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

Chapter 32

Chapter

Thirty-Two

H ades

Her call for me, drenched in fear, was enough to shred my bones of the flesh I wear.

And then Thanatos told me where she was.

I’d very nearly destroyed him then. I might have, if it weren’t for Hypnos and Hermes staying my wrathful hand. But I know what can happen in the Vale of Mourning and the Elm of Lost Dreams.

It had been one thing in her first life, when she’d been a Goddess, not so easily killed or harmed by the souls.

But now—now she is human.

One blow can end her life. One act can ruin her future.

One trauma can haunt her for the rest of her days.

And the souls in the forest are unaware. Their dreams are being beat out of them time and again. Their psyche is wounded. Their sense of reality terribly distorted. It is the way of the forest after the Vale of Mourning. It is the path to letting go, if letting go of their earthly dreams is even possible.

For those who cling too long, the call of the Styx becomes louder than the call of the Grove of Persephone, and they will inevitably step back into the river which will guide them to The Lethe.

But I know who she’d gone to the Elms in search of. Her guilt had been eating at her in the days since we’d returned to the Underworld. She’s been obsessing over the idea that Adonis had sacrificed his life for hers. That she needs to make it right. That she needs to apologize and help him through whatever path he needed to walk to get to his new life here in the Underworld.

But his path is not so simple. His love for Persephone has spanned lifetimes .

If he cannot accept that she was never meant to be his, he will be one of those souls called back to the Styx. One of the souls led to The Lethe.

For his sake, I hope he can make it through the Elms. Hope he finds the strength to step beyond the forest of lost dreams and into the grove of healing.

Through the ringing of my anger, I glared through fire at my old friend. He’d simply said, “She was going to go alone. Minthe is with her and will not leave her. This experience is necessary for her to understand.”

Now, I wait at the base of the White Mountains in the Grove of Persephone. I’d already travelled on the back of Alastor to the Elms, already saw Adonis in the throes of rage and grief. Alone.

I’m not sure what I’d have done if I’d found him harming her. The way she had screamed for me, using her Gods’ bond to call for me, I’ll never forget the sound. Never forget the chill that had frozen over the magma of my blood.

I’ve never experienced anything like it. The fear. Raw and?—

I stiffen, the chill in my blood spreading out over my flesh.

Had she called for me like that when Demeter had been murdering her that first time so long ago? Had the power of the Garden of Silence been so strong that night as it invaded her body, that it had consumed the sound of her very thoughts? Obliterated the bond of a God?

The idea is a disturbing one. That the power in the stones can silence even the call of the mind.

The thought that she had called for me like that—with fear and hope—and I’d been unresponsive nearly guts me where I stand.

A prickle of sickly heat moves over my skin, at war with the frost of my fears. I rest my head against the bark of the tree. The weeping blooms have been harvested, but the forest remains a sight. Flashes of violet tinsel are woven through the rich brown of the wrinkled bark, and although the little white and violet blooms have died with the harvesting of their weeping threads, the tiny buttons, like tightly closed acorns, gleam under the starlight a muted metallic hue of deep violet.

They shimmer like fallen stars caught in the cradle of the needled pines. They will shimmer like that until the moment they bloom and begin to weep.

Alastor huffs, and a puff of white plumes from his nose. There is little about the Underworld in which makes true sense, when looked at through an earthly lens. Hot swirls with cold, warring for dominance seemingly in the same space. Borders are a physical thing, a crossing in which one can feel an immediate difference in the weight of the air, the shifting of the atmosphere.

The land here, like Atlantis, is sentient in a way that the living realm will never be. Sentient in the way Olympus was so very long ago. Before Chaos began to bleed her power from the home of the Gods who abused it. Sentient in a way that earth, crafted by the power of Gaia, will never be.

It takes strength not to seek her out, to wait here at the base of the White Mountains that stretch into the deep of the Grove of Persephone, glittering like moonstone under the starlight. I hunger for just a glimpse of her. To know that she is safe and unharmed. Yet when I finally catch sight of her cresting the mountain top with Minthe close, the relief I feel is quickly smothered by something far, far darker.

