There was a part of him that wanted to acknowledge the sheer terror of Persephone’s magic, but he also knew she would not see the lives she took as power, though they had made the choice to attack her, to bargain with their lives, and all for a cause that saw another goddess dead.

He certainly had not expected Tyche to become the next victim, though she was as close to one of the Fates as any goddess could be, given her control over fortune. Perhaps that was why she was targeted. Triad and their followers—official or otherwise—had an obsession with free will, and powers like Tyche’s threatened that because she could grant prosperity and abundance just as easily as she could take it away. Perhaps they blamed her for Demeter’s storm.

Though Hades also knew it was futile to assign a reason to Tyche’s death. Why she was chosen did not matter. It mattered only that she had died.

He knew when Persephone woke because he could hear the rustling of the sheets and the patter of her feet as she made her way to the balcony.

The closer she came, the more he tensed. As much as he wished to look at her, he was also afraid. Even now, all he could picture was her bloodied body. He feared never seeing her the same again.

“Hades.”

Her voice was quiet, her presence warm. He could not help letting her coax his gaze, though even he felt the hardness of it.

“Are you well?”

She posed the question with a hint of hesitance, likely because she knew the answer.

“No,” he said, dropping his gaze again. He could not maintain it, staring into her lively eyes, which conveyed a desperation to comfort him, though he knew what she would say. It was what they all said when he had faced her loss—I’m here. I am well. She is here. She is well. Her body screamed it, and he ached for her warmth.

His hands tightened, one around the glass he was holding.

He had forgotten about it but was glad for the distraction and swallowed a mouthful of whiskey, frowning when it tasted like ash.

Persephone neared and took the glass from him.

“Hades,” she said again, and he closed his eyes as her voice shuddered through him. He waited to feel like he had some sort of control over his emotions before finally meeting her gaze.

“I love you,” she said.

He ground his teeth against the feeling clawing up the back of his throat, burning the backs of his eyes. It was the first time he’d let himself think of the possibility of never hearing her voice again.

It was the first time he understood her desperation to keep Lexa alive. It did not matter that he was the God of the Dead and that she would come to reside in his realm forever. What mattered was that she was warm and well and whole, that her heart could beat in tandem with his, that she could go between their worlds, because that was what made her happiest.

She shifted toward him, and he leaned back as she settled in his lap and took his face between her hands. Her eyes were searching, observing.

“Will you tell me how you’re feeling?”

He gripped the arms of the chair.

“I don’t know that there is anything to say.”

She was quiet, her hands still framing his face. “Are you angry with me?”

Her question made his chest ache. He hated that the consequences of his behavior left her feeling like she had done something wrong.

“I am angry with myself for letting you go, for trusting another to take care of you.”

“I ordered Hermes—”

“He swore an oath.”

He felt her tense.

“Hades, I hurt myself. I failed. I couldn’t heal.”

It did not matter. Hermes had been bound by magic to protect her. If Hades had been there, perhaps he could have helped her heal faster.

She leaned closer, tilting his head higher.

“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

“Barely.”

Her words were no comfort. She had not been awake to know the struggle.

She slid from his lap and backed away. He recognized the look in her eyes because he felt the same pain.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“You can stop,” he said. “You can decide not to get involved. You can stop trying to change people’s minds and save a world. Let people make their decisions and face the consequences. It is how the world worked before you, and it is how the world will continue.”

She glared.

“This is different, Hades, and you know it. This is a group of people who have managed to capture and subdue gods.”

“I know exactly what it is!” he snapped, rising to his feet. “I have lived through it before, and I can protect you from it.”

“I didn’t ask you to protect me from it.”

“I can’t lose you,” he said, planting his hands on the balcony behind her, trapping her against him. “I almost did, do you know that? Because I couldn’t fucking get my mind right to heal you. I have held men and women and children to me as they bled like you bled. I have had my face sprayed with their blood. I have had them beg for their life—a life I could not extend or heal or gift because I cannot fight their fate. But you—you did not beg for life. You were not even desperate for it. You were at peace.”

“Because I was thinking about you,” she seethed, and Hades went cold. “I wasn’t thinking about life or death or anything but how much I loved you, and I wanted to say it, but I couldn’t…”

His throat felt full and his mouth quivered. He drew her against him and buried his head in the crook of her neck, hiding his face as he shook and shed tears. He hated this feeling that racked his body, hated that he had not been able to remain composed for her, but this had been too much. Too great a wound.

He drew comfort from her, and when he was calm, he straightened, still holding her close.

Persephone stared up at him, then pressed a hand to his cheek.

