31. Hades
Hades
I could feel it. From the tips of my fingers all the way to my bones.
He was alive.
Sandro may have disappeared, but he was alive, and I instantly felt stronger. Stronger than the pomegranate fruit could have ever made me. Stronger than any kind of healing.
His body, mind, and soul were calling to me. They were ringing through me with urgency, needing the reunion and the proximity.
The vibrancy of my soulmate’s life sang through me, and as Hermes burst through his bright husk, I threw my Sai right between his eyes.
Now that Sandro was alive, I could do this all day and all night, as long as it took. His energy fed mine and mine fed his, so even without my powers, I could keep going until Hermes got tired of dying.
Even if every fiber of my being wanted to go after him, to find him and reunite with him, I couldn’t leave now.
I couldn’t abandon my kingdom to Hermes’ mess. I couldn’t leave all of the afterlife in his hands. He’d destroy every part I’d built and nourished over the millennia.
No.
Hermes had signed his death warrant when he’d killed Sandro. And I wasn’t going to stop until he got what he deserved.
I slashed his neck. I spilled his guts to the ground. I pierced his heart. I killed him in any and every way possible and imaginable, and even though he kept coming back to life bracing for a fight, he didn’t have anything on me. Without his sandals, he was slow, and with Sandro alive, I was more powerful than ever.
The thought of drowning him in Lethe crossed my mind, but that could cause a whole other storm of problems.
No. It was better if I just kept killing him. That was the safest option.
Orbs of light appeared out of thin air, illuminating my dark world with warmth, taking the shape of Sandro.
My knees went weak at the sight of him in all his full definition and color. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes the bluest of blues that burned holes in the back of mine with their intensity, and his lips a vibrant pink that begged to be kissed.
“My love,” I dropped my Sais and pulled him into me by the small of his back before he could utter a word. “You did it. You came back to me!”
I kissed him everywhere. His cheeks, his eyes, his forehead, his ears, his lips, his neck. I couldn’t get enough of him.
Touching him in spirit form was one thing, but having him back in the flesh, connecting to him, breathing the same air as him, feeling his heart under my palm set my skin and heart on fire like never before.
“It’s been so long. So long since I’ve burned like this for you,” I managed to utter.
It was true. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t come to life under his touch, and the last time that had happened was thousands of years ago when he was Persephone.
“I know, my fire. It’s been way too long,” he answered and pulled away long enough to stare into my eyes.
He looked at me differently. Different from how Sandro had ever looked at me.
“You remember!” I cupped his cheeks and held back a breath.
“I do. I remember you, my love. My death. My king. My everything,” he responded.
It was so unlike Sandro. So unlike anything he’d ever called me, but it was everything she’d have called me.
“I remember our love. I remember everything, although some of my past lives are already slipping away from me.”
I shook my head.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you forget them all. I don’t care if you forget Persephone either. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters.”
Sandro smiled and blinked his wonderful blue eyes at me.
“Awww, what a sentimental moment. Now, get out of my kingdom!”
Hermes was only a blight in this moment, and even though I didn’t want to, I was forced to turn to him.
Sandro did the same.
“Hello, Hermes. Long time no see.”
The color washed from Hermes’ face.
“You…you remember?” he asked Sandro.
Sandro smiled and brushed his fingers across my arm.
“Everything,” he replied and threw his hands in front of him.
Black, thorny vines tattooed on his arm twisted out of his wrists and slashed the distance between us and Hermes, drawing blood.
Hermes hammered down on them with his staff. The living tattoos crashed to the ground, breaking like glass.
Sandro grabbed the T-shirt he was wearing and tore it in half, pulling two drawings of fire from his chest, hurling them at Hermes.
He caught on fire.
Blue flames soared from his feet up to the rest of his body, and he laughed.
“You think those silly little spells can hurt me?”
Sandro turned to me. “I had the twins tattoo something special for me. In the event we were successful. It was the best they could do considering they’ve never tattooed anything before.”
I squeezed his cheek between two fingers and conjured the Sais off the ground.
“My clever boy. It’s okay. I’ve got this,” I said and threw both Sais at Hermes.
As with every other time I’d killed him, a protective husk of threads encompassed him. I stepped back, daggers at the ready, and waited.
