5. Sandro
Sandro
I t was bad this time.
I didn’t just think it. I couldn’t just sense it. I could feel it all the way to my bones.
This time, when it took me, it really took me. And it didn’t just keep me there at the pit between reality and hallucination. It drowned me in darkness.
A hot darkness that may as well have incinerated me.
What happened to me? I thought …
I thought calling the god would save me. The witch said it would heal me. That I wouldn’t die.
So why was I swimming in a dark ocean that felt as inescapable as my fate?
“Do you hear me, my love? Hang in there. Don’t go yet. Come back to me. Come back to your loyal servant.”
There.
There it was.
That voice. Its melody.
The darkness was replaced by a dark room, a bed, one of those old-fashioned ones with four posters and curtains. There were silk sheets underneath me and a man.
“My love. Always and forever. Until the end of time,” he whispered in my ear.
Then, the darkness reappeared, and I heard the voice again.
“Remember. Remember me, my love. Remember who you are. Hang on. Don’t let go.” It sounded so far away, and yet…
There.
The light.
At first, I thought it was another vision. But nothing appeared in front of me. No images, no sensations.
Just the light. It was faint and opaque blue, but it appeared, pierced the dark, and showed itself to me, showed me the way out.
“Come back to me, my darling. Come back to me, my q—my king. Come to me. Come to your lover.”
His voice did something to me. His words clawed into my flesh and bone, dug deep. They latched on to me and soothed my racing heart. A chill spread across my body.
“Come to me.”
It sounded so familiar. Like a melody you’d known all your life but couldn’t quite get the words right.
I swam toward it as if trying to find the surface of the deepest ocean. The closer I got, the more the dark dissipated.
Blue.
It was the blue of his eyes I saw first. Bright-blue eyes staring back at me, and even though he’d stopped talking, they spoke to me. Sang to me. Called to me.
I felt as though I could do no wrong under their intensity. Like I could storm any weather, overcome any hardship, climb any mountain.
How could someone invoke so many feelings when we barely knew each other? When we’d barely exchanged any words?
Was the witch right? Was he my mate? It wasn’t an alien concept for a witch to have a mate, but it was so rare that some went their whole lives never finding them.
But our mates were shifters. Not gods. Never gods.
“You’re awake, my love.”
His dark pink lips parted, and I found myself drawn to them as much as his eyes.
Before I did anything, I stopped and took him in. Took him all in.
I counted the beauty spots in his face—two—noticed the patchy five o’clock shadow, the cheekbones, the thick eyebrows, and the black-and-blue hair that resembled fire more than hair.
He was…divine.
And small.
I expected the Greek god of the Underworld to be a lot of things, but small—and Asian, for that matter—was not one of those things.
And yet, despite his size, he carried himself with authority. It registered on his every fiber.
“Are you okay, my love? Talk to me.”
“I’m…I’m fine.”
And I was. I wasn’t hot anymore and my heart rate had returned to normal.
I think.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to sit up.
Hades’ arms wrapped around me, supporting me, helping me up as his eyes remained trained on me.
“That means your Night Crown did its work,” he said and looked down at my chest, where I found a beautiful but heavy necklace with a dark-blue stone.
An image flashed before my eyes. It was of a dark wall with a throne in front of it. Before I could take any more of it in, it was set on fire. Blue fire.
“Th-this is a crown?”
Hades smiled.
“You were never one for lavish demonstrations of power. Your people know who you are. And your enemies would regret it if they challenged you.”
He smirked when he mentioned enemies as if he took pleasure in a memory. Or maybe it was the cruelty behind such a statement he was savoring. I couldn’t tell.
I traced my finger over the necklace, only able to take my eyes off him for a moment to admire the stone.
“So is that it? Am-am I healed now?” I asked.
Hades dropped to his knees, took my hand, and brought it to his lips.
I’d seen the move in the movies, where the guy would take a girl’s hand and kiss it, and she’d go all head over heels for him, but I’d never had anyone do it to me. Frankly, it had always seemed so…cheesy. Old-fashioned.
But…
When Hades did it to me, it sent goosebumps all the way to the small of my back. My erogenous zone. A zone Austin hadn’t been able to arouse, not even when he touched it directly.
“I’m afraid not, my love.”
I cocked my head.
“I thought…you said the crown did its work.”
He kissed my knuckles again and exhaled, resting his lips there as if it were something we’d been doing for years.
Probably centuries if the stories were true.
“I’m afraid your crown isn’t the cure you were looking for. It’s made of stibnite, the mineral that courses through every crevice of Hades. It’s your stone. It responds to you as its master and protects you, but a cure it is not.”
“Then that’s it? There’s no way to save me? The witch lied to me?” I glanced around, trying to find this Mother Red Cap witch, but, of course, she was nowhere to be seen.
Hades smiled and made a noise. Something that sounded a lot like a giggle. It was so strange coming from him.
He rose from the ground, and without letting my hand go, he caressed my face with his free hand. “No, my love. She did not lie to you.”
“But you just said?—”
“The stone can’t heal you. But I can.”
I wanted to pull away from the tender touch. To glare at him and push him away. I didn’t know this man. I’d never met him. And yet, I found it impossible to resist him. Impossible to reject him.
“What are you waiting for?”
“We’ll get to that. I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“Why?”
Hades took a deep breath, and his gaze wavered for a moment as if he was distracted by something, but then he stared at me again.
“I’m afraid if I tell you, it’ll scare you off. And I can tell you don’t look at me the way you used to. You don’t remember me.”
“How can I remember you if I never met you?”
“In this lifetime. But your soul knows me. You’ve lived many different lifetimes without me. It’s natural you’ve forgotten me.”
I hunched my shoulders and strained my face. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know what I was sorry for. It wasn’t my fault for not remembering something that never happened. Something that happened long before I was born.
