Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
Persephone
Beginning and End
“You’re my beginning and my end, beloved,” Hades’s whisper warmed my ear.
The moment we landed atop Pomegranate Tower, he tore away the pieces of armor at my hips. The metal gave way under his eager hands.
Hades bent me over the railing and drove into my wet heat in one brutal thrust. I screamed, pleasure, pain, and the joy of homecoming crashing through me all at once.
I’d been soaked for him since we’d left Olympus in ruins. No—earlier. Since I’d stood in that floating tower plotting its downfall, since I’d seen him across the golden bridge, coming for me. My thighs had been slick during the battle, my flesh aching for him.
Now we were here, alone. He could wait no longer. Neither could I. He pounded into me from behind with relentless speed. No gentleness. No buildup. Just raw, desperate need and unbridled lust.
His cock stretched me to the point of pain, and I loved that delicious burn. My body remembered how he filled my every inch. My mortal vessels had been smaller and weaker. This was my true form, my goddess body, and I could take everything the King of the Underworld threw at me.
Pomegranate Tower was the tallest building in the Underworld.
Black volcanic glass formed its walls. On every ledge, dragons spread their wings, fiery eyes glinting with warding magic.
The wind carried the scents of sulfur and the realm’s oldest magic.
Each breath came harder here, making every sensation sharper, every pleasure more intense.
This tower belonged to us alone, where our love began, where our history was carved into every stone. When Hades stole me from my mother’s garden, this tower was my first sight of my new home. I’d stood at this railing, young and terrified, staring out at the vast, dark beauty of the eternal night.
I believed I had been taken by a monster.
Now I knew the truth. He was my monster.
No one would disturb us here. No one dared. Our subjects below knew better than to interrupt their king claiming his queen.
A moan tore from me with each thrust—noises of pleasure I couldn’t control. He fucked me hard and deliciously, filling me and stretching me, hitting that secret place until my vision sparkled.
“Let me hear you,” he growled. “Let the whole realm know who fucks their queen.”
His armor had vanished with a snap of his fingers. Mine he removed by hand, piece by piece.
I looked back over my shoulder, drinking in his nude glory.
Bronze skin strained over hard muscle, flexing with each thrust. Scars mapped his flesh like a history of war, some ancient, others fresh from recent battles. His dark hair fell wildly across his forehead. His eyes smoldered with possessiveness and raw hunger.
His body moved with predatory grace. Hips propelling forward, abs flexing, thighs bunching with every driving stroke. His hands gripped my waist hard enough to brand me.
His cock, thick and long, glistened with my cream as he withdrew and slammed back in. I watched it disappear inside me, again and again. The obscene sight made my pussy clench around him, and he groaned.
My thoughts scattered as he fucked me with abandon. Sensation charged me like electricity. I could barely believe this was real, after being torn from him lifetime after lifetime.
In those mortal shells, I’d always felt wrong and incomplete, as if my very soul was stripped off its core engine. So I tried to fill that void with pain.
I cut. I burned. I pushed my body past its limits, just to feel him, to reach the bond that had stretched across lifetimes.
He cupped the nape of my neck possessively and turned my face to his. His lips crashed against mine. The kiss was devouring. His tongue swept into my mouth, invading and claiming. I kissed him back with equal fervor. His taste flooded my senses, dark and rich and purely him.
It tasted like home.
I moaned into his mouth. His hand tightened on my throat, just enough pressure to make breathing harder. To dominate.
“Mine!” he declared.
SMACK.
His other hand came down hard on my ass.
The sound cracked through the air. Pain bloomed across my skin, and I cried out against his lips.
He slapped it again. Harder.
Stars burst behind my eyes. My body clenched around him, helpless. My need for him ached. I was so wet.
“Fuck, you love that, don’t you?” he groaned. “My perfect queen who gets off on being spanked while I’m buried inside her.”
“More!” I gasped. “Please.”
He smacked me again. Each blow landed in a new place, painting my skin with marks. The exquisite pain spread like fire and fused with the pleasure, until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
We broke the kiss only when my lungs burned for air. My lips felt swollen, bruised from his claiming.
My armor was gone now. Every piece of black metal lay scattered on the black marble, leaving me bare under the blood moon. I was vulnerable before my king, exactly how he wanted me. I gripped the railing as his hand moved to cup my breast before seizing my taut nipple.
He pinched it hard. Sharp pain shot straight to my core.
