Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

H ades

Heat radiates from the core of me as I climb from the bowels of Tartarus, a need I can’t name clawing from the depths of me. Blood runs thick and inky like tar over the stones of the dark realm of torment. Blood I’ve felt trickle down my flesh to drip from the tips of my claws. Even now, moving through the Underworld at a pace only a God in true form can keep, the world blurring around me, the echo of screams loud between my ears, that need I can’t name screams louder. It is more important than the blood that drips from my talon, more insistent than the need to enact punishment on the depraved. It is an itch in the deep of the bone.

A thing of madness.

Not even the mist of the sea can cool me, its splash sizzling into steam over my heated flesh as I race over sand. My movements are driven by instinct. I am not man, but beast. I am not composed, but the picture of chaos. I am not mortal, but God.

The itch intensifies, burning the marrow that boils in my bones. I roar to the everlasting night, watching as the magical night-blooming narcissuses birthed from the baren womb of this realm cower in the wake of my rage. My fists crash into the stone at the base of Mount Olympus, its roots as toxic and far-reaching as the venom that spews from Medusa’s serpent crown. Rubble shakes loose as the mountain shudders under my wrath, my mind still lost to the madness of Tartarus, and the inky blood that flows like rivers over my palms. A rockslide tumbles from high above, crashing into the sea as the land trembles beneath my feet. Souls cry out in the distance, but I think nothing of them as my palace comes into view, rising into the inky darkness of an everlasting night. A mountain of glittering onyx, lit by firelight, its towers spearing high like daggers plunging into the belly of an everlasting night.

Crashing through high arched doors, I fall to my knees on the polished stone of the palace foyer. The air I suck into my lungs stings like the bitter cold of a frosty winter, the heat surging alive within me repulsed by the nip of icy cold even as I push off the stone, my palms leaving a mark of moist steam behind. Or is it blood?

I don’t care. I can care about nothing but the itch. The pressure inside my bones that feels as though I will, at any moment, erupt into a mist of torment.

Another roar rattles the onyx and obsidian mountain in which I’ve carved my palace. The chandelier of twisted opal and God’s-bone quakes overhead, the everlasting fire shuddering as though under the siege of breath. My eyes burn.

Everything burns.

The need I can’t name rises like a wave of magma to sear the aching organ that thunders in my chest. The need I can’t name rides the wave, a seductress of monsters into the forefront of mind. A single image. A girl. A woman. Sunshine and flowers and the seductive warmth of home. My mate. Mine.

I find myself tunnelling through the palace. Dark, twisting passageways wind like veins, and I am the blood that surges, seeking the heart. Craving her.

The taste of sunshine is a balm on my ravaged mind, ribboned with the sweet fragrance of blossoms.

The itch grows stronger. More insistent.

The portal. I need to get to the portal.

For the first time in a long time, I curse my waning power. My inability to summon a portal to and from the Underworld at will .

Insanity fractures my mind, cracking my focus as I fumble, my talons tearing at the shifting shadows of my Godly flesh, searching for the itch. For reprieve.

I find none.

The madness swirls.

The portal grows near and an animal roar of need rips from me. The gust quiets even the eternal flames of the candles that light my way, fed by the blood that spills an everlasting river from the cut limbs of the Hydra who haunts the sinkhole. Plunged into darkness, my Godly vision sharpens, seeking shape in the black obscurity of perpetual shadows.

“Hades!” A woman screams my name, and I pause. My ears twitch. Her? “Hades, stop!”

Not her. I turn again, finding the portal I seek into the realm of the living. To her.

A hand connects with my back before a hiss falls from the female behind me. Nothing can touch me now and survive. Not in this form. Not after my time in the pits of torment. Not with the heat of Tartarus and the burning river Phlegethon that shrouds me in the scorch of sin.

“You can’t go through the portal in this form, Hades.” The voice is frantic, pained. “You just left Tartarus—if you come into contact with her like this—you—you’ll tear her apart.” The portal crackles with energy as I grow closer. The familiar voice screams again, shrill as a wraith bent on an invasion of my burning soul. “You will incinerate her! Hades, stop ! ”

I can’t stop. The itch is too much. Too deep.

I need her. She is the relief I seek.

She is the thing that pulled me from the depths of sin and suffering. The only thing with the ability to do so.

I step through the portal, turning at last to view the being at my back. Recognition flickers somewhere beyond the itch. A name I’ve known since the beginning. A friend. Hecate. She is drenched in shadows; struck by the flickering light of the flame she holds in her palm. Her other hand has been stripped of flesh to the very bone, glistening black in the shadows that dance among the picture of gore.

