Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls (Gods of Myth #3)

Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

P ersephone

“Hecate is still in there, Rhadamanthus,” Hades clips, holding me close to his chest as he moves away from the massive man who waits in the Tower for us. I recall him welcoming me into the Tower of Pluto that first day for my interview. It feels so long ago. My vision blurs as Rhadamanthus nods. “Make sure she is well.”

I hear a faint promise from Rhadamanthus as Hades moves quickly. Heat pricks at my skin like a burn and frost swims in my mind, splintering my thoughts. The cold is so deep inside me, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to pull the frosty talons free from where they spur deep in my bones.

Awareness slips in and out of focus. I’m in the elevator.

My world is black and cold—like the eyes of my sire.

I’m in the condo.

My world is black.

Hades is running through a stairwell.

My world is cold—so, so cold.

My eyes snap open at the searing hot of the—oh, God, we’re just in the pool. I am so cold that even the cool water of the pool feels as though it’s boiling the flesh from my bones. I cry out as I cling to Hades, desperate for the soothing heat of him rather than this searing hot of the water that claws at my skin.

“It hurts,” I manage.

“I know,” he grits through the ringing in my ears.

“Out—I need out.” I’m clawing at him now.

“You need to warm up.”

A whimper of agony breaks from the prison I’ve contained it for far too long. Through the invasive cold of the prison world of Hades’ creation.

The harsh exposure in which I’d been forced to face my truth through the lens of my past.

This burning heat that my body repels…

It’s all too much.

“I don’t know what to do.” Hades holds me tighter.

“M—my clothes,” I stumble over the words. “Your skin.”

He clearly understands my need through the plea of my disjointed words, because Hades’ hands work quickly to remove first my clothes, and then his own. I plaster my body to his, aching for a closeness that feels too far away.

His heat warms me unlike any other.

My vision begins to clear as the need that hums ever-present in my body, grows. It sweeps like a caress of tender kisses along chilled bone, igniting embers in my marrow.

“Little Goddess,” Hades whispers a desperate sound as I stroke my core against his responding body.

“Don’t say no,” I plead. “Don’t ruin this with that.”

He must know what I mean. He was there for the conversation with Uranus. He knows now .

I never wanted to take them .

My hunger was always for him.

“Persephone.” His head bows and his mouth latches on my shoulder. I feel the graze of teeth far sharper than they should be before he rips his kiss from my skin, leaving my body bereft of something I cannot name. My core yearns a song sung by my ancient soul for this man I have had—and yet not.

I sense on a level that is deeper than comprehension, that I have not had all of him. Not ever. Not in this life or the life I lived before. He’s always held himself apart from me.

But I want him. I want to take him as he has taken me. I want to be the only thing that answers to the call of need deep inside him.

With my hands gripping his shoulders, I align myself with his tip. He’s so hot, burning hot in the most decadent way, as he enters my body.

His whimper is one of release and relief. Fully sheathed, his will finally breaks. He pulls out and rocks back in, a slow, smooth, purposeful stroke of the soul that has been woven to his own, sewn by the very threads of fate in which weave the wonders of this world.

His lips move over mine, chasing the line of my jaw and devouring the chill that threatened to claim all of me. His hands roam over my body as he thrusts powerfully inside me.

My eyes drift closed as my head rolls back. Teeth, sharp as a blade drift carefully over the column of my neck to the hollow where he dips his tongue. “The taste of you,” he rasps, “addictive.”

I whimper, because I want—no, I need more.

“Deeper, Hades,” I plead as he thrusts deeper, to a point of delicious pain that only needles the need that rages inside me. “Harder.”

“Tartarus,” he curses. “Any harder and I’ll break you apart.”

“Never,” I vow. Because I was made for him. To take him.

“Let go.” I don’t even know what I’m begging for, just know that I need it.

A low growl of nearly broken will spills from him in a sound that is not man. It’s all God, touched with beast.

Excitement prickles my skin as he knifes us through the water to the steps of the pool. He crushes me against the night-kissed stone of the patio, but it’s no matter, he’s chased away the frost.

Digging his knee into the stone, he pushes deeper into my body. Harder. My back arches off the stone, offering my breasts to the stars that my jealous God dips his head and sucks into his mouth.

His hands find mine as he pulls them high above my head to lock my wrists in one of his. There is a bite of pain as stone scraps my knuckle, and with his free hand, he slides beneath my back to align his forearm with my spine as he grips me around the back of my neck.

I am truly a prisoner of his ravaging now, contained between the immovable wall of his invasion and the stone of the patio. He thrusts into me hard enough to split me in two, and I welcome it all. I spread wider for him as he bottoms out again and again. And still, it’s not enough to sate this ravenous hunger that rages inside me—a beast all her own.

A memory—mine and yet not—drifts into my mind as though summoned by the siren call of my ancient soul.

Hades, ravaging me. His bite— teeth —deep in my throat.

The blood he pulled from me. The blood I gave .

Need consumes me. My core is drenched, and still, I grow wetter. Hades groans as though he felt the spill of deeper need.

“Bite me,” I beg.

Hades thrusts slow, the violence easing.

The hunger inside me grows.

“Little Goddess…”

“I know you can. I remember that first time,” I rasp. “I want it, Hades. I need it.”

Flames burst inside the depths of his eyes. A glimpse into the very God that he devoured so long ago. I see it so clearly now.

I wet my lips, those flames in his eyes chasing the movement. He looses a string of ancient words I don’t know, but recognize in a way that stirs my ancient soul with a burning need.

He thrusts deep, rooting himself into my very womb as he crushes his body to mine. Stone nips into skin, but I’m wild with need as I bare my throat to him. To the sink of fangs deep into my body.

The sharp pain is quickly swept up in a flurry of heat that invades every inch of me. The pull of my blood into his mouth, over his tongue, sings a song of primordial need that threatens to overwhelm me even as it promises to complete me.

Heat and need build as I meet him thrust for thrust, my body no longer instinctively trying to inch away from him with every violent thrust. I am a thing of need. Burning for more. Splitting open for his claiming.

And as he pulls his teeth from my body, his thrusts growing frantic and impossibly deep, that pressure within me builds until it finally, finally boils over in an orgasm that threatens to rupture the very soul inside my body.

I loose a scream that Hades swallows with a hungry kiss as he spills hot seed deep into my womb. His body jerks with the violence of his release as he kisses me deep, the taste of my blood infusing his kiss.

My eyes shutter closed as my body falls to a languid state. I can’t summon the energy to even move as Hades pulls his body from mine, lifting me and carrying me to the bed before he wraps his body around mine and sleep takes me into its dark, blissful hold.