11. Temptation #2
Now, I still believe in God, but you can’t be Irish Catholic when you’re housing a Greek god inside of you.
It just doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean I’m still a virgin because the Catholic church my mam dragged me by the ear to did a good enough job of brainwashing me that I get limp thinking of taking a woman.
No. It’s that, with Hades’s voice in my head, I knew that I would accept Persephone in this life and no other.
Only I don’t want Persephone. I want Willow.
But it’s been a full month, and there’s no sign that—despite the goddess and the magic spurring her to fulfill her role—she sees me as anything other than the master of the oikos and her host.
I don’t want to be her host.
I want to be her husband.
For God’s sake, I am her husband.
And that’s exactly why I’m thinking about the moon.
In the story of Hades and Persephone, he has to trick his queen into staying half the seasons with him.
I… I can’t do that to my blossom. I want all or nothing, and to get that, I need to get her to fall in love with me.
With Aiden. She must want to stay, and I have to find a way to change our written path so that she does.
For millennia, that hasn’t been possible.
But, as Zeus once told me, the old ways are dying.
Seems like, if the legends want to live on, they are finally allowing them to adapt.
That, or the magic is strong enough to tell me what I’m supposed to do before I’m released from it, but not strong enough to ensure that I do it.
The stories can be changed. Instead of tragedy, there can be a happily-ever-after.
Instead of death, there can be hope.
And it’s all because one of the Twelve proved that the human soul attached to the goddess was just as powerful in her way…
I’ve heard from the shades that Artemis—the goddess of the moon—has returned to the Other.
Not only that, but she did something that none of us thought possible: she didn’t just finish her story, she changed it.
The goddess of the hunt was meant to kill Orion, the giant hunter, but from what I heard, she pronounced him as her soulmate and bonded to him.
If she can do it, maybe I can, too.
That’s my new plan. Something to look forward to.
Since that means Hades will get to keep his Persephone, he’s keeping his trap shut.
We finally want the same thing—mostly. He wants Willow to eat the pomegranate so that she has to stay.
Not me. I want Willow to choose me, to choose to stay in the Underworld as my bride—as our queen—once our story is done and she can leave me.
I won’t trap her. I’ve made my mistakes. I have lots of regrets, and trapping her as my bride… that can’t be one of them.
Not when she’s just too good to be forced into spending forever with a broken man like me.
She still won’t eat anything other than the water and ambrosia.
She told me it tastes like something called marshmallow fluff, and while I’m sure she’s tired of it by now, she’s determined not to eat anything in the Underworld.
I try not to let it hurt that she’s keeping her exit from my realm open, especially since I’d leave the realm of the dead in an instant if the Other let me.
However, I noticed something at our last few suppers.
Before Willow, I ate only when Hades retreated enough to let me feel hunger.
I’m immortal. I don’t need to eat. The shades don’t eat, either, of course.
The dead don’t require food, but that doesn’t stop the servants from preparing it for those of us who still choose to have a meal.
Whether that’s because we’re reincarnates or because the old magic insists that gods should still enjoy mortal comforts, I don’t know.
I stopped asking questions about the whims of the Other decades ago, and when I’m hungry, I eat the same foods that I have since I first arrived and discovered it was all they served.
The palace cooks know my habits by now. Lamb, goat, or pork for the meat at supper.
Fresh baked bread and sweet butter. Cheese.
Plenty of fruit. A silver goblet of nectar that I almost never drink after the first time I found out it was harder on me than two tumblers of whiskey.
As the master of the oikos, the domestic spirits insist on serving the nectar, though Leuce brings me water halfway through every meal.
After the first night at my table, I made it clear that, if Willow was to survive on ambrosia and water—no nectar for my blossom, either—I would do the same so as not to tempt her. I was afraid another pomegranate would make its way to the dish and tempt me.
Willow called me silly. Said I shouldn’t go hungry for her sake, and gave me the most adorable little pout until I relented and requested a few morsels just to see her smile.