Anger.

The need to punish flares deep inside me, unbidden. The beast of my God quivers under my skin, threatening an appearance I must fight to contain. An image—not entirely mine—flashes in my mind.

I am in my Gods’ form and my sneaky little goddess is thrown over Alastor’s back, ass bare and in full view for the twin moons that burn red. The sounds of her little cries with every strike of my Gods’ hand falling against the smooth skin of her plump ass brings a hum of pleasure rolling through me.

But such a thing cannot be. I could never touch her in such a form. Still, I want…

“Hades,” I snap out of the vision, out of the need to punish.

Persephone’s body slams into my own. Her arms close around my shoulders and her hands grip my neck as she buries her face into the crook between my neck and shoulder. I can feel the little puffs of warm air as she breathes raggedly against me, either from whatever experience she suffered, the climb down from the mountain, or seeing me now after she’d called for me. “You came.”

My arms close around her body. I am struck now as I’ve been struck many times before by how small she is against me. How delicate.

She’d been the same size in her past life. But there is a difference in the feel of her body when it harbours the form of a Goddess, even if that Goddess never made her appearance.

There had been a strength within her that simply isn’t here now, in this human form. She is soft now and so very vulnerable.

I’d never given much thought to the vulnerabilities of humans before now. It’s terrifying.

There is gravel in my voice. “I will always come for you, Persephone.”

The puff of breath against my skin is warm, but my eyes lift to Minthe where she stands at her back, eyes already fixed on me with a sobriety that feeds my worry.

“Adonis is not right,” she tells me before I can ask.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, but there was a moment when he was really lost to his dreams, that I saw something more than love.” There is hardness in her eyes. “It wasn’t natural.”

Persephone pulls from me to look at Minthe. I can’t miss the way her brows furrow. “More than love?”

Minthe’s lips thin into a tight line. “Obsession. But not his own. Not really.”

“What did you see, Minthe?” I ask.

“There was a—a mist of red. It wasn’t right.”

“Aphrodite.” The name is a curse on my lips.

Minthe nods. “That’s what I thought.”

“Get Hecate. Have her look at Adonis.” I curse the fact I’d never thought to do this before. That Aphrodite could have been so angry with Adonis for choosing Persephone, so jealous, that she would curse him with obsession on top of his love.

The ways his soul must have suffered in the centuries…

It would make sense how he’d live and die over and over again, clinging to his affection for her. A God’s curse is not easily broken. And its power can rival even the power of the Elms. On top of that, with Persephone stolen from the Underworld, the Elms’ power had dimmed, and he’d been one of many souls surely to slip through the cracks of that weakening.

I’ve seen the consequences of that weakness time and again. Souls born with obsession burning in their veins. With hideous intent and unseen scars from a past life, reaping their sorrow on undeserving souls.

Losing Persephone had affected the living realm far more than most know.

But now that she’s back, now that the Underworld feasts on her power, the Elms won’t release their hold on Adonis again. He won’t slip through the cracks another time.

Minthe nods as though she can read the thoughts behind my eyes. She probably can. She’s been a loyal friend for so long, forced to stand at my side and watch the ways the Underworld slowly died.

Silence throbs heavily between us until Minthe is gone to find Hecate, and we are alone. The anger that never really went away climbs a notch as I stare down at Persephone, taking in every inch of soft skin.

So vulnerable.

My jaw clenches, molars grinding at the sight of her torn dress.

“I’m okay,” she whispers.

Every inch of my body tightens. “You could have been seriously hurt.”

“I had to see him. I thought I could help him.”

“I told you not to go to the Elms,” I grit through my teeth.

Her hands land on her hips. “You didn’t tell me what could happen,” she accuses, and my jaw drops. “I went into that blind, Hades.”

“I didn’t think I had to paint out the horrors of the forest for you to respect my command, Persephone.”

Her brows inch high. “Your command?”

Fucking Tartarus. “Persephone.”

“Your command?” she repeats, this time with a little laugh that is the picture of incredulity. “You don’t command me, Hades.”

