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“I have never seen anything more beautiful than you,” he said, looking down at her, memorizing her as she stared back just as intently, just as happily.
“I love you. So much,” she said.
“Come,” Hecate said sharply, teleporting them into the library. “You have a few minutes to yourselves until I return to collect you for the festivities,” she said. “If I were you, I’d keep your clothes on…and your feet on the ground.”
When they were alone, he looked down at Persephone. “That sounded like a challenge.”
“Are you up for it, husband?”
That word tightened his chest, and he closed his eyes against the emotion that welled within his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“Say it again. Call me your husband.”
“I said, are you up for the challenge,husband?”
When he was sure he could handle it, he looked at her again and drew their hips together.
“As much as I want you now,” he said, “I have something else planned for us tonight.”
“Does it involve…something new?”
“Are you asking…for something new?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He took one of her hands, which had come to rest on his chest, and kissed the inside of her wrist.
“And what is it you wish to try?”
He wasn’t prepared for her answer.
“Restraints.”
CHAPTER XLI
HADES
Restraints, she said.
There was an anxious part of him that did not want to try it again, especially on this night—the most memorable one of their lives—but if it went well, then it would be more than anything he’d hoped for, like everything that had happened so far.
He would just have to be more for her tonight—more attentive, more present, more communicative—and he could do that. Hewoulddo that.
It wasn’t long before Hecate retrieved them from the library, which was good because Hades was seconds away from leaving. She led them to the ballroom, and on the other side of the doors, he heard Hermes announce them.
“Introducing your Lord and Lady of the Underworld, King Hades and Queen Persephone.”
When the doors opened, it was to great applause and cheering. The ballroom was packed with people, but itdid not bother him the way the crowd on Olympus had. They walked along the path the souls had made to the courtyard to dance beneath the moon and stars.
He drew her into his arms, almost too close to do anything beyond sway in place, but he did not care. This was what he wanted—to be near her, to feel her, to know this was real.
“What are you thinking?” she asked after a long moment.
Neither of them had spoken, basking in this moment of quiet happiness.
“I am thinking of many things, wife,” he said and could not help smiling when he used the word. It was perhaps his favorite title he had ever bestowed.
