Chapter Sixty-Four
Persephone
Hades’ lips met the back of my hand, turning my insides to mush, and gauging from the wicked glint in his eye, he was fully aware of it.
“Don’t look at me like that, little shadow. I have business in the throne room. The shades call, and thus too does my duty.”
My eyebrow ticked up. “Look at you like what?”
Hades’ laugh, low and husky, was the only warning I received before his hands rested casually on either side of the door, pinning me easily with his body and blocking all semblance of escape, which might be concerning had I wanted to listen to reason, to my mother’s voice in the back of my head begging me to run.
But looking at him like this, unguarded, casual, I couldn’t imagine running.
His breath tangled with mine, and he nibbled my lip just hard enough to be considered an admonishment.
“Like you’d drop to your knees if I commanded it.
Or that you want me on mine again for you. ”
My composure cracked beneath the warmth that spread across my cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whispered, watching his smile grow. “This is my usual face.”
His eyes sparked with that mischief I was beginning to love about him. His lips drifted closer again to mine, just a whisper over them—
“Yes, it is.”
I captured his lips with mine to avoid responding, a slow tangle of teeth and tongue. A promise of later as I regained my wits.
“Oh, sweet Hades,” I drawled, his smirk emboldening me to press against him suggestively with a soft smile of my own, “if my usual face is all it takes to undo you, imagine what I can do when I try.”
“I hope that’s a promise.” The strain in his voice, like an overdrawn string, was a sweetness I didn’t bother to hide, going so far as to flutter my lashes at him. “But if I’m being honest, I’m always undone by you.”
With eternity stretching towards the future, I couldn’t imagine not unravelling those words, no matter how often I heard them.
“I’ll come by in a few hours,” I promised. “I’ll be the one holding the wine again, seeing how it worked out so well for me last time.”
“Why, spring goddess, are you trying to get me drunk?”
I shrugged, tossing my best doe-eyed impression at him, watching mirth flicker across his face. “Would it bother you if I were? If I corrupted you a little?”
“In a few hours, I’ll show you exactly how unbothered by that I am.” His lips sealed against mine once more, a sensual promise of what was to come, broken off far too soon. “I’ll see you later.”
I fought not to frown as he retreated, donning the cool mask of the King of the Underworld once again. My skin tingled, mourning his warmth. I watched him walk away, the promise of later still stretching between us.
In the end, it was Hades who found me.
Time had passed so smoothly, so seamlessly, lazily like the easy churning of the Styx before me, I didn’t notice it pass at all.
It was euphoric, being connected with my magic again.
The sprawling rear lawn roared to life for the first time.
Grass pushed through the cracks of the basalt, a vibrant pulse of green against the dim and the grey.
Hydrangeas and hyacinths bloomed from every dead flowerbed, colorful and defiant of their surroundings that death had long held dominion over.
Gardens burst forth in an explosion of color, and trellises carried unfurling white blossoms upwards, defying the long bare stone and accenting it.
Vines trickled up the sides of the stone and brick, giving it a timeless, aged effect.
My heart warmed to see the representation of life and death together. I felt a match ignite in my chest, my hope rekindling. That while death may be infinite and unrelenting, that didn’t mean there wasn’t an exquisite beauty in it.
The collision between Minthe and me had been catastrophic, but I couldn’t say the results weren’t better than I could have imagined. Her actions broke whatever seal was on my magic and Hades….
I didn’t know what we were, but my stomach fluttered sporadically with butterflies all the same each time my thoughts drifted to him. He was dark, and broken with jagged pieces ready to cut at a moment’s notice.
My teeth are sharper than yours.
And he was irrevocably under my skin like the ink that licked up his arms.
My magic had always been partly tied to my emotions, but to feel the surge from my fingertips at the direction of my thoughts, to feel the air and ground shift in tandem, was still breathtaking.
Walls of roses and greenery rose up in earnest, tall enough to obscure any onlookers, both welcome and unwelcome.
Faces of nymph and specters alike, even entire structures they watched us from, vanished behind towering living walls.