I am present enough to know I did that. Burned the flesh from her hand.

I am not present enough, however, to heed her warnings.

The portal closes, silencing Hecate’s shrill shriek.

There is no turning back now.

Not as the portal opens into the elevator that smells of her . The elevator that will take me to her, soaring high into the sky, and yet encased in the flames of the Underworld, untouchable by even Zeus.

This invasion into his realm is my challenge to all the power he believes he possesses. The power he wields with the cruelty and distance of so many of the world leaders, Kings, and Queens, and politicians who, inevitably, face my judgement. My wrath. Souls who, crafted in his image, Zeus has thrown to the living realm to reap destruction and devastation, concealed in care and inclusivity. They are the souls I find most lacking, those souls who lead grand lives favored by Zeus, predestined for a short existence of pleasure that only ensures their eternity of torment.

How it must drive him to rage, that I am able to invade his realm so high in the sky when he is unable to access my domain far below the surface of the living. That he cannot even access me here, lest the white feathers that drape from the wings at his back incinerate in the flames of the Phlegethon that protects my domain.

The very thought of my youngest brother has a ripple of rage dulling the itch, if only for a moment. A moment that is too soon gone when the doors to the elevator open to my space. The scent of her is strong. So strong, I am nearly brought to my knees. As it is, my hand snaps out to connect with the wall for balance, and I see the black smoke of swirling shadows that encompass me in this form. The form of the God I am so careful to keep contained under the flesh of the man.

It takes a nearly insufferable amount of concentration to pull the God within the man, while the splitting itch threatens to debone me like a filleted fish on the shores of Poseidon’s Sea.

Snapping my teeth together in a vicious clench, heat erupting from every pore, I follow the pull of her down the hall. The fact I am scenting her like a bloodhound is not lost on me. Not at all.

Neither is the fact I scent another fragrance. It clings to the air as I hunt her, masculine and familiar. My nephew, a man time and trust morphed into my brother. Until he shattered that trust with the arrow of a foolish act.

Hermes.

The growl I loose would have sent every nymph in the Underworld scurrying for protection, every God transforming in preparation for battle. Jealousy and possessiveness is a dagger that threatens to gut me as I burst into her room. The scent of another male—Hermes, fades in the plumes of softly scented petals of rose. Steam wafts from the open door of her bathroom, the sound of the shower cutting through the ringing between my ears.

I think not once of her privacy as I storm into the space, stopping dead in my tracks when I see her. Naked under the spray of water, I can’t mistake the spill of tears or the tremor that shakes her body. Not even as she scrubs the sponge violently into her flesh, a vicious flush of red blooming across the surface of her usually pale skin.

Again, I don’t think as I move across the space and beneath the spray of water. I’m already naked after the transformation. I hadn’t possessed the awareness to dress before coming to her. Finding her. The madness that clings after a visit in Tartarus is beginning to ebb. Reason is, again, beginning to flow.

“Hades,” she sobs my name on a sharp hitch of breath. It is like a blade cutting to the quick of my heart, scoring scars into the core of my black soul. I want to score scars onto her soul, scars so deep she won’t ever forget me again. Scars so embedded in the trenches of her innermost self that not even the raging current of the Lethe can invade.

Water sprays my flesh, sizzling to steam upon contact. I’m still burning with the flames of Tartarus, still deadly.

A flash of fear, quick and sharp, has me stepping back away from her in the same moment she throws her body into mine. The contact is full, and Hecate’s warning echoes in my mind.

“You will incinerate her.”

My hands land on the flare of her hips to push her away, to save her from me—as she burrows closer.

How? How is she touching me?

“It’s going away.” Stricken relief fills her words. Her arms circle the broad width of my shoulders even as her legs lift around my waist. She is climbing my body, unaffected by the deadly heat that pours in waves of torment from my form. Not even in the form of her Goddess so long ago had she been able to touch me after a visit to Tartarus. She had loved to look, though. For hours, I would sit for her as she painted the image of me onto canvas .

Now, though, confusion and fear plague my thoughts as I force space between our bodies, searching for wounds her human flesh could not possibly repair.

There are none. No melting flesh. No bubbling blood. No gore.

How?

My confusion wanes as the need I felt only moments before returns on a wave of desire that infects every part of me. It tightens my very veins until I feel they may snap as her hips roll, her core seeking to be filled.

“Hades, it hurt so much.”