“How many times will it take you before you realize there’s nothing you can do to kill me!” Hermes shouted when he reemerged.
He pointed his fingers at both of us and grimaced when nothing happened.
He tried again.
Sandro walked toward him despite Hermes’ desperate attempts to cause damage.
“My darling thief, I may not be able to kill you, but I can control your life. And in this one, you’re a mortal with no powers,” he told Hermes.
Hermes growled and swung his staff at Sandro, but he put his hand up and stopped it.
“A weak-ass mortal,” he added and pushed the staff back into Hermes’ stomach.
Hermes dropped to his knees.
“Please, don’t. Please, my king,” he said, dropping the staff to plead with Sandro. “Show mercy.”
“Mercy?” Sandro spun and glanced at me with a raised eyebrow. “He wants mercy? After all you’ve done?”
“I’m sorry. I was just…I was doing what I thought?—”
Sandro picked up the staff and rested it on his shoulder with an air of confidence that looked so damn sexy on him.
Life looked good on him.
“And now you get to live lifetime after lifetime as I see fit. What do you think, H? Should his next one be as a frog? Or a snake?”
I shook my head. “I rather like snakes.”
Sandro nodded. “We’ll just stick with human for now,” he whispered at him and took a shot at Hermes’ head but missed. “I’m done playing.”
He turned his back and walked to me with a smile.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
In response, I gave him my Sais and squeezed his hands.
He was quick about it. One across my neck, the other straight into my heart, the steel digging deep. Blood pooled from my wounds, and I lost my balance, but Sandro didn’t let me fall. He eased me down, caressing my face and leaning his forehead against mine.
We breathed in sync for a moment, then another. A few more until everything went black.
When I opened them again, he was still there, watching me.
“Welcome back, my death,” he whispered and offered me a hand.
I took it more because I wanted the touch than because I needed the help to get off the ground.
“How do you feel?”
The coolness had returned inside me, the chill of death coursing through me, my flames pulsing right under the surface, waiting to be called.
“My king of the Underworld, reincarnated,” Sandro said.
He’d done it. He’d taken back everything we’d lost. His life. My powers. Our kingdom.
With his memories came control and power. My powerful king of life.
I couldn’t resist any longer.
I closed the distance and reunited our lips, refamiliarizing myself with his taste. The warmth he radiated was out of this world. Nothing compared to it. Not the sizzle I felt before he died, and definitely not the way his spirit form had made me react.
This was bigger, better, more.
It was burning like the fire of a thousand suns, and the way it soothed my cold, dead insides was like giving me life again and again.
I took his hand and slipped my mouth free long enough to tell him, “Let’s get out of here.” I conjured my flames.
Sandro put his hand to my chest and nodded.
I took us away from Hermes, back into our castle, our throne room.
He stepped his bare feet on the hard floor and the bones rolled from under our feet, taking shape, our guards bending the knee before their returning king.
His necklace, his crown, turned blue, pulsing with life of its own as he acknowledged his subjects, who immediately broke back into their mosaic.
“We’ve all missed you so much,” I said.
I led him to the thrones burning with our combined power, an ever-flowing river of lava, getting brighter the closer we got.
I led Sandro to his, vacant for far too long, and he took a seat as I knelt on the floor to pay my respects to the love of my life. To the long-lost ruler of Hades.
Sandro’s crown pulsed, sending waves of life across the floor and the walls, which turned from gray to blue.
The stibnite was coming back to life, just like its master, returning our world to its former glory, turning our castle into the most precious of crystals.
“It feels good to be back.” Sandro took a deep breath and combed his fingers through his blond hair.
I’d been counting down to this moment for so long that it almost didn’t seem real.
“Come to me, H. Come to me, my flame.”
He extended his hand, inviting me off the floor and onto his lap.
Could this be a hallucination? Was he truly here, or had Hermes finally killed me, and this was just a world made of my dreams?
Because I was touching him in his full glory, I was stroking his hair and kissing his lips, and none of it seemed real.
Sandro brushed my lip with his thumb and bore deep into my soul with a beautiful, glimmering gaze.
“I’m here, my death. It’s me. I’m here. You’re here. We’re together. And no one— no one —will ever tear us apart again.”