“Such perfect tits,” he growled. “They were made for me to hurt.”
I whimpered.
“Tell me why you need the pain,” he commanded. “Tell me what it means.”
“To remember,” I gasped, the words broken by his thrusts. “To never forget what we endured. What we survived. How many times they killed me. How you searched for me every lifetime.”
He pinched my other nipple, twisting and rolling the sensitive bud between his fingers until tears pricked my eyes.
“That’s right, baby,” he said. “We revisit the pain so we never take this for granted. So we never forget how hard we fought to be together.”
He eased the pressure and caressed my breast. My pussy clenched around him, wrenching a groan from his throat.
“In those mortal lives,” he continued, his voice rough with emotion, “you hurt yourself to cope with being torn apart from me. But we’re finally whole and returned home. The pain is no longer about survival. It’s me worshipping you. It’s about pushing us to the edge to see what we find there.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Hurt me. Use me. Mark me as yours.”
In the distance, the volcanoes erupted, lighting the eternal night. Beautiful in its violence. Honest in its fury.
Hades drove into me harder. His fingers found my clit, circling, pressing, pinching, until I writhed against him.
Even with the explosion, I could hear the sounds of our joining: the slap of flesh, the wet rhythm of his thrusts, my cries tangled with his possessive grunts.
He was the King of the Underworld, reclaiming his goddess queen after too long apart. The realm and every being in it bent to his will, except me, for I owned his heart.
Illuminated by the flowing lava and blood moon, the Underworld sprawled before us.
It’d suffered without us here. The eternal night had grown darker, more oppressive. Volcanic fires guttered. Gothic structures crumbled at the edges.
I remembered how stunning it had been once I saw it not as a prison, but as a kingdom.
Not a punishment, but a gift. A place of honest darkness and terrible beauty.
Its black lakes stretched across the landscape, their surfaces smooth glass.
Obsidian forests rose from the valleys. Mist wove through it all.
Now it lay bleak. The lakes were too still, the forests silent. The towers had lost their menacing grandeur. Our absence had drained the life from this place. It broke my heart to see it fade.
I was back now. We were back.
I regarded our realm in sorrow while my mate took me mercilessly from behind. Pleasure and pain bloomed with every deep, punishing thrust.
“Tell me you don’t regret this,” Hades demanded, driving into me brutally, his voice hoarse with fear. “Tell me you don’t wish you’d stayed in that golden cage.”
“I don’t regret us. You know that,” I said, pushing back against him, taking him deeper. He delivered a series of long, powerful thrusts, and I gasped. “I don’t hide behind pretty lies.”
“And you no longer hate me, not even slightly, for all I’ve done to you?” His voice cracked. After everything, he was still insecure when it came to me—afraid this was another dream he’d wake from alone.
“Now isn’t the time to grovel, Hades,” I chided. “Talk less and fuck your wife properly.”
He slammed into me with renewed force. The railing bit into my fingers. I arched my back, shifting the angle. He went deeper, hitting that place that whited out my vision.
“Good girl,” he panted. “You know how to take every inch of mine into your hot, tight cunt. Take everything I give you.”
His hand fisted in my hair and pulled. My head snapped back. The pain in my scalp was sharp and perfect.
“You’re mine! Forever mine!” he growled. “Say it, love.”
“Fine, I’m yours!” I cried out. “Always yours. Only yours.”
He pulled harder, bending me back. His other hand closed around my throat again, squeezing just enough to make breathing difficult.
The combination overwhelmed me—hair pulled, throat compressed, his cock driving deep, my ass still burning, my nipples throbbing. Pain was everywhere. Pleasure was everywhere. They intertwined until they became one sensation.
“I love watching you struggle to breathe while I fuck you,” he growled in my ear. “Love knowing you’d let me hurt you any way I wanted. Love that you trust me with your pain.”
“And I trust you with my pleasure,” I gasped with what little air I had. “And my life.”
He released my throat but kept his grip on my hair. His other hand slid down between my legs, finding my clit. He didn’t circle or tease it this time. He pressed down hard and twisted the peak.
I screamed. My vision went white at the edges.
“That’s my girl,” he praised. “Let me hear how much you love it when I hurt you.”
He twisted again. Pinched my clit between his fingers and tugged.
I sobbed, overwhelmed. Tears streaked my face. My body shook, caught between retreat and craving more.
“Color,” he demanded, checking in.