Chapter 25

Chapter

Twenty-Five

P ersephone

I thought Hades was going to steal me away to his condo on the top of the tower after the little picture I painted him, taunting him as I did. Instead, after I'd protested vehemently and rather loudly, he'd returned me reluctantly to the dig site with an ominous warning that has played on repeat in my mind since.

"It would feel better than you could ever imagine, my voice against your naked skin. I would spill your moans and devour your sighs. I would bleed myself into the marrow of your bones, and invade your very soul. I would steal your innocence, covet it. Treasure it always. I would make you mine, Persephone. Wholly and completely. Be ready for me."

I'd been unable to think the rest of the day. I've drifted back and forth between excitement for what is to come and fear for the fact I've tempted a man obviously more experienced than me. What I don't feel is regret.

Because even as I am afraid, I can't stop thinking that this is everything that I never knew I needed. And it hasn't escaped me that I haven't heard that anguished cry of my name since I came here. Since the night I met Hades.

There is a part of me, a silly, childish part that believes in the fantastical just enough to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe that cry was my souls desperate need to find his. Or his to find mine. That silly part of me basks in the fantasy that maybe I was always meant to find Hades. Always intended for him. To be his.

I know it's crazy. Ludicrous. But I've always believed in soul mates, even though I never felt confident I would find mine.

And Hades can't be mine, either. Can he?

He's so much older than me. More experienced. More wealthy. More everything .

What can I possibly have to offer him other than my youth? What do I have to offer a relationship with a man who has everything? The whole world at his fingertips?

I've never felt so lacking.

I'd denied the car Hades sent for me to walk instead. I'd felt the need for the sun. To work off some of the agitation I felt coiling inside my body, tightening my nerves into springs a moment from snapping. I still don't feel regret, even as I'm helpless to slip inside my head.

I'm unsure of what I started. What it really means—the structure of what we will become now.

I don't know what I'm going to do now that I've opened a door, I'm not sure I can close. I'm not sure I want to close it.

No, I know I don't want to close it. But I don't know how to walk through it, either.

And I don't know, once I'm through it, what I am supposed to do then.

I make the walk to the tower in a blur. It's through that same blur that I ride the elevator, and stumble into Hades' apartment. Wet noses bump my hands as three wiggly-with-excitement pups greet me. Okay, they aren't pups. They're full-on dogs, big and muscly and definitely capable of a great deal of danger. But they feel like pups to me.

"Oh! I missed you, too." I give scratches where scratches are due. Then I stand, and with my heart slamming behind the cage of my chest, make my way into the kitchen.

I find Hades as I found him yesterday, with takeout waiting.

Nerves rattle inside my body and I do my best to swallow them down before I speak. "You've gotta stop doing that."

"Doing what?" Hades asks, pulling a dish from a brown bag.

"Buying dinner." I throw my hand at the offending bag. "You're paying me to make it."

His lips twitch into a smile that never fully forms. "Say thank you, Persephone."

God, he's sexy when he makes commands. Wait, what?

Did I just see his lips twitch? Again?

Why do I get the impossible sense that he's privy to some of my thoughts?

I open my mouth to allow an obedient whisper to escape. "Thank you, Hades."

He looks pleased. The idea that I've pleased him makes me feel so incredibly warm. So happy. As though I'm a moment from erupting into flames.

"Come closer," he commands again. Again, I comply and am given that pleased look that utterly delights me. I'm floored by the way that I long to please him. I've never cared about doing such things for any other man in my life.

Maybe this really is an awakening.

Whatever it is, I'm here for it.

"Relax, Persephone," Hades soothes. "I won't bite you." My sharp laugh is cut off even sharper when he adds, "Yet. "

"Hades," I begin, and pause. I don't know what to say. Words won't flow.

I think I might be panicking.

What is happening to me?

Hades drops the bag to turn to me. When his hands come to either side of my face, I feel a thorn of fear bite into my strung-out heart at the possibility that he might kiss me.

He doesn't.

"Despite our earlier conversation and my vow to you, I have no intention of ravishing you right here, right now. Desire, yes. Intention, no." He softens his hard voice. "We have time, Persephone, to learn each other."

A breath of spilled nerves escapes from between trembling lips. Hades' dark eyes bounce between my mouth and my eyes. An inferno of burning desire simmers in the darkness that only serves to carve the depths of my already gaping desire for him deeper. This yawning cavern of want I feel inside the hollow depths of me is something I'm beginning to fear that even he won't be able to fill.

I feel so foreign to myself.

"Do you understand what I am saying to you?" Hades asks low.

I nod, even though I'm not certain that I do.

"Good." Hades releases me to focus again on the bag. When he speaks next, I feel a rush of relief pricked only by a needle of disappointment. "We'll eat, and then I must paint." As though sensing that prick of disappointment, he says, "The urge has struck and I am helpless to ignore it."

"Okay."

"I would like it if you would help me in my studio."

"Help you?" I take the dish he offers me, now piled high with food. There's no way I can eat all this. Especially not with the nerves that jump in my belly. "Help you how?"

"I use," Hades pauses. "Unconventional materials in my paint."

Sliding onto a stool, I slide into the ease of conversation as I have every other night with Hades, I ask, "What kind of unconventional materials?"

Hades smirks as he slips a seasoned carrot into his mouth. "You'll see."