thecurve of her cheek as he tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear, a whisper of warmth against the cool night.
But her reaction was immediate. Her eyes softened, dark centers pooling with the same potent pull he felt thrumming in his veins. Her head tilted into his touch, lashes fluttering like leaves on wind.
Time staggered, then halted.
The warmth of her skin beckoned him closer, like a flame to a long-dormant hearth. He leaned in until his lips hovered just above her brow. Her breath brushed his chest, but she made no move to pull back.
Temptation surged, a roaring tide that urged him to close the distance. To claim what simmered between them before it slipped away.
But his voice came instead, rough-edged and intimate. “Go, my lady.” The words brushed her brow. “Back to your mother.”
Neither moved. The moment held, fragile and breathless.
Then, from the terrace, a sharp cry of ecstasy pierced the air. A shout of raw pleasure, the unmistakable echo of shared release.
