Chapter 24 Persephone
Persephone
“W-what did I just do,” I stammered, staring up into Hades' intense silver eyes.
He had an almost awestruck look on his face which was making me nervous, although I was too thoroughly drained for my body to react to my nerves. I could barely hold my own head up.
I didn't feel like I was going to pass out though, which was something.
“You channeled your rage into earth magic. You regrew a tree that you used to keep alive here,” Hades said softly, and crouched in front of the chair he had put me in so that our eyes were level.
I slowly tipped my head backward and looked up.
A pink blossom petal wafted down from the overhanging branches and landed on my wet hair.
“You used to laugh when they fell in your soup,” Hades said, his deep voice filled with emotion. I looked back at him.
“We ate in here?” He nodded. “I knew I felt something about these chairs when I first saw them,” I muttered.
“You had them made for us. You said that there should be a place in my kingdom where I didn't have to be a king, so you made the chairs to show our powers equally. To share my burden.”
The intensity in his voice was almost too much to bear.
“Sounds like I was a pretty good wife,” I smiled, attempting to lessen the sadness. His face relaxed slightly.
“Now don't go getting an inflated opinion of yourself,” he grinned, rocking back on his heels. “You'll start sounding like the other gods.”
His words wiped the smile from my face and he winced.
“I'm sorry. I know you must hate us all right now.”
“Hate doesn't come close,” I growled, but my burning rage from before was spent. “Although I don't think I'm actually able to hate you. Something won't let me,” I told him.
“Even though you've just seen what my realm is made of, and it tried to kill you?”
“I don't want to live here, if that's what you're asking,” I half snorted. “But I don't hold you responsible. I know you didn't choose to put me through this.”
“You did great, if it's any consolation. Underworld sewage is highly toxic, you would never have survived without controlling your black vines.”
“How did I change them from black to green?” I asked him. He cocked his head slightly.
“I don't know,” he admitted eventually. “Before, if you got angry your power was all rage. This time though, I could feel your earth magic trying to get through.”
Hope and something that might have been excitement prickled inside me.
“So I might have better control of my angry power than before?” Did that mean it was safe to eat another seed?
“No god ever has full control over true wrath,” he said slowly. “I don't know how you grew the tree. But you did.”
Nor did I. I had been ready to explode, the fury poisoning me from the inside out. But when Hades had stamped on the platform, my vines had taken over and the delicious feeling of thriving life had flooded my body, flushing the hate from my system.
“Do you have anything to drink?” I asked Hades. “I kind of had my face filled with sewage. The aftertaste is pretty unpleasant.”
“Of course,” he said, leaping to his feet.
I moved myself slowly, until I was sitting up in the chair.
I gazed at the intricate detail on the arms and wondered how the hell I'd ever come up with something like this.
But the more I looked, the more familiar it felt.
The shape of the roses, the curve of the skulls, the patterns of the vines.
.. Maybe I could see that same spark of creativity that went into my garden designs here.
“This should help,” said Hades, and I dragged my eyes from the chair and took the goblet he was holding out to me. It smelled like hot chocolate but it was golden in color. I raised my eyebrows at him.
“What is it?”
“Ambrosia.”
“Hecate said humans couldn't drink this,” I said, peering at the thick liquid.
“I think you've just demonstrated that you have enough power to handle it,” he said gently. “But go easy.”
I took a slow sip. It tasted like the richest, most luxurious hot chocolate ever. Almost like melted chocolate, rather than that shitty powder stuff.
“Oh my gods, it's gorgeous.”
“Not as gorgeous as you,” he muttered, and dropped down in front of me again. “When you use your power like that... You look divine. It's all I can do not to tear your clothes off.”
His voice had become low and husky, and the warm drink was working its way through my chest now, my fatigue vanishing in its wake.
“Well, they are pretty messed up. And wet,” I said.
“I had noticed,” he whispered, and with a little pop, the damp fabric sticking to my skin was gone. I let out a tiny squeak as I looked down at myself. The silk pajamas. “Maybe we could pick up where we left off?”
Desire danced in his eyes as he asked the question, and my body responded to him instantly.
I took another slow sip of the ambrosia, warmth and energy spreading through me.