What is she talking about? My hands snap to her hips and I palm her ass, locking her in place, stopping the delicious grind of her core into my aching cock.

If she continues, I’m going to take.

I don’t want to take.

I want to be given.

I want her to know the man—the God—she is giving to.

Fuck.

“I’m so mad at you,” she gasps, and again, I am confused.

“You don’t seem all that mad at me right now.”

Maybe teasing her is wrong, because I feel the sharp nip of her blunt teeth in my shoulder in retaliation. My cock jumps in excitement at the quick lash of sweet pain. Behind my upper lip, I feel the pressure of my growing fangs.

I ache to sink them into her flesh. To taste the blood that flows through her veins. To seal the deal for her very soul in the ancient bond of a blood-vow.

“You’re such a dick,” she murmurs into my skin, entirely unaware of my thoughts. If she knew, she would flee.

I laugh, but even as I do, I can feel the same madness swirling at the edge of my mind. Need her , it whispers. Take her , it taunts. Show her she belongs to you , it urges.

I clench my teeth, my voice rough and raw with want when I ask, “Why?”

“You left me.” She tries again to roll her hips into my own. “For a whole week.”

A week?

Had it truly been so long?

“I was—unaware it had been so long.” It’s a lame excuse. Pathetic. “I was tied up.”

“You couldn’t text? I called…” Her fingers twine into the long hair that is tied at the base of my neck. She pulls the tie loose, freeing my hair before twisting it around her fingers. Steam billows. She doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes search mine. “I waited for you every night.”

“I’m sorry.” I can say nothing else. But I am sorry. I’m so sorry I left her for so long, without a word. Without protection .

The fact that I’d done so has a blade of burning regret searing me from the inside out. She could have been harmed. She could have been taken from me again.

Demeter could have found her…

She rolls her hips, and in my distraction, I let her have the contact she so desperately wants. I slide against her hot core, into the wet heat of her. We both groan. She pulls my hair, taunting the beast I desperately try to restrain, seeking more pressure.

“God, I should leave you and never look back.” Her words awaken something dark and dangerous inside me.

“You don’t get to leave me,” I growl low, my fingertips biting into the soft flesh of her ass.

“This isn’t normal.” I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or herself. “It’s not good for me.” She shudders as I thrust my cock through the wet slick of her heat. Sticky need spills over my length, and I ache to thrust inside her. Deep. Consuming all of her. She moans. “This need—it’s not—it’s not normal.”

Dropping my hands from her ass, her green eyes open wide in protest as she slides down my body. But that need that pulled me from the pits of Tartarus, from the torment I’ve practiced since ancient times, surges to the surface again with her words. It pushes me to show her that she is mine. She belongs to me.

That I am hers.

That no man can give her body the pleasure that I can give her. That no male will ever be enough to satisfy her body, her mind, her heart and soul—like I can. That she was made for no male, as she was made for me.

“Hades…” Her protest is cut off as I push her into the wall of tile, again inspecting every inch of her body for burns that don’t appear. I can’t help but marvel at how she can touch me like this, and not feel the sting of the heat. The burn of the flames crafted to destroy everything—but me.

Mine. She is mine.

I crowd her body with my own, loving how small she is against me, even as I sense she holds a great power the like the Olympians have yet to see. She tips her head back, her eyes landing on me. Need spills from the emerald light that shines from the very soul her flesh contains, and my own form hums with the desperation to fulfill her every ache, every want, every desire.

To fill her womb.

A surge of longing so powerful, so potent, so massive swells within me. It spills from my tip in beads of white, painting her belly with my arousal where my throbbing tip rests. In response, she clenches her thighs, but I don’t miss the sweet scent of her own arousal. It clings to the steam that plumes around us, cocooning us in glass and tile.

My nostrils flare as I inhale, and my voice is raw and hungry as I demand, “Tell me again you should leave me, little goddess.” I lower my head to her neck, the pressure of my fangs behind my lip a bone-deep ache. “Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you don’t ache to feel my cock buried deep in your core. Tell me you don’t want to feel me stretch you, force you to take every inch. Tell me, little goddess, that you don’t hunger for me as I starve for you.”

Shuddering breaths leave her lungs, tasting of life as I kiss a burning path down her neck. Her chest. Along the lines of her soft abs to her core. The water from the shower has washed away the spill of my seed on her belly, but the scent of me on her remains.

I want to coat her in my scent. I want there to be no mistake to any male that crosses her path, that she is mine.

It’s a feral thought. One I’ve never entertained in all my years.

And yet I can’t deny the raw truth of that raging, vicious need.

