Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
P ersephone
Hades stands, pulling me to my feet. His eyes dance with dangerous flames, and yet they are glacial as he commands low to the brothers, “Assemble everyone. We will meet in the dining hall in the Palace.”
“Everyone?” Thanatos asks, a hint of breathlessness even as he stands just a bit taller. It’s saying something, because Thanatos is already tall. At least an inch taller than Hades’ six-foot-four.
“Everyone.”
“It will take time. There are those still in the living realm.”
“I am aware.” Hades gathers my hand in his, pulling me to a patiently waiting Alastor. I can’t help the knots that tug in my belly as I turn my back on the rushing river of blue stones and crystal-clear water that whispers of stolen secrets and pains too excruciating to bear. To me, Hades commands, “Up.”
With my hand on the nob of the saddle, I begin to pull myself up. Big hands clamp around my waist and lift me easily onto the beastly horse. Before I’ve even had a chance to pull breath into my lungs, Hades is settled atop the horse behind me, and Alastor is already stepping away—in the opposite direction of the Palace of Hades.
I fumble my words. “Why—shouldn’t—I thought we were going to the Palace?”
“No.”
I twist to catch a glimpse of his face. The flames are still dancing in his eyes. He’s angry. I sense that I shouldn’t push him, and yet I ask, “No?”
“I am taking you to the Grove of Persephone.”
“But—”
“The Weeping Pines of the Grove are currently in bloom. I wish for you to see them.”
“But—”
“They bloom only twice a year.” My mouth snaps closed as he continues, “For decades, you would come to the Underworld in the fall, and they would weep with joy. In the spring, when it was time for you to adhere to the bargain I accepted with Zeus on Demeter’s behalf, they would weep in loss, for you would leave.” His chest expands with a deep inhale. “When you left the Underworld, they kept with their weeping cycle. It is not due for another four weeks, but your arrival in the Underworld after centuries of your absence has inspired a joy like no other. They weep abundantly, and it is a sight to behold.” His voice lowers. “It is a sight I do not wish for you to miss.”
“You’re telling me that trees can sense I’m here?”
“The Underworld is sentient, little goddess, and you are its mother. Of course, it can feel your presence, as any child can feel the presence of its mother.”
“I thought—” I pause, swallowing hard as Alastor travels south along the rapids of the blue river. “I thought the Underworld was a Primordial God?”
“It is.”
“Then—who was it who initially birthed the Underworld?”
“The Underworld is an extension of Tartarus,” Hades explains. “Tartarus was formed of Chaos, the Goddess of Matter.”
“Chaos?” I frown, syphoning through all that I know of Greek Mythology. “Was she not the creator of everything?”
“She is, yes.”
“So, essentially, she is the mother of the Underworld, then. Not me.”
“She birthed Tartarus. The Underworld formed when I swallowed Tartarus, binding the Primordial God to me. The Underworld is an extension of both me and Tartarus. It is a realm unto itself. It is an evolution of the initial creation, in which your fertility allowed life to sprout.”
“After you—after you came into me, you mean?”
I can feel the tension bleeding from him. It’s so thick, it threatens to suffocate. “Yes.”
“So, you are the father, then?”
There is a long pause, as though he’s never considered it this way. Softer, he says, “Because of you, I became known as the God of After life .”
I catch my breath. “Because of me?”
“I stole your innocence, little goddess.” The pain of his voice stills the beat of my heart. “I tore into your body with my own, and planted the blood that would vein life into the soil of the Underworld. I came into your body and urged your unwilling womb to carry the seed of life that would ignite the Underworld and paint me a king amongst souls.”
I can’t help myself as I twist in the saddle once again to look at him. The same desperate sadness I’ve seen in his eyes so many times before is there now. But now, I think I have a little more insight into what it means.
There is no question that Hades deeply regrets the rape of Persephone, in which history paints him a terrible God, just as the Underworld crowned him ‘King’.
I wriggle until both legs are swung over one side of Alastor. Hades’ grip is firm on me so that I do not fall as the horse continues to lumber over the cool jade blades of night-painted grass. I catch his face between my hands, ignoring the tickle of his trim beard as I catch his eyes with my own. For this, I need him to look at me. To look into me.
I need there to be no question that this is my truth, and I offer it to him willingly with absolutely no hesitation.
“I know how you took me. I remember the moments you claimed me?—”
“I raped you.”
I fight the urge to flinch at his ugly interruption. This is too important to let weakness and past pains taint the way of our future.
“Stop talking and listen to me.” A hint of ruefulness drifts into the sadness that mars his captivating eyes. When I’m confident he’s going to do as I say, I tell him, “I remember, Hades. All of it. The pain and horror—and the moment that pain and horror turned into something else. Something beautiful and bursting with life.” Fire swims in his eyes as he holds mine. “I don’t regret any of it. If I could go back to that moment, I would not change anything about how our beginning played out. Not a second of it.”