Each bloom unfurled tentatively, delicately.
Shadows crossed each petal, each leaf, thorns jutting out, some with beads of poison glinting in the dim.
How appropriate for the Underworld; beautiful with a lethal edge.
My ultimate creation: a garden labyrinth. A place to escape the throes of death for just a breath. Life and death, certainty and uncertainty, combined into a masterpiece of red roses, greenery, and thorns.
An achingly familiar voice from behind startled me into ceasing the final touches. “And here I thought you were excited to corrupt me.”
Hades' voice was a gentle lull from rest, low so as not to disturb the reverent peace of the garden, but the look on his face was a testament to darkness itself—and all that was wicked held within. Like a shadow choosing his next victim to ruin—me.
And I was all too willing a victim.
“Hi.” I hurried to stand, feeling sheepish.
I busied myself in wiping my hands clean on a rag I’d brought with me from the closet.
I offered him a contrite smile as tribute for forgetting the hour.
And the wine. “I didn’t mean to bail on you.
I’m so sorry, both for my tardiness and my being empty handed. ”
“I think we’ve already established I don’t mind hunting you down.
” Hades’ words were the strike of a match, instantly leaving me burning and shifting my weight to soothe it.
Memories from the throne room passed between us as the tension crackled, the promise of it happening again.
His eyes darkened on that wicked promise as he raised a pair of wineglasses in one hand and a bottle in the other.
“I brought the wine this time and I’m given to understand that drinking alone is a faux pas.
Care to join me to prevent such a tragedy?
” He paused, taking in the greenery around him.
His eyes softened with awe in time with his voice.
“I’ve seen mortal empires rise and wither over eons.
Such is the way of it all. I’ve ruled over this realm of rot, and then you get here and make it bloom. ”
Heat flared on my face. “I apologize! I can see that I got carried away. This is your domain.” My magic simmered under my glowing skin. “I can put it back—”
He cut me off with a wave of his hand and a conspiratorial grin.
“I like your brand of chaos, remember?” I glanced around, taking it all in, eyes scanning every leaf, every petal in turn.
“This realm is one of endings and afters. With you, the Underworld took a breath and it can be a place for beginnings too.” His words eased the tension coiling my ribs in a flash.
I smiled up at him, accepting his offered glass of wine.
“Tell me, little shadow, what called the labyrinth into being? They exist for gods and monsters.” His voice shifted lower. “Which were you thinking of?”
A delicious shiver ran down my spine at his tone.
I smiled bashfully, intentionally admiring the labyrinth for all its beauty.
The lawn pressed in on me, shrinking before me until I was only aware of Hades.
Of his warmth only a breath away. A sly, sidelong glance revealed his eyes resting on me, waiting for my answer with the patience I’d seen displayed hundreds of times with the shades he so dutifully tended.
“I was thinking of something that combined us both. Shadow and spring. Life and death. Beauty and lethality. A dream that gives way to a nightmare.”
“Forever bound,” Hades murmured with a thoughtful nod.
His hand brushed mine as he shifted his weight, but I refused to look, keeping the weight of my gaze on the labyrinth.
I swallowed thickly. Shadows shivered in the firelight, leaning closer as if listening to our every word.
Even the petals I had so tenderly bloomed all seemed to face us.
“So entwined you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. ”
In an uncharacteristic moment of bravery, my hand sought his, but it was when his fingers answered when I withdrew, my hesitancy winning out that had my heart fluttering against my ribs like the wings of a butterfly.
With the warmth of his hand interlacing our fingers, I found the courage to give voice to the question storming my thoughts.
“Are you talking about the labyrinth or something else?”
There it was. An offer. A hand outstretched, and now that it was, I realized the precipice we stood on.
He turned to face me then, his hands coming up to my shoulders and twisting me in his arms. I faced him eyed-eyed, our breaths mingling in the space between us.
Everything before this moment felt so preliminary.
This moment held a thick, crackling gravity, like the hush before a sacred ritual.
I had asked him to bite me once, just so for once I could be seen.