The vision of throwing her over Alastor’s back and beating her ass until it’s apple red flashes in my mind once again. I stay the unfamiliar urge.

She continues, “We’re a partnership or we’re nothing. That’s the only way this works.”

Her threat has my spine snapping straight, the God inside me alert and ready to pounce.

I move dangerously closer to her as she smartly takes quick steps back. I stalk her until her back connects with the bark of a tree. Her rose red lips part, the dark of her malachite green eyes flashing as they connect with mine.

She is so exquisitely beautiful. Pale flesh adorned in flashes of red. Red gown. Red hair. Red lips.

Even angry, I long to taste her.

I dip my head to peer down into those eyes that wreak havoc on me. “You don’t threaten the end of us. Not ever, little goddess.”

She lifts that little chin. She is like a spitting kitten, all fluff.

I almost laugh.

“I don’t live my life under the thumb of anyone, Hades. Not even the man I love.”

“When I tell you not to do something, it is for your own safety,” I say coolly. “You are human in a land of the dead. You are vulnerable in the way that no other soul here is vulnerable. The souls can withstand torture and continuously return, time and again. But you—if you die here—” I cut off the words, fearing to say them aloud.

“If I die here, what?”

“The last time you died here I couldn’t find your soul. It was cloaked to me and to Thanatos. You wandered the Underworld for centuries, little goddess, alone. If you die here, I’m not certain I would find you again—and I can’t go centuries—without you.” The words escape on a hoarse breath as my fisted hand connects with the bark at the side of her head. The words nearly taking me to my knees.

The defiance in her eyes drains away. Pain scores wrinkles into her brow.

“Hades…”

“Don’t.”

She does. “My soul was lost last time because of The Lethe.”

“Persephone, we don’t know that for certain.”

“But we do.”

My other hand lifts to the bark on the other side of her head, effectively caging her. I dip my head, so my eyes are level with hers. I growl. “It is not a theory I am willing to test.”

At the hitched sound of her breath, I know I’ve won. I can scent the shift in the air—in her. The ember of burning need that seems to live, ever present, inside her.

She draws in a shaky breath. “I won’t go to the Elms again.”

My chest expands and deflates with breaths for a long while. Finally, I murmur, “Good girl.”

I don’t miss the way her pupils dilate or the flutter of her pulse in her neck. Her breath trembles as she exhales. “What was that with Minthe? About Adonis?”

She’s not looking at me now, as though she thinks she can lessen the building hunger if she doesn’t look at me. It won’t work. Even though I don’t understand this hunger that plagues her, I know this much. The only thing that can fight the flame once it’s been set is me. Inside her.

I decide to punish her after all.

I won’t give in this time. Won’t give her what she needs.

But I will play with her.

“I suspect Aphrodite cursed him with an obsession for you.” I dip my head, grazing the tip of my nose along the blade of her jaw. A tiny eruption of goosebumps rises over pale skin, and she shivers.

“Why would she do that?” Persephone gasps.

“He was her lover first.” I trace the shell of her ear with my tongue. “And she is a jealous goddess.”

“Hades—”

I nip the tender flesh behind her ear, earning a sharp little sigh. “She was angry when he chose you. When he spent a season in the Underworld with you. When he mourned your loss when you left him to the living realm to return to me.” I kiss a burning path down her neck, my own hunger raging behind my pants. “She cursed him for his betrayal. An obsession bound to his very soul.”

“That’s awful.”

I nip her breast through the thin gauze of her dress. She moans.

“The Gods often are.” I pull back, cooling the desire from my face even as I take in the flushed beauty of hers. “Come. We need to get back.”

“Wh—” She blinks quickly, her jaw falling as realization sets in. “You’re punishing me?”

“Consider yourself lucky I didn’t throw you over Alastor’s back and paint your ass red with my hand.”

Her mouth snaps closed, and she shoves herself from the tree. “Oh, you’re going to be the one punished when this is over, Hades. I’ll make sure of it.”

As I ride behind my stiff little goddess back to the Palace of Hades, the ache in my cock throbbing painfully and not relinquishing, I begin to suspect that she may be right.