We make new memories, like many of the things we shared before. Words we whisper into each other’s ears. Promises we make under the covers at night.
Time has passed and our bond is stronger than ever, but still a thought plagues me.
“Are you content here with me?”
Her lips tilt into a soft smile as the fabric of her dress puddles around her. “Of course I am.” She sits up on her knees, places both hands on my jaw, and kisses me before returning to the other end of the chaise.
“I was so afraid, and now I can’t remember why.” Ivy lounges on the couch, stretching her toes out so she can press them against my thigh. Her soft curves tempt me and the luxury of never needing or wanting anything but her is a comfort.
She’s warm and soft and beautiful. The only woman I want to memorize like this. The only woman I craved so badly that I would have done anything to have her again. I would have done much worse things than I did to taste her sweet mouth even one more time. I would have done anything the gods asked of me.
I kiss her as much as I can. A hundred times a day. Two hundred. It doesn’t matter. Every time I can put my lips to hers, I do it. I missed so many moments with her, and I’m not missing another one ever again.
“I love you Carlisle,” she whispers, and a beautiful blush rises to her cheeks.
My heaven.
One day,not long after, her hand in mine, we walk down a path lined with onyx and dark flowers when a scream tears through the air.
A chilling scream. One that echoes in the air. Everything stops and the scream is all present. Her body presses to mine, her heart racing. “What was that?” she whispers.
In the distance, the life that exists is still. As if everything paused, wondering the same.
It was a sound from Hades’s tower. Not from the hells beyond the wall.
It’s a scream that should not exist. A goddess that does not belong here.
It was an act of war and the knowledge of my participation chills me to the core of my being. They will never know and I am to forget.
As Ivy needs to do as well.
“You didn’t hear anything,” I say just beneath my breath and then turn her around.
When Ivy looks up at me, her feet refuse to move. “I thought I heard someone scream.”
“You didn’t.” I lean down and kiss her forehead, then tug her hand and continue walking down the path. She hesitates but follows. Her hand still in mine.
My heart doesn’t stop beating frantically though.
I did it for her, I tell myself. I would do anything for Ivy.
Before we turn to our castle, I stop and steal a surreptitious glance at the tower. No other screams come from that direction, and there’s nothing in the windows that would be telling. Thedark walls etched in the mountain of obsidian hide secrets, and I don’t know why Hades has done what he has, but I know there will be consequences.
I bring the back of Ivy’s hand to my lips and kiss her as if it could be the last. For a war among the gods could end us all.
There is so much more to come.
