Page 140 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Sleep took Persephone almost instantly.
But Hades lay awake, watching her in the firelight.
New freckles dusted the bridge of her nose, a new constellation from the sun’s kiss.
They’d not been there before. Proof that she’d been drawn away from him. And still, she had returned.
A tendril of hair fell across her face, and he brushed it back. Slowly, her eyes opened, emerald and steady, finding his. They lay in silence, watching one another.
“I missed you.”
Her whispered confession expanded in his chest, flooding it with warmth. Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her in, smoothing his fingers over her skin.
“What did you mean by going to the pool?” he asked, rougher than he intended.
Her eyes widened. Swiftly, she sat up, clutching a blanket to her chest. “I have much to tell you.”
He remained lying naked against the furs they’d tangled in, one arm bent behind his head. His free hand trailed along her thigh as he listened.
She spoke of her dreams—of Thetis and Achilles, of the path to the Underworld, of memories unraveling before her eyes like a prophecy long buried.
The words settled over him like lead. When she finished, he said nothing. Instead, he pulled her down against him until she lay indelicately across his chest, locked in his arms.
Her fingers traced idle patterns along his ribs, reminding him that shewas here, in his realm. With him, safe. He inhaled deeply, forcing his wrath to curl inward, banked but not extinguished.
Persephone tilted her head, watching him carefully. “You are angry.”
His jaw tightened. “That is a shadow of what I feel.”
She rose up, a hand pressed flat to his chest. Her hair spilled over him in a silken wave. “Do not be angry with Dionysus. I sought him out.”
His fingers idly skimmed the curve of her spine.
Dionysus. Of course it had been him.
Hades had never begrudged the wild god’s indulgences. Dionysus was as he had always been—a force of appetite and abandon. Sensual as a panther, languid as wine. Men and women, gods and mortals alike, found themselves tangled in his arms, in his bed, in the velvet-dark of his worship. Drawn to the unbound god who offered pleasure and ruin in equal measure.
It had never mattered to Hades. He’d never cared.
Until now.
Now, Dionysus had led Persephone into that spiral of ruin, setting her on a path that could have consumed her entirely.
“He was fortunate to escape my wrath when he dared to trespass before,” Hades said darkly. “And stole a soul, no less.”
“He is...” Persephone hesitated, searching, “untamed.”
A humorless sound left him. “A gentle word for what he is.”
The memory of her in Mnemosyne’s waters still burned through him. His arms tightened around her. “You could have been lost to me. Or harmed by Cerberus.” His voice was low. “Why didn’t you call for me?”
She paused. Then bent her head, pressing a soft kiss to his chest. It scorched through him, stirring coals back to flame.
“I knew you would come,” she whispered. The words were soft, certain. “But your agreement with Zeus... it would’ve been broken. And my mother—I could not let the earth fall into ruin again.”
It made sense, but the logic meant little. His heart didn’t answer to reason.
His fingers slid into her hair, tangling there—commanding, possessive—as he tilted her face to his. His lips hovered near her jaw, the heat between them humming, alive.
