Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
P ersephone
The moss is cool and spongy under my back. It’s a reprieve from the rough scrape of the tree bark. My limbs feel like liquid, and my brain is starstruck as I gaze up into the forest of magic.
Silvery violet strands of silk and tinsel dance in a breeze that does not kiss my skin. Beside me, on his side, Hades is propped up on one elbow. His chest is still bare, still magnificent.
He is where the expression ‘carved like a Greek God’ came from, I just know it.
I don't think his gaze has left me once, and I can't summon the energy to move to test my theory. I am thoroughly, deliciously spent and utterly hypnotized by a kind of nature the like I’ve never seen before.
From where violet strands of silk spill are tiny button-like blooms that resemble a perfectly white, hued at the very center in softest lavender, Artemis flower. The kind one might see in a garden of succulents. The starburst bloom is thick and strong, and it is the only comparison I can possibly make to anything that blooms in the living realm. They remind me, fleetingly, of a cartoonish image of shooting stars, the flower being the star and the weeping strands the dust in its wake.
It’s beautiful, reminiscent of a dream.
“What do you think?” Hades’ voice is warm. It reminds me of the crackle of fire on a cold winter night, burning in a stone hearth. I feel his warmth all the way to my bone.
Or maybe that’s just post coital bliss.
“I'm thinking that the living realm got the short end of the stick.”
Hades chuckles, deep and dark. It dies as shadow-drenched thoughts rise.
His silence is heavy, and I find the energy to shift my head to the side to give him my eyes. “What is it?”
“For so long, I envied those who were offered to dwell in the living realm. I envied Zeus for his time in the sun, for his mighty ruling of Mount Olympus, and the Gods who bowed to his bidding. I even envied Poseidon in the seas, for at least the creatures of the sea spoke to him. I hungered for conversation, for compassion. For so long, I harbored so much resentment for the fact I'd been sequestered to this very land, to this realm, for which your heart has only ever known love.”
I don't know when I lost my breath, but I did. I catch it and whisper, “It wasn't always like it is now, even I know that. And I understand why you resented it. I really do, Hades.” My voice shifts lower. “You were in solitary confinement, locked in a prison of mourning souls, exposed only to torment and loss for—how long were you down here alone in the darkness?”
“Centuries,” is the only answer he gives me. Even that is threaded into the quietest of breaths, I’m not sure I heard him right.
His eyes shutter closed and when they open again, there isn't even a speck of flame in the dark. I have a feeling, the same feeling I had when he had me pinned against the tree, that there is more to Hades. So, so much more than he is willing to show me.
So much more that I yearn to know.
I don't want to push him, though. I can't push him.
It's hard, but I let my eyes drift from the man who owns my whole heart and soul, back to the trees that sway to sing a song of whispers.
I inhale deeply, my bare breasts peaking as my nipples harden. I make no move to cover myself, entirely content with the blanket of his gaze.
“I love it here,” I confess quietly after some time.
“You always did.” I can feel him studying me. “You spent much of your time in this grove. Especially upon your return, and before you would leave. You loved the weeping blooms.”
“What happens with them?”
“The flowers will die, releasing their hold on the silk threads they’ve wept.”
“But—” I am breathless. The magnitude of that is—well, it’s massive. “There must be hundreds of pines.”
“Thousands,” Hades corrects.
I am, quite literally, gobsmacked. “But each tree has hundreds of blooms, Hades. There are so many, I—I can’t even see the sky through the thick of them.”
They create a sky unto their own, complete with tiny stars and glittering purple strands so fine they could be dust. This grove has amassed its very own orchestra, the needled limbs of the pines pluck weeping strands like fingers over a harp. The melody rains down on the forest, captured within the canopy of thickly spilled blooms.
“When the blooms have released their weeping vines, many will travel from Asphodel City to spool the thread. It will then be made into a versatile textile in which clothing, bedding, and upholstery will be assembled,” he assures me with a smile. “Do not worry, little goddess, their silken tears do not go to waste, and never wither and die.”
“They are just so beautiful. They shimmer like stars—” I pause to collect myself and the emotion that collects in my throat. “They are how I imagine a soul might shimmer.”
“They remind me of jellyfish.” Hades laughs low. “The way they plume in the breeze.”
“I can see it,” I agree. “Pure, and lovely.”
“ You are lovely.” There is gravel in his voice now. It draws my gaze from the shimmering strands to the man beside me, except he's not really beside me anymore. He's shifting to hover above me.
My already pointed nipples harden, peaking as though to stretch for him. In his eyes, behind the shadows, I once again see flames.