He’d never bitten me. Never wounded me.
And right now, in this moment, I didn’t know that I’d ever been more seen, more vulnerable, than I was right now.
My mind surged, searching for danger, for the upcoming rejection.
Because that look in his eye had nothing to do with lust. This wasn’t the collision of flesh anymore. This was something far more terrifying
Reciprocation.
“And if perhaps I’m talking about us? About you and me.” His words left no room for the seeds of my doubt to survive. As if my doubts were ever meant to endure him. “How would that make you feel, little shadow?”
I didn’t think. I knew the answer. The ache eased in my chest, giving way for something different. Something new, driven by the tense heat crackling between us. “Whole.”
If my answer were an invitation, it was one he took to heart, his lips drinking mine in like I was ambrosia.
His kiss was a claim, a collision of two beings who found something unexpected.
Nothing separated us, not space, not time, not anything.
I knew it in my bones, in the way his caress made me shiver, in the way his darkness collided with my light.
I loved him. With all that I was, with everything I was, I was eternally, irrevocably his.
“We have an audience.” I giggled between kisses. Specters and nymphs alike were around. Anyone could see this display we were giving them.
“Let them look,” Hades whispered reverently back. “I don’t care who sees that you’re mine.”
My heart galloped in my chest at his declaration. His claim.
His.
“I have a better idea.” I took his hand, leading him gently into the confines of the maze, where we could have our moment in private. Some things I didn’t mind sharing, but this vulnerability? His vulnerability was mine to protect.
I walked gingerly into the maze, every step gentle, as if I might break it all down with one poorly placed footfall. Hades chuckled.
“You remade this corner of the Underworld and still, you walk it as if it may vanish beneath you.”
I turned back to him with a soft smile. “More like padding through a dream from which I don’t wish to wake.”
“Then allow me to pull you under.” He grinned against my lips before his stoic capture of them. “And if the world falls apart despite our efforts, I’ll hold what’s left together for you.”
He kissed me once more, ending the conversation, slow at first like testing the edge of a dream.
The scent of roses swept us both, vines curling inwards as if to push us even closer.
The ground beneath us pulsed, a shadow beneath the roots underfoot.
A strange reaction, but I supposed the joining of life and death might be strange in many ways.
When they intermingled, perhaps even caring for them may not be as difficult as anticipated.
My admittance was an accidental utterance, an echo between shadows, soft and cloying when his forehead rested against mine. “I think I love you, Hades.”
He chuckled with feigned indignation, holding me tighter. A smile formed on his lips I felt as much as I saw it. “You think wrong, little shadow.” The gold flecks in his onyx eyes sparking against the dim, “You know you do.”
“You know, for someone with your reputation—terrifying, brutal and all that goes with it—you have a horrendous poker face.” I pouted.
He snorted, his head tipping back in a jolt of laughter.
“You’re about to trip over that big ego of yours,” I prompted, pulling back a small step.
With a feral grin, he pulled me back flush against him, his forehead to mine once again.
Where his eyes were soft before, the first vestiges of dusk, they flared now, those golden flecks looking like a golden galaxy painted over a midnight canvas.
The world fell away into a blur, and then to nothing.
No sounds reached my ears, no vision existed beyond Hades and me, my heart hammered away like a blacksmith over an anvil, hoping against hope I wasn’t the next Minthe. That I hadn’t read this wrong.
“Guilty as charged. And gods, Persephone.” His voice was rough, grating over my name. “I love you too.”
“Took you long enough to say it.” My widening grin soothed any lash my words may have had.
“Well, it sounds as if I have some making up to do.” This time when he kissed me, when his hands roamed me, it wasn’t with soft reverence or sweetness.
This was hunger, primal and unrestrained.
And when he pulled away, all the previous tenderness had vanished, leaving that familiar, feral grin in its place.
The one that had every muscle in my body clenching, and my lip found its way between my teeth as the anticipation climbed.
Three little words, rife with command, sent my pulse thundering, despite everything. “Run, little shadow.”