Chapter 11 #2
There’s a red crystal shimmer of light coming from just above the mountaintop. Coming for me. I don’t have long, and maybe the push of time running out is why I’m down the stairs in a rush.
“Why did you do that?” I have to know.
Hades goes even more still, if that’s possible. Michelangelo couldn’t have carved anything more perfect out of marble if he’d had a hundred years to try.
The god of death and King of the Underworld doesn’t turn before he speaks. “Lyra.”
The sound of my name is low…and off. Too low for me to tell if he’s angry or shocked or something else.
I stop just behind him, far enough away that I don’t do something foolish like reach for him, heart twisting. “Why did you do that?” I demand again.
“Are you kidding me with this?”
What the hells is he talking about? “I gave myself to you, and you ripped it all away. I know it’s to keep my curse intact for the sirens, but you were cruel. Unnecessarily cruel—” I choke on the last word.
And Hades says nothing. Does nothing.
“Why?” I demand again.
“Because, Lyra…” His head comes up, and he faces me, jaw tilted at an arrogant angle and eyes nearly black. “Because you told me to.”
I only get through half a shake of my head before I freeze. “No.”
“You did. It happened the same way it always happens with you.” Now I can identify the emotion in his voice. Resentment.
He stalks toward me, hurling accusations. “You show up out of the blue after ages, tell me things that are impossible…”
I back up as he keeps coming.
“…You mumble unintelligible things about glamouring. Tell me to do things I don’t want to do, and—”
My back hits the rock of the mountain, and he cages me in, hands on either side of me, eyes flashing like steel honed to destructive sharpness.
Only his gaze drops to my mouth, his next words deadly soft. “…And like a fool, I listen.”
Having him so close when I’m still so mad, and he’s so mad, and the words he’s throwing at me make no sense—it’s making my head spin.
I told him to?
No. The denial rips through me so hard my chest aches. None of this makes sense. None. Even if this is time travel and I’ve visited him before, why would I ever do that to myself? To him?
I’m shaking my head over and over. No. This has to be a glamour. The Titans or Tartarus—someone is fucking with my head.
And maybe Hades sees my panic, or maybe his own anger drives him, but he mutters, “Gods damn it.”
Then his mouth is on mine.
Heaven. And hell.
A sob rips from my throat as I melt into his touch. With a groan, Hades buries his hands in my hair, knocking the length of it loose. With another groan, he wraps his fist in it, his other hand at my neck, not squeezing but cupping my chin, controlling me as he consumes me.
The only thing controlled about him.
Everything else is like he’s been…unleashed. A tiger who has lived its entire life in a cage, to then finally have its keeper accidentally leave the door open with an innocent lamb waiting on the other side.
But this lamb is happy to be devoured by this particular tiger.
I return every ravenous kiss with my own, taking his heat and giving it back to him stoked higher, tangling my tongue with his, moaning into his mouth. I want to wrap him around me, crawl inside his arms, hold on to him so tight Tartarus can’t take me away again.
But his desperation, while it echoes mine, is different. Harsher.
The hand at my chin drops, tracing my curves on the way down, teasing and merciless. He stops at my hip, where his fingers dig into the flesh, pulling me flusher against him so I can feel exactly how hard he is.
The whimper that escapes me makes him growl with an answering possessive satisfaction.
All my doubts melt away under the heat of this onslaught.
He couldn’t touch me this way if he didn’t mean it. Hades doesn’t do anything he doesn’t mean.
And, gods above and below, the things my King of the Underworld can do with his mouth alone.
I know all the wicked, wonderful, wild things he can make my body feel.
How he can make pleasure sing through my veins, explode in my depths.
How he holds me afterward, gentle, whispering the sweetest words that make my heart more his with every passing moment.
I still don’t understand…anything…really. But here in his arms, where I’m supposed to be, I don’t care.
Hades nips at my lower lip, running his tongue along the small sting in a way that makes me suck in a breath, and I feel him smile against my mouth.
But when I smile back, he goes suddenly still.
His lips are a hairsbreadth away and still too far from me, but neither of us move. We’re both breathing hard.
Don’t stop, my heart is begging him. Don’t let me go.
“Hades?” I whisper.
“I can’t fucking do this.” His words are a low, tortured groan.
My heart drops, my fingers compulsively digging into him as he goes to draw away. As he pulls his hand from my hair, his thumb brushes over my cheek, and he stills again. Just for a second.
A different kind of stillness.
“Shit,” he says. “Don’t cry, my star.” He’s kissing me again. My lips, but also the tracks of my tears. Like he’s trying to erase my pain and fear. He whispers, “Don’t cry,” with each sweet touch.
I open my eyes to beg him—to keep kissing me or to help me, I’m not sure which. Only those damned red glitters of light catch in the corner of my vision. I have seconds at most.
No. Not yet. Not ever, but not yet.
I snake my arms around Hades’ neck, burying my face in his chest and holding on as tight as I can. So tight.
“Fuck,” he says in my ear, his arms coming around me. “You’re shaking.”
“I don’t want to go,” I whisper.
He tenses against me. “Already?” he demands in a rough voice. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Time consumes me before I can reply or even breathe.
He’s gone.
Or, more accurately, I am taken away.
When I regain my senses—with my arms curved up in the air like I’m still wrapped around Hades, but now holding nothing—I’m exactly where I started. I’m back in Tartarus with the Titans.