“No! No, my love. Don’t be sorry. You don’t need to be sorry. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. The fault lies with me for letting you slip through my fingers.”
I was so lost. I didn’t know what he was talking about or even who. And yet, I couldn’t turn away from him or stop listening.
Why doesn’t he kiss my hand again?
That was nice.
My heart skipped a beat.
Focus, Sandro.
“So…can you save me or not?” That was what was important. That was what I needed to know. Everything else was irrelevant if I died.
“I can.”
“Okay, then do it.”
He took both my hands and gave them a squeeze that chilled my body. Again. But not in a creepy way. More like a comfortable, cool blanket enveloping me.
“We can’t do it here.”
“Do what?”
He raised an eyebrow, and I narrowed my eyes, waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting…
And then it hit me.
“Oh!” I said.
Gods, why hadn’t I thought of that? Even witches and their mates needed to do it to seal the deal.
I swallowed a knot that had formed in my throat, and I tried to keep my eyes from traveling south on his body. He was as naked as me, after all. More, if anything. At least I was wearing underwear. He wasn’t, and he didn’t act at all self-conscious. Would he really mind if I took a peek?
Not for any dirty reasons, of course.
Just to know the kind of thing I would be dealing with.
No, Sandro. Don’t.
“Why can’t you—we—do it here?” I asked as if I wasn’t at all disturbed that this stranger I’d only just met, who made everything so calm and soothed inside with a touch or a whisper, had just told me he needed to have sex with me to heal me.
That’s some healing power of the dick if I’ve ever heard any.
“Because I’ve just been put into this body, you’re still in shock, and I need to do something else first,” he said.
What else could he need to do first? And why did any of it matter when we were talking about my life? A life that could end any moment now.
“Is it…do you not like me?” I asked.
“What?” he sounded surprised, but maybe he was disgusted. What did I know?
I shrugged.
“I mean, just because I’m this person you used to know doesn’t mean you have to like this body. It’s fine. I won’t take offense. I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea—hell, I’m not anyone’s cup of tea. And I know my tattoos scare people, and my jaundiced skin is not sexy?—”
Somehow, I’d forgotten I was naked, but suddenly became very much aware of it. Again. I made an attempt to cover up with my hands, but they did a poor job with how skinny they were.
“Stop. My love, what are you talking about?” He let go of my hands and brought both of his to cup my face, fitting perfectly in place like they belonged there. “You’re beautiful both inside and out. And even if you weren’t, I’d still want you. I’d still love you.”
It was ironic that I’d hear everything I’d ever wanted to hear from a man I’d never met and who could very easily be lying to me.
But, oh well. It wasn’t as if I had a long life to find my happy ever after, anyway. I’d take a lie from a god rather than the truth from a human.
“Please don’t think that way. I love you. I’ve always loved you. But in order to save you, there’s a ritual to follow. And we can’t follow it here, in an old witch’s cave where we’ve just been reunited.”
“Then let’s go. Let’s go wherever we need to go to follow this ritual and get
this over and done with.” I nodded, took a deep breath, and jumped off the bed, the necklace bouncing on my chest, reminding me of its weight.
The way the chain rattled reminded me of Pluto, and his absence stung my heart.
“Let’s go indeed—what’s wrong, my love?” Hades froze before me and searched my eyes with concern.
How did he do that? How did he know something was wrong? Was that one of his powers? Or was that part and parcel of our fate together?
“It’s nothing.”
I tried to walk past him, but he put his hand between my chest and collarbone and glared.
“You can share everything with me, my love. I will never judge you or dismiss you.”
Boy, who knew the god of the Underworld would be such a hopeless romantic. Even though I didn’t know him or have feelings for him, he still gave me shivers and made my heart skip a beat with his words.
“It’s nothing. I just…the necklace, crown, whatever it is. It reminded me of my dog. He died about a month ago?”
Hades pursed his lips and brushed my cheekbone with his thumb.
A vision of a big manly hand brushing my cheekbone while sucking on my earlobe appeared before me, alighting my body with both love and desire. When I came back to reality, I was breathless. And horny, but thankfully, my boxer shorts hid that indecency.
Hades was still touching me. I should really mind that he did so without permission or consideration, but I couldn’t quite find it in me to say so. Not when his touch made me feel more alive than I’d ever been.
Again, ironic the god of the dead would make me feel alive.
“I’m so sorry, my love. You’ve always had a soft spot for animals. What was his name?”
The finger on my face was so delicate and powerful that I barely heard him. It was as hypnotic and asphyxiating as it was healing.
“Pluto.” The whisper slipped my mouth under my breath.
He smiled, hovering in front of my lips, immobilizing me with his gaze and hold.
And just when I thought he was about to kiss me—and trying to find the power in me to stop him doing so—he whistled.
“Pluto,” he sang, his eyes turning to the side before he stepped out of my way.
I followed his gaze to the floor, where a blue flame appeared out of nowhere. It burst into a fire and…
And Pluto, my dog, appeared.
He was big and strong like the Doberman he had been, but he was also gray and transparent.
That didn’t stop him from trying to climb me as soon as he saw me or keep his tail from wagging.
“Pluto?” I tried to touch him, but my hand went through him, giving me chills.
“The one and only,” Hades said. “But he’s still dead, so I’m afraid you can’t touch him.”
Saying that, he leaned over and patted my dog on the back.
“Bu-but you can?”
He looked up at me with a cheeky grin, and Pluto turned to lick his face. That made the god of the Underworld laugh.
No. Not laugh.
Giggle.
It was strange yet endearing.
“I think you’re forgetting I’m the god of souls.”
I had.
But how could I when he seemed to be bringing me back to life with every passing moment?