Page 108 of Where Darkness Bloomed
The observation struck deep, a salve and a temptation all at once. After eons of solitude, an existence set apart, she was here in his arms. Seeing him.
He exhaled sharply, fingers rasping through the scruff of his beard. “I am.”
“What troubles you?”
“The Greeks grow bloodthirsty. Vicious, unrestrained.” His shoulders tightened, face darkening. “But it is Achilles who troubles me most.”
She cocked her head. “Why?”
“The Greeks are ruled by Agamemnon, but they follow him begrudgingly. Even Odysseus, in all his cunning, feigned madness to escape his call to this war.” His lips set in a hard line. “But Achilles... the men follow him willingly.”
“For what reason?”
“They believe he cannot die.”
Startled silence rang after his words.
At her stunned expression, Hades shook his head grimly. “No mortal can escape Thanatos,” he replied. “But Achilles has defied death more than most, bringing thousands to the river—”
A soft touch to his hand cut the words short.
Persephone’s fingers curled around his. Then she lifted his hand, brushing a kiss to his knuckles, light as breath. When she looked up at him, her eyes were dark and beseeching, fierce with some unnamed pull that struck him, swift and deep.
“Come,” she said, a hushed promise.
The corridors were tranquil, silently painted in shadows on stone. Her steps were quiet, barely heard over the soft slide of her gown.
He let her lead. Watched as she reached the marble doors of their bedchamber, touching her fingers to them. They parted like breath.
She stepped inside, the brazier’s glow haloing her in light—just as the sun had the first time he beheld her among the cypress trees. Fiercely alive, like a fire-bloom rising from the frostbitten earth. With thorns.
She was spring. But not the docile force sung of by mortal shepherds.
She was the moment the ice cracked.
The vine that split stone.
The fury swelling beneath the thaw.
She had torn roots from her mother’s garden, setting them to grow here, in the womb of the earth. His kingdom, now hers. In doing so, she had carved herself into the center of him, into that space he had long kept for her, meant for no other.
The doors shut with a soft thud, sealing them away from the world in a hush of firelight and silence.
She turned and eyes like emerald flame found his. Her hands slid slowly over his forearms. No words—a silent request he felt in his marrow before her fingertips ever touched him.
He understood, answering without words. He let her guide him back, lowering himself to sit on the divan by the brazier. His hands dropped to his thighs, still. Waiting.
She stepped into the space between his knees, the warmth of her skin reaching him before her hands did. Her fingers traced the strong lines of his shoulders before sliding to his hair, still bound back from the journey.
She hesitated. “May I?”
His hands rose to span her waist, and his voice was deep, velvet-dark. “You may do anything you wish.”
She smiled then—quiet, radiant. Bold and soft all at once.
With care, she unfastened the leather cord. His hair spilled loose around his shoulders, and her fingers combed through it, coaxing a deep hum from his chest.
The clasp at his shoulder came undone beneath her fingers, and his shoulders rolled as the heavy folds of his himation fell away under her touch.