His fingertips curl into my sides. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do, Hades. That moment made me yours, and I would never want—could never want for more than that.” I search his eyes. “You were hurting, too.”
A shuddering breath falls from his lips as his forehead tips to connect with mine. His hot breath whispers against my lips as he breathes raggedly, as though my words possessed the power to cleave him in two, and he’s doing his very best with needle and thread to stitch the torn parts of him back together.
“You are so innocent, even now.”
“I’m not innocent, Hades.” I brush my lips softly across his, but it’s not a kiss. “I’m just in love with you.”
“I don’t deserve your love.” He can’t seem to help himself as he answers the brush of my lips across his with a gentle kiss that quickly throws a flame on that ever-present hunger that lives inside me. “That does not mean I will not take it.”
I moan, my lips parting in a plea for Hades’ invasion. He doesn’t deny me, kissing me deep and inhaling just as deep. His tongue sweeps against mine, his hands tightening on my waist.
I get lost in his kiss. In the stroke of his hot tongue, and the feel of his hands on me. His fingers bite into the flesh of my hips when I shift hungrily closer to him.
My body is humming with need now, aching to be filled in a way that hovers on painful. There is an emptiness inside me, a gaping cavern of need.
There is no other way to describe it, this hunger that burns inside me.
It feels ancient, like something from another time. I don't know how to answer the call. The demand. I don't know how to give this need what it wants.
It must want more than simple sex. I've had Hades. Hades has had me so many times.
Yes, when he’s had me, this ache is dulled, if only for a little while. But it doesn't take much for it to come rearing back with a violence. A brutal, painful, demanding violence.
I whimper now as that violent pain crashes inside my womb. It thrashes, demanding for him. And I am helpless to deny it.
I don't want to deny it .
I don't want to deny this hunger, the connection that lingers between us. It feels primordial, like an ancient call I must answer.
The tips of Hades’ fingers dig into my hips, a pulse, a silent answering that he knows my body hungers for something only he can give. Against my lips, he inhales deep into his lungs. So deep, I think I hear the burning rattle. The Echo of desire that promises to feed the emptiness that lingers in each of us. He rips his mouth from mine, and I whimper.
It is a silent plea that he returned to me.
“Hades,” his name sounds on a rattled breath. My fingers twist in the lapels of his jacket, desperate to keep him close even as he pulls away. He tips his head back, and I watch as the cords of his throat work on a hard swallow. His eyes are closed against the night sky, and he is so achingly beautiful, so magnificent, and dark, and everything —everything that is mine.
He tips his head back to me, and when his eyes open, all I see are flames.
They rage like an inferno, a forest on fire. He is destruction, and I would willingly walk into the heart of it.
“Hades,” I call again, even though he's looking right at me.
He answers with a flare of his nostrils.
The sight of him doing that, inhaling deep like that , when I feel like this —well, heat sears through me. I know he can smell the desire that burns beneath my skin like a bloodhound scents blood.
Still, that raging need inside me is not a thing to be ignored. I need more of him, and the fingers I have twisted in his lapels tighten, tugging him closer. Or maybe pulling myself nearer, I'm not sure.
I just know that I'm driven on instinct, by desire. By a need that is deeper than lust.
This is so much more than that, even though I can't explain what it is. There are no words for the all-encompassing desperation I feel to be filled by something only he can offer.
A painful throb echoes inside my body, escaping from my lips on a shallow cry. The flames in his eyes darken, and he tips his head on a sigh. It's a broken sound. A resolved sound. I think I want to question him again, but his lips are on mine, and they're so warm.
He's pushing the fire in his eyes into me with this kiss. I feel it burning, singing my insides in the most decadently pleasant way. I don't realize that Alastor has stopped walking until Hades severs our kiss again.
My eyes drift open, and my world has completely changed.
Nothing is familiar, and even though the dark sky and the twinkling starlight has been entirely blocked out, everything is illuminated in strokes of soft violet and silver. It reminds me a little bit of tinsel, the way it falls from the pretty violet and white blooms that sprout from the needled pines surrounding us.
My heart heaves what can only be a sigh.
I am truly home in this place. In this grove of magic. But I don't get the chance to think about how beautiful this exquisite sight is. My body is still demanding something from Hades, and he responds like a beast scenting blood. From the corner of my eye, a shadow amidst magic, I catch him stalking toward me. Hungry.
His steps are long and determined. I don’t even know when I put space between us, only that he is not pleased with it. His eyes dance with flames as he hunts me, paralyzed prey that I am.
There is a dark determination in his every step. The sight of it twists the knots of need in my belly tighter.
Excitement flutters my heart.
Anticipation is a quiver in my belly.
