Page 50 of Curse the Flame

I try to mimic the way he’s pronouncing it. “Like that?”

He smiles, and it’s like the sun shines behind him, that’s how warm stealing a tiny grin from this man makes me feel. “I told you to call me Aiden, Blossom. That hasn’t changed. Aodhán died a long time ago.”

Fair enough. “What about Aiden? Did he die?”

It’s an idea. Considering he’s the Lord of the Underworld, I’ve wondered⁠—

“No. I made it all through the second Great War and the most I got was shot at. I’m as alive as you are.”

The second Great War… “World War II? You fought in World War II?”

He nods. “That’s what they call it now. We just called it the second Great War. But… yeah. I was born in Brooklyn,” he says, almost as though he was resigned to tell me something about the man he was—or he was just waiting for me to ask. “Nineteen nineteen. My mam was Irish. My old man… he took off when I was a boy, but my mam managed. We didn’t have much. Nobody did where I came from, but we had enough until we didn’t.”

I’ve heard fragments before, whenever he lets his guard down. I’ve heard his accent. His references to ration cards, to dance halls, and to neighborhoods in New York that no longer exist. I knew he came from another time, especially after he made it clear that he waited eighty years for my arrival.

For some reason, though, knowing the exact year he was born makes it real.

“I enlisted as soon as they let me. Was in Europe by 1941, spent my time in France and Germany. I made it through to the end before coming home in 1945 to find that my mother was gone, my girl was gone, and no one had any use for a soldier who only knew how to kill.”

I totally bypass the “kill” part, stuck on the way he said “my girl” like that.

Duh, Will. Of course he had a girl. A man who looks like that, is generous, thoughtful, and a great cuddler who developed one heck of a blush the first time he woke up with an erection and realized I could feel it… lucky girl. He probably had plenty of them back when he was only Aiden.

Don’t be jealous, don’t be jealous⁠—

Ugh. I never thought I was the jealous sort, even if Persephone has her moments. But hearing that Aiden had a sweetheart while I’m still the untouched virgin…

Wait. Wait.

“Gone? She was… gone? What do you⁠—”

A shadow passes over his face. “I forgot to ask her to marry me before I was shipped off. Stupid kid that I was… I thought Veronica would wait for me to get back home. She didn’t. Which was fine. Maybe we were meant to be. Maybe,” and his eyes flicker to mine, “I was meant for a sunny blonde schoolteacher instead.”

It’s my turn to flush. “I thought you were meant for Persephone,” I said.

“Hades was. But, ya gotta remember, Blossom, I’m not always Hades. I’m Aiden, too, and… maybe you don’t want to hear it, maybe I’m hopin’ too much when I should be grateful just to have known you, but I know that I was meant for you.”

I want to believe that so badly. “But⁠—”

He shakes his head. “There is no ‘buts’. You started this conversation, Willow. It’s time we finally have it.”

My voice sounds breathless as I say, “I just wanted to get to know you. And I want you to know me.”

“I do.”

A look of disbelief flashes across my face. I don’t mean for it to, and I can’t help it. “It’s been, like, two months⁠—”

“Almost a season,” he agrees, “and that was more than enough time.”

Two months is nothing. Unless he’s counting all of the memories he has in his head from Hades’s countless lifetimes, and the eighty years he spent reliving them with his constant companion.

“Aiden,” I begin, and now I sound bewildered. “I’m not Persephone⁠—”

“Of course not. You’re my blossom. You’re Willow. You tamed Cerberus and turned him into a pet. You sprout flowers in your sleep, and sing off-key to them.” Okay. So I’ve never gotten over this being an Alice in Wonderland ripoff, and I like to sing “Golden Afternoon” to the flowers I place in the vases Aiden wordlessly provided in his—our—bedroom once we started to wake up to roses in the sheets. “You smile at Charon. You smile at me.

“But, while I know I have a part of you, I don’t have everything. I don’t have what I want. And I understand. You miss your family. You miss your home. You miss your world.” His expression turns sorrowful. “You miss the sun. But, my blossom, to me, you are the sun. When you walk among the palace of Hades, I feel warm. I feel alive. I feel… I feel like a man and not a shade myself.”

My heart skips a beat. “Aiden…”