“Will you take me to bed?”

His stomach twisted, and he shifted close, leaning into her hips.

“I will take you here,” he said, and her mouth opened against his, his tongue taking advantage of her own, her body bowing to his hands, ready and willing. He groaned as he pulled away, grazing her bottom lip with his teeth. “And then I will take you on the bed and then in the shower and on the beach. I will take you on every surface of this house and every inch of this island.”

He dragged her by the hips as he returned to the chair, and she dropped the sheet she’d used to cover herself. As she returned to straddling him, he touched her breasts and sucked her nipples into his mouth. He liked the way her breath shallowed, the way her body rocked against him as he touched her. She sought his skin just as hungrily, parting his robes to sweep her hands along his chest and over his stomach, grinding her slick heat over him.

There was a moment when he wondered if he should do this, indulge in her so fully, but she had asked, and feeling her against him, warm and wet, reminded him that she was well.

He smoothed his hands over her ass and let his fingers part her flesh. She was hot and swollen, and she rocked against him, keeping a steady pace as she used him for her own pleasure. He knew she was finding release when her muscles tightened and her thighs squeezed around his, and then she pulled free of him suddenly and reached for his cock, sliding down his length until she was fully sheathed.

Fuck, she is brilliant, he thought as he leaned back to watch her ride him—her breasts bouncing, her body vibrating, her hands reaching behind her to tease his balls. When she grew tired, he took hold of her hips, alternating between helping her grind against him and thrusting into her. Now and then, he rose to kiss her, to let his mouth explore her skin, until he felt Persephone’s body tense around him—every muscle and every limb.

When she came, it shuddered through her so hard it brought him to release.

He held her as she sagged against him, though he felt just as spent.

“Are you tired?” she asked, sitting back.

He wasn’t tired, not in the way she meant. “I have never felt more alive,” he said.

That answer seemed to please her because she kissed him, and when she stopped, she burrowed against him.

“Where are we?” She sounded sleepy and his hold on her tightened.

“We are on the island of Lampri. Our island.”

“Our?”

“I’ve had it, but I rarely come. After I found you in the club, I did not wish to go to the Underworld. I did not wish to be anywhere but alone. So I came here.”

Bringing up the club again shifted the energy between them; it grew heavy with grief and regret. Then she asked the question he had dreaded.

“Do you know if Tyche survived?”

“No,” he answered. “She did not.”

She asked about Sybil, Leuce, and Zofie.

“They are safe.”

“And Hermes?” she asked.

Hades’s response was to carry her to the shower.

Later, she asked, “How many people did I kill?”

He’d hoped she would wait longer to ask.

“What do you remember?”

“Hades—”

“Will it help to know?”

It would haunt her, but if she insisted, he would tell her.

“Think on it. I say this as a god who knows the answer.”

The world was in shambles, and it felt as though he and Persephone were at the very center, each on different sides of a chasm that would tear them apart.

“How long has it been since you have visited the ocean?”

“For fun?” He felt the need to clarify because there had been plenty of visits for very unsavory reasons, no thanks to his brother. “I hardly know.”

“Then we will make this memorable.”

He wanted to say that this was already memorable, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and jumped to secure her legs around his waist.

“I love you,” she said, and Hades kissed her until all thoughts of the outside world were gone and the only thing he could focus on was the way she felt against him and how badly he wanted to be inside her again.

“I want to show you something,” he said as he pulled away.

“Is it your cock?”

Her directness made him chuckle.

“Don’t worry, my darling. I’ll give you what you want but not here.”

He set her on her feet and took her hand, guiding her into the surrounding flora to a grotto where the water gleamed beneath a stream of sunlight.

He watched Persephone to gauge her reaction.

“Do you like it?”

“It is beautiful.”

He grinned and undressed, diving into the pool. When he surfaced, Persephone still stood on the bank, watching him.

“Will you join me?”

She didn’t hesitate, which made him think she’d waited so he could watch her undress—and he did so, gladly. As she entered the water, he pulled her to him and kissed her again.

“I will build temples in honor of our love,” he said, lips brushing along her jaw, down her neck, along her shoulder. “I will worship you until the end of the world. There is nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for you. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” she answered, holding his gaze, but there was a part of him that knew she could not even guess the lengths he would go to for her, and yet she made her own promise.

“I will give you everything you ever wanted, even things you thought you would live without.”

She was the only thing he’d ever thought he would live without, and yet she was here.

He claimed her lips in a deep kiss, holding her tightly to him until he was ready to pull her from the water, and when he did, he backed her into the wall roughly. Her eyes did not waver from his, did not communicate a hint of fear or unease.