Desire is a quake that threatens to rip me apart.
Need has me frozen to the forest floor, a gentle breeze that is warm and comes from—I have no idea where it comes from—but it plays with the gauzy skirt of my dress. It parts the splits in the gown to tease Hades with the sight of my legs.
Again, I watch as his nostrils flare.
When he reaches for me this time, it is with that same dark need with which he took me the first time, when the Underworld was not yet formed. When there was loss clinging to the scent of the air. He has been touched by that same madness. But now, he is not the only one. For it stirs inside me, too.
I welcome his aggression when his hand twists into the knots of my hair, yanking hard enough to pull my head back.
He takes my lips like he is a dark God demanding their sacrifice.
I willingly open to him, kissing him back with just as much violence, just as much hunger, just as much desperation as he kisses me. I don't know how it happens, but the rough bark of a tree stings my back, threatening to cut into my skin.
The pain dances with a delicious pleasure, surprising me. I have never been one for pain—and yet…
I feel as though I will forever surprise myself, as I learn more and more about the woman I am becoming. About the Goddess I was always intended to be.
My fingers dive into his hair as his tongue dives into my mouth. His knee throws my legs wide, as he grinds his arousal into my core.
The slit in my dress falls apart to invite his hand inside, and he does not deny as he pushes his hand between my legs. A breath hitches somewhere in my lungs, and my fingers twist in his hair, my nails biting into his scalp in violent anticipation. In response, he groans a sound of pure, dark pleasure.
It wrenches those knots in my belly tighter. And I rock my hips as his fingers hover a breath away from me, promising to slide against me, into the slick wet slit of my core.
He pulls his head back, his eyes fixed on mine. A hunter tracking his prey in her final moments. When he finally touches me, the connection is a whisper of teasing pressure that parts me just enough for him to stroke the tip of one rough finger over my clit. I feel as though I could fall apart. Could shatter into a million pieces. Could combust into dust.
I am a fawn in the jaws of a beast.
I will forever be ruined after this, and yet, I do not care.
He teases my entrance with the tips of his thick fingers, promising pleasure, even as he builds the pain of a desperate hunger with every slow stroke.
I hook one leg up around his waist, aching to climb him, even as the toes of my other foot dig into the soft bed of the ground beneath my feet.
“You are so beautiful,” Hades murmurs darkly.
His lips are wet and red from our kiss. I have marked him, as I know he has marked me. I'll never wash him from me, not that I want to. I want to engrave him into my very skin. I want to weave the essence of him into the fabric of my soul. I've never wanted something so elemental in my life. This need is vast. Primordial. It is awakening me, spilling desperation and hunger and awe.
I shift my hips closer to his fingertips, the tinsel-like spill of the weeping blooms whispers a lullaby of sighs into the forest.
This forest feasts on my cries, desperate to taste my pleasure.
I know it in my bones, this forest is mine. It is my place. It is the thing in the Underworld that was spun from the very essence of me. There is recognition here, and yet, I am too strung out with need to fully realize it.
The ache becomes unbearable, his fingertips stroking the button of my pleasure until I can take no more. I close my fists around his hair and shove my back into the bark of the tree, ignoring the bite.
No, I don't ignore it. I revel in it.
I do my best to slam my hips down on his fingers, to sheath the blade of him deep inside me. But he pulls away as he shoves his other hand into my belly, pinning me to the tree.
I whimper. “Hades.”
I think in this moment, I would say anything, do anything, promise anything—to have him inside me. To have him fill that awful emptiness.
“Please.” For him, in this moment, I would kneel in the burning embers of the deepest pit.
“I like it when you beg.” His voice is dripping with darkness.
A shaky laugh spills from my lips. “You're awful.”
I try again to shift my hips, but he's far more powerful than me. His strength has been honed over an eternity, while mine is young and fragile. There is something exciting about that, about knowing that this man could break me, and trusting that he won't.
My head falls back against the bark as another surging wave of aching need rolls through me. This hunger is sentient, and it is demanding to be heard. It bludgeons my core with the violence of a battle ax. Around his hips, my legs quiver. I can hardly catch my breath even though I am pulling deep, gulping gasps into my lungs.
My breasts spill from the gown with every heave, taunting the predator that peeks at me from the depths of his eyes. I sense that there is something more to him in this moment. Something deeper. Something he has yet to let me see.
Maybe it's a knowing from my past. Maybe I'm really losing my mind, but I want it all the same. I want to taunt and urge that predator to play. It's a dangerous thought. It's not one I recognize in myself, and yet it is there all the same. I can deny it no more than I can deny I was made for him.
My eyes flash to his when he clenches his jaw hard behind his lips. His teeth grind and that dangerous darkness that plays in the depths of his eyes, fails to wane. It is there, hovering at the edge of his sanity, toying with his control. I want him to free it.