Bracing his weight on his arms, he does not touch me. Even though I ache for him to. I only just had him and yet, at his nearness, I can feel that gnawing emptiness begin again.
His eyes search mine. “You feel it again, don't you?”
I don't know why, but he seems upset by that. Upset that I would hunger for him.
I can't begin to reason why he would be. It makes little sense. I would think a man with his appetite for affection would be relieved that I share it, but he isn't.
Instead, I sense dread. If anything can wash me in cool uncertainty, it is that.
I shake my head and lie, “No. No, I'm good.”
His jaw pulses. He swallows once, assuming to dislodge the gravel in his throat.
He fails. “You're lying.”
I lift my chin even though I'm lying down. I probably look ridiculous. “I'm not.”
His nostrils flare.
My brows dip.
“I can smell you, little goddess.” When my lips pop open in an O of horror, he continues in that rough dark tone. “Yes. The brand of your arousal is not something I could ever mistake.”
Well. So much for hoping his ability to scent me atop his horse was a one-off situation.
I wish I wasn't as affected as I am, but a blush of shame crawls from my chest into my face. His eyes track it. He does nothing to quell it. To ease it away. To give me relief.
It's my turn to grind my teeth, and with a sniff, I mutter, “That's not fair.”
“What isn't fair, Persephone?” When I try to avoid his eyes, he catches my chin, forcing my gaze to his. “What isn't fair?”
“That you know—that you can smell —when I'm turned on.”
He raises a single dark brow. “You don't know when I'm turned on?”
I blink. Twice. “No.”
If looks could be dry, the one he gives me now would be exactly that. Dry. Like the Sahara.
“I always want you.”
“Well, then what's the problem with me always wanting you?” Okay, I'm a little touchy, but honestly, it hurts. It hurts that he could be upset that I would want him. It doesn't make sense, especially if he always wants me.
“I have always wanted you. From the moment I saw you in that garden, I have wanted you. I wanted you every day that you were my wife. I longed for you every torturous spring that bled into summer. I lost myself in you every fall and winter. I never wanted for anyone, but you .”
“I don't—but that's not—I mean—" I stutter.
“Spit it out, little goddess.”
My face is on fire. And even though I'm upset, my body knows he's near, hovering above mine. It's the worst kind of tease. Knowing he's there and I can't have him.
I won't let myself have him .
Not before we circle back around to what he just said. Because I distinctly remember a very hot bite of discomfort, a feeling of burning betrayal—when he told me he shared his partner, his wife, with others.
I hadn’t known then that I was his wife in another life.
Gosh, that’s more than my mind can unpack right now.
“Now, who is lying?” The words come out raw with hurt.
His eyes darken and his jaw hardens, but he says nothing in response. It's when he pushes up from my body that something inside me tugs. It's painful, almost like a tearing.
For a moment, I simply clutch my chest, unable to breathe around the unraveling.
As he walks away from me toward where Alastor stands, I am hit with a cool reality that washes over me like a depthless sea. It smothers every flame that dared to dance inside me.
This man that I love so much—he is more than man. More than God. More than beast. More than tormentor.
He is my mate.
He is the other half of me.
I can feel it, the fractures of my soul embedded in the fissures of his.
I can feel him inside me, a webbing of twisted knots and silken vines we can never unspool. I wouldn't want to sever them, but I am rocked by this realization as he turns to lock those dark eyes on mine.
I'm sitting up now. I'm not sure when that happened. I figure it happened when the vicious tug pulled at that thing in my chest. That thing that doesn't belong, and yet it does. Because it's him , and he is mine .
There is no lust in his eyes now. It has faded into something else. I think maybe it mirrors mine. Fear, shock, uncertainty. He knows what I see, what I feel. He knows, and yet I don't think he has the answers to the questions that are written in my mind, in my eyes.
I am an open book, my soul a scribe of ancient secrets. He is the reader.
I breathe the words, but I know he hears me. “You're my soul mate.”
The shake of his head in answer is devastatingly, heart wrenchingly sad. “It’s not possible, little goddess.”
“You are,” I insist. I know he is. I can feel it.
“Gods and Goddesses do not have soul mates, Persephone.” He bows his head a moment before daring to meet my eyes again. “I’ve not found the answers to what we are yet.”
“But you feel it?” I demand, palming the unseen tear in my chest. “You feel it?”
“Yes.” He dips his chin into his chest, and then he dips to lift his jacket from the bed of moss, holding it out for me. “Come. It’s time we meet the others.”