But the strangest thing happened. Without my command, the nymphs started bringing a plate of chops out for Willow. Not because she had any intention of eating the lamb, but because the puppy at her feet was begging for a nibble and my blossom is a soft touch.
I should’ve expected it. About a week ago, we were sharing a midday meal.
Once again, Cerberus—in his puppy form since he was trying his best to hide beneath Willow’s seat since he was supposed to be guarding the gate—was keeping his fiery gaze on his new mistress.
I was reading a report from Minos on the shades judged that morning after I finished my plate.
Willow snuck a glance toward me. That caught my attention, and I paused. She didn’t notice, too busy glancing around for any of the servants. When she saw that the three of us were alone, she leaned over, talking to Cerberus.
“You know what, Sir?” she said, her voice low, but not low enough that I could’t hear it. “I don’t think your dad would notice if we took one little bone.”
Cerberus’s ears perked. So did mine. Dad? I guess, in a way, Hades is Cerberus’s master.
Just as she shifted in her seat, I couldn’t help myself. I know what she expects from the terrifying Hades, but I don’t want her to look at me and see Hades. I’m Aiden, and Aiden lowered the report enough to cast a look over at his blossom.
“He absolutely would.”
Willow froze. “What was that?”
I raised my eyebrows. “You weren’t thinking of stealing from a god, were you?”
She sucked in a breath, and my heart stopped. A moment later, her eyes brightened. I exhaled, grateful that she could tell I was teasing. Me. Teasing. I don’t think I’ve teased anyone since I was mortal, but with Willow? It was instinctive.
But then, believing I’d returned to the report, she stretched one hand across the table toward my plate of discarded bones.
She wasn’t quick about it. I don’t even think she was trying to be sneaky. In fact, it was more like she was testing what she could get away with, and it became very clear that I’ll let her drain all the ichor from my body if that’s what she wanted.
But she doesn’t want to become a killer like I once was. She just wanted to steal a lamb bone and drop it down to Cerberus.
The hound of Hades accepted it with all the dignity of an immortal guardian pretending he hadn’t been waiting for precisely that to happen.
And I smiled.
I smiled.
That’s not all. She saw that smile, and my blossom smiled back. It was a small, shy smile that—like my name for her—bloomed into something so big, my formerly cold heart thawed completely.
I don’t remember falling in love with Willow because, from the moment I freed her from that tree, my heart’s been hers.
I just wish she would accept mine in return.
Walking in the office, knowing that Hades’s work is never done, I expect to find the judges’ latest report.
Considering I was a mechanic before I became a soldier, was a veteran before I became a hired gun, I realized long ago that hell?
Hell is paperwork, and even in the Underworld there is so much of the damn stuff.
On top of the black marble desktop, I see an inch-thick stack of vellum, straight from Aeacus today, but that’s not what has me pausing in the middle of the room.
There, sitting on top of the stack, is a pomegranate.
Another goddamn pomegranate.
It’s easier to conjure the fires of the Underworld when I tap into Hades’s power. But since I don’t want him to see the pomegranate and start plotting, I use more energy than I should to cast the fire that incinerates both Aeacus’s reports and the pomegranate.
I must. The more I love Willow, the more I must fight the temptation to feed her the pomegranate seeds. It’s only the pomegranate that does it, and I know that because the damn fruit has been stalking me since that first supper.
The magic wants her to eat it. Hades wants her to eat it.
But I can’t let that happen.
Not until Willow wants to stay.
It wasn’t that long ago that I dwelled on how Hades was far more patient than Aiden. Not anymore. I’ll wait as long as it takes for her to choose to be my bride, no matter what it costs.
She’s worth it, and though I don’t deserve her, that won’t stop me from keeping her… just without the trickery that our story is known for. If I want to change it so that we’re happy forever, it starts with the pomegranate.
The goddamned pomegranate…