To possess.

I am obsessed.

“Hades,” she whimpers my name as I suck her into my mouth, sliding my tongue through the slick of her, swirling and twirling and sucking. She cries out, head back, neck arched as I pin my palm into her belly, sliding my teeth over her sweet clit before thrusting my tongue into her hot core.

She spasms around me, slender fingers twisting in my hair. I can’t tell if she’s trying to pull me closer or push me away. The burning itch begins again, in the core of me. The need to possess her, to mark her, is strong. I want to climb inside her, to fill her, and spill everything I have to offer into her womb until she is so full, she is dripping with me .

Gripping her waist, I pin her in place against the wall as I fuck her pussy with my tongue. Stroking in and out, in and out, sliding over her clit, back in again. My fangs pulse where they rest against her cunt, spreading her for me, aching to sink into her soft flesh, to drink the blood that would bind her to me.

She is panting and breathless against the wall, moaning and pleading. I can’t help but watch her from below, my tongue pleasuring her, as she comes apart. Her orgasm is a thunderous thing that quakes her body and shutters her beautiful eyes. But I’m not done. I want more. More of her pleasure.

I want to show her that she doesn’t get to walk away from me and forget this . I want to watch as I force her to toss the thoughts of leaving this September into the flames of a reality that will never come to pass, watching it burn to ash.

Pulling my tongue from her core, I rise from my knees. She whimpers in weak protest, but I cut it off as I plunge two fingers deep into the center of her. Her eyes flash open at the brutal invasion, the rough claiming—and I see it. The light of the sun she possesses with absolutely no explanation I can find for the gift, but will keep hunting for the answer for as long as I breathe.

Driving my fingers in and out of her, I fuck her against the wall with my hand, and wish it was my cock. Wish that I was inside her, climbing inside her, filling her womb. My mate. The soul that stands with my own, even if we aren’t of the same soul, that much I believe. That in the shaping of her soul, it was crafted to call, eternally, for my own.

“Eyes on me, little goddess,” I command as her eyes begin to drift closed. “I want to watch as you come apart for me.” A shuddering breath spills from puffy lips, painted red with arousal. She moans. Pride and pleasure bloom in my chest as she lifts her leg around my waist, giving me more access to her core. I practically purr, “That’s it, little goddess, feel me.”

“I want more,” she whimpers. “Deeper—Hades!” She tosses her head back as I thrust in quicker, deeper.

Her fingers grip my shoulders now, digging into hard muscle and burning flesh as she tries to rock her hips into me. Her whimpers have turned into full-on cries now, the beautiful symphony of desire, and need, and pleasure a siren-song formed exclusively to tempt my control. To taunt my madness. It’s a wonder how I keep from pulling my fingers from the warmth of her core to shove my cock home, tearing through the innocence that remains to steal what has always been mine.

Her body tightens as I curl my fingers up to stroke that spot that promises an exquisite shattering of pleasure. “Oh!” Her eyes slam closed.

“Eyes,” I growl low. “On.” I dip my head to nip her shoulder. “Me.”

Her eyes snap open, light seeping into the darkness of my gaze. The darkness that wants to devour every inch of her, to keep her for myself. I can’t take my eyes off her as another marvel appears in the deep of her gaze, no longer shining with any green at all. Through the sunlight that feasts on the devastating heat of Tartarus that still clings to my skin, I see something other. Something more.

If I thought her possessing the light of the sun was impossible and dangerous—this—this is something else. Because now, as she shatters in my arms, the otherworldly light bursting from her eyes, I don’t just see the sun. I don’t just feel the warmth possessed only by Hyperion and Helios.

I see the moon, feel its cool wash of light in the aftermath of her bright sun.

I see the stars, shimmering in the glow of their soft magic.

She erupts in my arms, and the galaxy flashes before my very eyes. Planets, stars, moon, sun, and the creation of all life.

I’ve lived for a long time. Ages. Eons. Lifetimes.

And I’ve never known fear the like that I feel it now as the power of the universe—an impossible power too massive for any one entity to possess alone—shutters.

Her body slackens in my arms. Her forehead connecting with my chest as I wrap her lithe body in my arms, against my chest where my beating heart rages a war of white-hot fear.

That fear burns away the remnants of Tartarus that blisters on my bones, freezing the simmering blood that flows through my veins to scorch the flesh I wear in the burn of dry ice.

She can’t possibly possess the power of the Universe. The power of all creation.

The power of the First Primordial Goddess, Chaos .

It’s not possible.

And yet…