“Haven’t you always dreamed of marriage?” he asked, curious, though he imagined she hadn’t thought it was ever going to be a possibility, considering her mother had probably never encouraged her to think beyond four glass walls.
“No,” she answered. “You didn’t answer my question. Why is marriage important to you?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It became important to me when I met you.”
They stared at each other for a few moments, then their bodies shifted so that their hips met, and Hades reached to guide himself into her heat. He entered her hard, but once he was fully sheathed, he paused, bending to press kisses to her forehead. There he stayed as his hips began to move, taking her in slow, deliberate strokes, but the harder she held on to him, the harder he moved.
“So fucking sweet,” he said as his mouth pressed against her skin, tasting and sucking and nipping. “Take me deeper, darling.”
He shifted, snaking his arm under her leg, which lifted and parted her flesh even more. She gasped, her head digging into the bed. The deep
fissures her fingers had made into his skin turned into scratches down his back.
“Harder!” she cried in a breathless plea, and he obeyed, completely disarmed as he watched her pleasure. He held on to that, unrelenting until she clenched around him.
“Come, darling.”
Feeling her come was the end of him too. He felt his whole body quake as he released into her, pulse after heated pulse.
Breathless, he bent to kiss her, then settled his weight on her before shifting so he could lie on his back with her draped across his body.
“Gods, I missed you,” she said and pressed a kiss to his chest.
He laughed and looked down at her as she stared up at him. He could tell she had something to say and understood why she was hesitating when the words came out of her mouth.
“You were going to tell me about Leuce.”
“Hmm. Yes,” he said, and he tugged on her until she shifted on top of him, resting with her arms crossed on his chest. “I had a meeting with Ilias at my restaurant. I didn’t know Leuce was there. She hurried after me as I was leaving and grabbed my hand. Old habit.”
He wasn’t sure why he added the last part, because he did not so much believe it had been a habit now. Persephone must not have liked it either, because she gave him a dull look, and he pressed his fingers to her lips, smiling wryly.
“I jerked away and kept walking. She was asking for a new job.”
It was a half-truth, but he did not wish to go into the details of Leuce’s own lie or deception. That would come later when he could prove it.
“That’s it?”
“Afraid so.”
She dropped her head, and he drew his arms around her.
“I feel like an idiot,” she said.
“We all get jealous. I like when you’re jealous…except when I think you might actually leave me.”
She sat up fully, her hands pressed flat against his chest, gliding to his stomach. Her eyes glittered in the dim light and her skin was flushed. He liked the look of her, liked being beneath her.
“I was angry, yes, but…leaving you never occurred to me.”
He studied her a moment, then rose into the same position, keeping his hands on the bed for stability while her arms wound around his neck.
“I love you. Even if the Fates unraveled our destiny, I would find a way back to you.”
“Do you think they can hear you?” she asked in a whisper.
He gave her a smile. “If so, they should take that as a threat.”
She laughed, and their mouths collided. Hades dropped back to the bed while Persephone sought his erect cock, positioning him once more near her entrance before bearing down on him. He inhaled as he watched her move, setting her hands against him so that her breasts pillowed and rose together.
He held them as she rose up and slammed down, and when she was too tired to move, she went to her side, and Hades entered her from there and brought them both to release.
*
Hades woke hungry, which wasn’t usual. If he ever felt that gnawing rumble, he usually quenched it with a drink, but tonight, he found himself slipping from bed while Persephone slept and wandering the halls of his palace to the kitchen, where he discovered tons of leftover food from the solstice celebration, both sweet and savory smells competing for dominance. At first he thought he’d prefer something salty, but as he searched what remained in the array of dishes, he found something he did not expect.
Cake.
He remembered his previous battle with Persephone’s molten monstrosity.
He’d never gotten to taste it, and while this was not her creation, it was still chocolate and it was cake. He shifted to look around the kitchen, which, while he technically owned it, was not really his. It was Milan’s, and the result was that he did not know where the fuck anything was. He started to look for a plate or some kind of bowl to put the cake on, but when he found a fork first, he decided he would eat straight from the container.
As he cut into the springy and fluffy cake, his stomach growled even louder, but then a horrible feeling trickled down his spine and he froze. It was like his body was being attacked by some invisible force. Chills raced down his arms, and there was a weight in his chest that kept his lungs from expanding. He could not take in breath, could not swallow, could not move.
Persephone.
He dropped the cake, fled the kitchen, and raced back to their bedchamber, where he found their room empty. Then he noticed the balcony doors open, and from there, he felt Persephone’s magic detonate. It was the only way to describe it. It dropped like a bomb, and the shock waves echoed throughout his realm. He had never felt anything like it, and his magic was not prepared to handle the sudden spike.
His world began to wilt. Even the garden below him wept, trees bowing, limbs curling, flowers disintegrating beneath the weight of Persephone’s magic. Within a matter of minutes, the Underworld was a desert of coarse black sand that stretched for miles and miles, only interrupted by desolate rivers and the ominous mountains of Tartarus.
What is happening? Hades thought.
She had bared the true nature of his realm, and throughout it all, a wail carried across a violent wind. It was anguished, much like his world.
His heart raced. Her power made him breathless.
Persephone.
He teleported from the balcony to find her in Tartarus—in the Forest of Despair. He felt acid burning the back of his throat at the thought of what horror she had discovered here. It was a place within the boundaries of Tartarus that fed off fears. Whatever she’d seen here was real to her. It had her shaking with a violent energy he could feel rumbling the earth at his feet.
If he didn’t stop her, she would destroy his realm.
“Persephone!” he called, desperate.
“Don’t say my name!”
He blanched at the sound of her voice, a horrible grating echo that carried across the space between them.
“Persephone, listen to me!”
He took a step toward her.
“Don’t! ”
Her voice boomed, and the ground ruptured and yawned as a deep ravine fractured far and wide between them.
“Persephone, please!” If she didn’t stop on her own, he would have to use his power against her, and that was the last thing he wanted.
But the more he said her name and the more he begged, the more agonized and angry she became. She screamed, and he did not know if it was from her rage or the power of her magic, which usually felt so pleasant against his own, but tonight felt more like war—a goddess prepared to deliver death, heedless of prayer.
He watched in horror as she brought her hands together, and the power she had drained from life in the Underworld—his magic—gathered between her palms, then she turned them outward, and all that power hit him. He was thrown back by the force of it, and as he landed, he dropped his glamour.