I want to meet the darkness that lingers inside him.
I want to play with it. No, tame it. No. I want to love it.
I understand this part of me no more than I understand the reality that has become my life. But it is no matter. I don't need to understand to know that I want, that I crave, all that he has to give me.
“I—I need,” my voice breaks off on a gasp of breath. I finally make out, “You. I need you .”
From between tight lips, he demands, “Tell me more.”
I’m not sure I know what he means, but I decide to give him the truth of exactly how I feel. “There's a hole inside me, Hades. It's been there forever, but it's growing, and it hurts. And I think that you are the only thing that can fill it. I need you to fill it. I need you to fill me .”
He curses low under his breath, tipping his forehead to touch mine. When he pulls away, there is a sheen on his forehead, as though he is working to restrain himself.
I bite down on my lip and watch as the predator drinks in the motion.
I tell him, “I don't want you to restrain yourself.”
He growls. “You don't know what you're asking for.”
“I'm asking for you. That's all that matters.”
“No.”
“Please, don't tell me no, Hades.”
He shutters his eyes, but I know I'm getting through to him.
“No,” he says softer this time.
“Why?” I don’t even know what I’m asking for, but I know it’s important.
“You're not ready for that. For me—like that.”
“Tell me,” I beg. “Tell me what you think I’m not ready for.”
I know the moment he denies me. I see the fire in his eyes change. There is a burst of darkness, a fracture where something tries to slip free—and then it is engulfed by raging flames.
He lines his fingers at my entrance, and my lips part on a gasp. I pull a deep inhale into my belly, and it bursts loose as he shoves his fingers into my core. My head falls back against the tree, the bark rough, but it's nothing that I realize I don't crave.
I need this. I need it rough. I need it hard, and real, and honest, and raw .
He pulls his fingers out and plunges them in again, and again. But there is no satisfaction, only a growing, yearning hunger. A desperation that has me clawing at him.
Before I know it, I have worked the buttons of his shirt loose, and I am shoving it over his shoulders. His jacket is already at his feet, a blanket on the mossy ground. His chest is bare to me now, glowing under the violet light that shimmers from the tinsel-like blooms.
He is beautiful, harrowingly so. I could look at him forever and never grow tired.
I thrust my hips into his fingers as he thrusts them into me. In and out. In and out. I'm so achingly desperate for him. I've never been this wet in all my life. I would be embarrassed, if it weren't for the hunger I see. A reflection of my own refracting back at me from the flames of his eyes.
“Please,” I say again. “Please, Hades.”
“What? What do you need?”
“This isn't enough,” I gasp. It really should be enough. I should be so far tipped over the edge, but I'm not even close. “I need you inside me. I need you to fill me.”
“I am inside you,” he taunts, and there's a dark grin playing at his mouth.
I can't help myself. I push off the tree and catch his mouth with mine, nipping that grin. The growl he emits in response, is feral.
I rake my hands down the bare muscles of his chest, his torso, to the button of his pants. All the while he thrusts his fingers in and out of me. It's an exquisite violence, but I need more. I need something harder, rougher. Fuller .
I shift to pull him from his pants. He's velvet over granite, his tip a deep reddish purple. It's angry and hungry, and I ache to feed it.
There's a noise coming from me, panting, gasping breaths. Almost mewling. There should be shame, but there isn't. All there is, is hunger. Mine. His. Ours. Maybe it's the Underworld’s. Maybe, like that first time, this time is a joining that will create something other . I can't know. All I know is that we must feed this flame, lest it incinerate us both.
I run my thumb over the slit of his tip, and a bead of creamy liquid pebbles. I smear it over his head, captivated by the way the glittering silvery violet of the forest shimmers over the picture of him.
His hand comes to the bust of my gown, and he tears it from me. Shreds of beautiful blue gauze hang at my hips now, bearing my torso to him.
What I must look like right now, wanton, against a tree, with nothing but the shreds of a gauzy blue gown clinging to my waist. My legs are bare where they circle his waist, my fingers drifting over his cock as he thrusts his fingers into me.
I cry out into the night when he dips his head and sucks my breast into his mouth.
When his tongue lashes against my untouched breast, needles of arousal prick my flesh. I come alive from the inside out, the blood in my veins roaring with a hunger my flesh cannot sate. There is no earthly thing I can promise the fiend within myself, to make the yawning ache abate.
There is only him. Hades.
“Please, please—” I moan into the night. “No more. I need you now. I need you to fill me. Come inside me—please.”
Whatever will he had to refrain all the other times is broken.
With a growl that is feral, he slams into me.
With one swift thrust, he is rooted to the hilt inside me. Stars blink behind my eyes and a slow smile of satiation stretches languidly over my lips. The yawning ache in my core feels suddenly, deliciously less.
And then Hades begins to move.