He took pride in maintaining balance within their relationship, never wishing to be too domineering, but right now, he wanted that.

He wanted to command her and watch her obey.

“There is something dark that lives inside me. You have seen it. You recognize it now, don’t you?”

She held his gaze as she nodded.

“It wants you in ways that would scare you.”

He wanted so many things—to blindfold her, to bind her. He wanted her submission.

“Tell me.”

“That part of me wants you praying for my cock. Writhing beneath me as I pound into you. Begging for my come to fill you.”

Her eyes were so dark, they were ringed only with a thin circle of green.

“How do you prefer to receive prayer, my lord?”

His head rushed and he almost forgot to answer, so distracted by the way she looked and the words she’d spoken, so willing to please.

“On your knees.”

She lowered to one, then the other slowly, and when her face was level with his cock, he gathered her hair into his hands.

“Suck me,” he said.

Her breath was already warm on his cock, filling him with a heightened sense of anticipation. Even though he was expecting it, he still took a steady breath when she licked him. She was careful as she worked, her kisses numerous, her tongue teasing. When her mouth closed over the tip, she sucked him gently, and he groaned as his cock spasmed against her tongue. She was warm and wet, and now and then, she looked up at him as if to gauge how he was receiving her.

Fuck.

It was the most relaxed he’d ever felt, even though his body was completely on edge, his muscles continuing to tighten, building toward release.

She took him deeper and faster, and his grip on her hair tightened.

Then she opened her mouth wider and took him to the back of her throat, and if he hadn’t been balls deep in her, it would have brought him to his knees.

She was all over him—the crown of his cock in her throat, his shaft in her mouth, the root in her hand.

It was everything. It was exquisite. He wanted to come but he also wanted to fuck her.

He took her face into his hands and pulled her from his cock, hauling her to her feet. He took her mouth in a possessive kiss while she jerked him in her hand and guided him to between her legs.

“Hades—”

He lifted her, slamming against the wall far more roughly than he intended. She didn’t seem to care or even notice as his flesh parted hers and a strangled cry left her open mouth. He groaned, his chest feeling tight, the tension in his body climbing with each thrust.

“I want to feel your release,” Persephone said, her fingers biting into his shoulders, her hips grinding into his. “I want your come inside me.”

Perspiration broke out across his skin the faster and harder he moved, spurred by her words.

“I want to feel it drip down my thighs,” she moaned, legs tightening around him as she neared release. “I want to be so full of you, I only taste you for days.”

She grew rigid and her muscles clamped down around him as she came. It seemed to last forever, her body unable to stop shuddering. He ploughed through, pumping into her hard, chasing her orgasm with his own. His balls tightened, and the pressure in the base of his cock surged to the tip, and when he came, it felt just as explosive as her own.

His legs shook as he held her supple body, but he peeled them away from the wall and teleported, returning to the bedroom, where he knelt between her legs and took her against his mouth. She was swollen, still hot, and completely drenched with their mixed come, but he knew he could bring her release again, and when he found that sweet spot—the one where her fingers dug into his scalp, where her legs squeezed him, where her hips arched harder into his face—he held on and took her over the edge.

After, he lay beside her, and it was the first time in a long while that he fell asleep.

When he woke, Persephone was gone.

He rose from bed and found her on the balcony, looking out over the dark sea.

As he watched her profile, he knew she was troubled, and he could guess why. They had left New Athens to find refuge on an island in the middle of chaos, and Persephone felt guilty.

“Why do you frown?”

She jumped and turned to face him. She looked warm and rosy, her lips still swollen from his kiss, and she gazed at him possessively.

“You know we cannot stay here,” she said. “Not with what we left behind.”

He wished her possessiveness would override her guilt.

“One more night,” he bargained.

“What if that’s too late?”

It was a little childish, to indulge in his desires when there were so many threats, but he had never run before. He had been present for every challenge, even those that did not belong to him. At least here, he could protect the person he valued most.

He crossed to her and held her face between his hands.

“Can I not convince you to stay here? You would be safe, and I would return to you every free moment.”

“Hades, you know I won’t. What kind of queen would I be if I abandoned my people?”

“You are Queen of the Dead, not Queen of the Living.”

Though he could not deny that this was what he loved about her—she cared about everyone, even when they did not deserve it.

No one deserved her, not even him.

“The living eventually become ours, Hades. What good are we if we desert them in life?”

He took a breath and then rested his forehead against hers, almost mournfully.

“I wish that you were as selfish as me.”

“You are not selfish. You would leave me here to help them, remember?”

To please her.

