Chapter 33 The Fire She Left Behind
I woke to the sound of steady breathing and the weight of an arm draped across my waist.
Kian stirred behind me, his breathing shifting from the deep rhythm of sleep to wakefulness. His arm tightened around my waist first, pulling me closer in an unconscious gesture that made my heart flip. Then his nose brushed against my shoulder, and his lips pressed warm against my skin.
“Don’t move,” he muttered, voice little more than a rumble against my back. “Five more centuries. At least.”
I snorted into the pillow. “That’s a little dramatic, even for you.”
“You’re one to talk.” He nuzzled the crook of my neck, his stubble scratching in a way that sent pleasant shivers down my spine. “After last night, I’ve earned at least a few lazy hours.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks at the reminder.
“You’re heavy,” I teased, trying to wriggle free.
“Mm. Too bad.” He shifted with infuriating ease, pinning me beneath divine warmth and solid muscle. “See? Now you really can’t move. You’re thoroughly trapped.”
I laughed as I tried to shove him off. “Kian, this is ridiculous, I can’t breathe—”
“I can hear your lungs working perfectly.” He shifted just enough to prop his chin on top of my head, making himself comfortable as though I was his personal pillow. “Nope. Not listening. You made your bed—well, my bed—and now you have to lie in it. Under me, for the foreseeable future.”
I managed to get one arm free and poked his ribs. He jolted with a startled laugh. “Okay, okay. Mercy.”
I turned onto my back beneath him. He leaned on his elbow, head propped up by his hand. His hair fell into his face, and I reached up to push it back. He grinned down at me with that boyish expression that made my heart do stupid things.
“What?” I asked, suspicious of his pleased smile.
“You’re looking at me like you like what you see,” he teased.
I snorted. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Oh, I’m already cocky,” he murmured, leaning down to brush his lips across my jaw. “Last night proved that.”
I shoved his shoulder, grinning. “Arrogant god.”
“Guilty,” he laughed, catching my hand. He kissed my knuckles, then pressed my hand to his chest, right above his heart.
My fingers splayed across his sternum, and I felt the steady thump-thump beneath my palm. The raised lines of old scars, unmistakable under my touch, caught my attention. I traced one of the lines curiously.
“These scars,” I murmured, following the path of one across his chest. “I noticed them last night. But you have divine healing, don’t you?”
His expression shifted, and something heavier crept into his eyes.
“Most wounds, yes,” he sighed. “But some things leave marks even gods can’t erase.”
I waited, letting him decide whether to continue. His thumb tracing absent circles on my hip as he thought. Then he took my hand and guided it to a particularly deep scar that curved from his sternum toward his ribs, as if something had tried to tear him open.
“My father gave me these,” he said, his voice carefully controlled. “Kronos. These are from—” He winced. “—before.”
My stomach clenched. “Before?”
“He was always cruel,” Kian said, guiding my fingers along the scar. “Paranoid and violent. When he received the prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him, it got worse. Much worse.”
He paused, the tension coiling through his body like a spring wound too tight.
“I was the first son,” he continued. “Kronos convinced himself it would be me. So he…” He winced. “He made sure I knew my place.”
He covered my hand with his.
“The beatings started when I was young. Any perceived defiance, any moment of weakness, any time I existed too loudly, he’d remind me what happened to children who forgot their place,” he explained.
“These scars are from his hands, his rage, his certainty that I would be the one to destroy him. So he tried to destroy me first.”
“Kian—”
“I was only a boy when he swallowed me,” he whispered. “I was a child. Young, even by divine standards, but old enough to understand what was happening. Old enough to be terrified.”
I pressed closer, my other hand coming up to cup his face.
“My mother tried to shield me as best as she could, but he was too powerful for her,” Kian said. “And the scars from before… they stayed. But new ones formed in the darkness of his stomach, from the acid, from being slowly unmade while still conscious. I felt every second of it.”
“How long?” My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“It felt like decades, might have been longer.” His eyes were distant now, lost in memory. “Long enough to forget what my mother’s face looked like. Long enough to forget the sound of my real name. To forget I’d ever been anything but pain and the taste of my own dissolution.”
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. “Gods, Kian—”
“Poseidon came after me. He was younger, less marked by Kronos’s paranoia. Then Zeus was born, and Mother hid him, gave Father a stone wrapped in swaddling instead.” A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “Zeus grew up free. Came back when he was strong enough, made Kronos regurgitate us.”