I didn't know if it was the drink or the thought of Hades naked, but something was definitely revitalizing me.
Tingles of excitement were rippling through me and I had a skipping feeling in my chest as Hades stood up.
I stared at the beautiful god before me. He really was perfection.
I leaned forward to put the goblet on the ground, and as I straightened, I took the hem of my camisole on my fingertips.
His lips parted and his eyes darkened as he towered over me.
“You first,” I said.
His shirt was gone in an instant. It was as though he had been carved from marble, every curve and bulge of his chest screaming strength and power.
My eyes were level with the waist of his low jeans, and the V of his abs dipping into the denim caused a surge of heat in my core, my muscles clenching.
I reached out instinctively, desperate to touch his solid stomach, but he was just out of my reach. A tiny gold vine slid from my palm, curling towards him. I looked up into his face, unsure. He nodded.
The little vine touched his glowing skin, and merged with it, a shining gold tattoo sprawling up his ribs and across his chest.
Fierce desire exploded inside me, and before I knew what was happening I was standing, and he was lifting me and his mouth found mine.
I buried my hands in his hair, with nothing in my head at all besides being as close to him as was physically possible as I wrapped my legs around him. His tongue flicked against mine and a pulse so fierce it almost hurt pounded between my legs.
“You are stunning, my Queen,” he murmured against my skin as his lips moved down my jaw. His words should have embarrassed me, but his voice was so loaded with passion, his intent and sincerity so clear, that my core clenched tighter.
“Your Queen?” I breathed.
“My Queen,” he repeated.
“I seem to remember you saying something about worshiping me.”
“I also said something about you screaming my name when I touch you, and watching you come over and over,” he said, moving so that I could see his darkening eyes.
“What I didn't tell you, is that I'm going to make you feel so incredible you won't remember your own name.
I'm going to make you feel things you didn't even know were possible to feel.
I'm going to bring you to the edge of ecstasy as many times as it takes for you to beg me to let you fall. And I'm going to fall with you.”
A small noise I didn't think I'd ever made before escaped my lips.
He dropped to his knees, setting me down on the chair again, and began to kiss my neck, moving down slowly. Heat rolled from him, and every time his lips touched my skin electricity fired through my body.
As he reached my breasts he kissed over the thin silk of my camisole, my nipples hardening instantly. His tongue flicked over one through the fabric, and another wave of need crashed between my legs.
My thighs were still clenched around his solid waist and I gasped as I felt his hand under one of them, moving up towards my shorts. As his fingertips stroked higher I arched my back, pleasure and need making me dizzy.
His fingers danced higher and higher, teasing me until I was squirming under him.
I had my hands in his hair, and every time I pulled he grazed my nipple with his teeth through the silk.
His fingers had reached my shorts, but he kept them over the surface of the fabric too, drawing closer and closer to the place I wanted him to be. Needed him to be.
Waves of barely tolerable tingles shimmied across my skin from his touch and I didn't know if it was his magic or just how much I wanted him that was making them so powerful.
With excruciating slowness, I finally felt his finger brush over my sex, and a low moan left my lips.
I heard his ragged breath as he must have felt how damp the silk between my legs was, and then he was kissing me on the mouth again, urgent and hungry.
He tasted divine, and my mind blanked as his fingers danced like a feather over my most sensitive spot.
The pressure was building with every movement, the desire inside me like a freight train, gathering too much momentum to hold on to.
I kissed him back with a desperation I'd never felt before, as days and days of passion for this beautiful man, this god, flooded to where he expertly teased and touched me.
“Hades,” I moaned aloud, and a shattering wave of release crashed over me. His other arm wrapped tight around my shuddering body, and I buried my face in his neck, kissing any skin I could reach over and over as waves of pleasure hammered through me in shuddering aftershocks.
“Gods, you’re stunning,” he murmured, his voice strained. “I want to feel you do that again, around me. I want you, Persephone.”
“I'm yours,” I breathed back, gripping his shoulders.
But he moved back again, looking down into my face as he brushed a knuckle across my cheek. His eyes were glittering with fierce passion, but his words were soft.
“I never thought I'd see you again,” he said. “Let alone hear you say those words. I-I don't want you to leave.”