He would do anything to please her.

He pulled back enough to hold her gaze and then kissed her. He would take advantage of every spare moment until they returned. His hands slid beneath her robe, over her soft skin to the space between her thighs where her curls were damp with need.

“Hades.”

He could not discern her tone, if she was warning him or inviting him, but she did not pull away.

“If not another night, then at least another hour.”

She sealed their agreement as her arms slid around his neck and he lifted her to the edge of the balcony, wedged between her thighs, pushing them wider. Her flesh felt swollen from their earlier coupling, but she was still wet, still needy.

“You were wrong,” he said as he pulled out of her heat, her arousal thick on his finger. He took it into his mouth to taste her. “I am selfish.”

“Only an hour,” she said, eyes darkening as she widened for him.

He wasn’t sure if she was reminding him or herself.

Hades smirked, his hand on his arousal. He pumped his fist up and down, preparing to enter her again, but the excitement that had engorged his flesh and made him pulse with need was doused the instant he felt Hermes’s magic.

“Fuck.”

He pulled Persephone off the edge of the balcony just as the god appeared only a couple of steps away. He did not even give them the courtesy of distance.

“Hermes,” Hades growled.

“I’d love to join you,” Hermes said. “Another time, perhaps.”

Hades hoped his glare communicated the violence he was imagining inflicting on the god, which went beyond the pain of the scar he now bore as a sign of their broken oath.

“Hermes, what happened to your face?” Persephone asked.

Hades’s mouth tightened. He hadn’t expected to feel anything when Persephone finally bore witness to the fallout, but the concern in her voice made him feel guilty.

To Hermes’s credit, he didn’t joke. He just smiled softly and said, “I broke an oath.”

“What do you want, Hermes?” Hades asked, growing impatient. “We were about to return.”

“How long is ‘about to’?”

“Hermes—” Hades warned.

“Zeus has summoned both of you to Olympus,” Hermes explained. “He has called Council. They wish to discuss your separation.”

“Our separation?” Persephone asked, surprised. She looked from Hades to Hermes. “Are there not more pressing issues? Like Triad murdering a goddess and attacking another?”

There were certainly more important things, but Zeus was of the mindset that Triad was not a threat to Olympians.

Demeter’s storm, on the other hand, was.

The longer it continued and the more fatalities, the more mortals began to question whether they should worship the Olympians. Less worship meant a change in strength—in power.

“I only gave you one reason Zeus called Council,” Hermes said. “That does not mean we will not discuss other concerns.”

“I will be along shortly, Hermes.”

Hermes nodded, his gaze hard, softening as it slid to Persephone.

“See you later, Sephy,” he said and vanished.

It didn’t take long for Persephone to turn on Hades. “Did you do that to Hermes’s face?”

“You ask and yet you know,” he replied, frustrated.

“You didn’t have—”

“I did.” He did not mean to snap, but this was not something to argue about. He and Hermes had entered into a divine agreement that had divine consequences. “His punishment could have been worse. Some of our laws are sacred, Persephone, and before you feel guilt for what happened to Hermes’s face, remember that he knew the consequences even if you did not.”

She sagged beneath the weight of his reprimand, and that felt worse than her anger over Hermes’s face.

“I didn’t know.”

Gods. He never got this right.

He pulled her close, holding her tightly. They should not be arguing or hurting each other right now. Zeus had just summoned him to Council to discuss their future, something he’d feared for a long time. If anything, they should be enjoying these final few moments before all hell broke loose.

“I’m sorry. I meant to comfort you.”

“I know. It must be trying…to constantly have to teach me.”

“I never tire of teaching,” he said. “My frustration comes from another place.”

“Perhaps I can help…if you told me more,” she said.

Telling her more meant he would have to handle his fear of being too much for her—too angry, too vengeful, too cruel.

“I worry my words will come out wrong and that you will find my motives barbaric.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I gave you this fear when we met.”

“No. It was there before you, but it only mattered when I met you.”

She studied him quietly and then offered, “I understand Hermes’s punishment. I am comforted.”

He appreciated her words, even if he was hesitant to accept them.

He kissed her forehead, wishing they’d had the hour they promised—more so now given what they would face.

He pulled back.

“Would you like to accompany me to Council?”

“You are serious?” she asked, surprised and a little suspicious.

“I have conditions,” he said, and she arched a brow as if to say of course. “But if the Olympians are to discuss us, it is only fair you are present.”

She looked so grateful he felt guilty for ever having excluded her before, but she needed to hear this because it would make her angry, and he needed her fury.

“Come. We must prepare,” he said, and they left the island for the Underworld.