His throat bobbed. “By the time I was freed, I was grown, and my mother had long been gone. Kronos destroyed her for tricking him.”
My heart shattered at the thought. He touched the scar under my palm. “We healed, mostly, but these remained. Reminders of what he did, what he was capable of. What we survived.”
I looked at the scars covering his chest with new horror. Evidence of a childhood stolen, of a father who’d turned love into violence.
“You and your brothers,” I murmured. “You survived it together.”
“We did. Poseidon and I understood each other in ways no one else could. And Zeus… he felt guilty, I think, that he was spared when we weren’t.
That he got to grow up whole while we were already broken.
” He shook his head. “Kronos made sure to take everything from me, even my own identity. We were never the same after.”
I hesitated, mulling over his words. There was nothing that I could say to ease that ache. “You said you forgot the sound of your real name? Hades?”
“No,” He sighed, shaking his head. “I became Hades after I was freed from my Father. When I was a boy, my Mother called me Aidoneus.”
“Aidoneus…” I breathed, feeling out the name.
I pushed myself up so I could look at him properly.
“You survived something no one should ever have to endure, and yet you grew into someone who still knows how to be gentle and knows how to love. After everything Kronos did, you didn’t let him destroy that in you. ”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t know about that. I’m not that boy anymore. Aidoneus died in that darkness. What came out was just—”
“You,” I asserted. “Scarred and changed, yes. But still you. Still, the person who holds me when I can’t breathe, who drinks too much coffee, and loves to teach. Still, the person who looks at me like I’m something precious.”
I pressed a soft kiss to a scar close to his heart, and he tightened his arms around me.
“Can I call you that?” I asked. “Sometimes, when it’s just us?” I swallowed, suddenly nervous. “Only if you want me to. And if it ever feels wrong, I won’t.”
He pulled back just enough to search my face, his brow furrowing. “You want to?”
“I want to know all of you,” I said. “Every name, every scar, every piece you think is broken. I want all of it.”
He fell silent, considering my words.
“I haven’t used that name in centuries,” he admitted. “It feels like pretending to be someone who doesn’t exist anymore. Even my brothers forgot over time. The name just… died with that boy trapped in the dark.”
“What if you didn’t have to pretend?” I suggested. “What if it could just be another part of you? Not the frightened child or the victim.” My fingers threaded through his hair. “Just you, on your own terms.”
He stared at me, fragile hope flickering in his eyes. “I don’t know if I remember how.”
“Then we’ll figure it out together,” I whispered. I pressed my forehead to his. “You told me last night about who I was—Kore, Persephone, all those lifetimes. Maybe it’s time you had something of yourself back, too. If you want it.”
“Maybe,” he murmured thoughtfully. He pulled me close, burying his face in my neck. When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “No one has called me that in millennia. Not since my mother. No one has ever even thought to ask.”
“Then, if you’ll let me,” I said, lightly scratching his scalp, “I’ll be careful with it.”
He held me tighter. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Of course.” I pressed a kiss to his temple. We stayed like that for a while, letting the weight of old pain and new healing settle between us.
Eventually, he pulled back with an embarrassed laugh, swiping at his eyes. “Well, that was heavier than I intended for morning pillow talk.”
I smiled, even as my own eyes stung. “I asked about the scars.”
“You did.” He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead. “And I’m glad.”
“Me too,” I whispered. “Aidoneus.”
His eyes fluttered closed at the sound, and when they opened again, they were brighter, less haunted. But there was something else there too, a spark of heat that made my breath catch. “Say it again.”
“Aidoneus,” I breathed, brushing my nose against his.
He captured my lips, his hand sliding to cup the back of my neck. His grip was firm, angling my head exactly where he wanted it. When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard.
“You really don’t plan on letting me up, do you?” I murmured against his lips.
“Not a chance.” His smile was wicked. “Last time was… quick. I didn’t get to enjoy you properly.” His thumb traced my lower lip. “This time, I’m going to take my time. Learn every sound you make and every spot that makes you tremble.”
Heat flooded through me at his words, at the dark promise in his eyes.
“Kian—” I started, but he silenced me with another kiss. His tongue swept into my mouth, claiming and exploring until my head swam.
“H-Hecate’s supposed to come back for training, remember?”I managed when his lips began to wander.