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“I am Hades, King of the Underworld.”
“King of the Underworld?” If he expected her to sound impressed, he would be disappointed. But he was not, because there was nothing the creature in front of him could do to disappoint him, save disappear from his sight. “Then you have no dominion here, isn’t it so?”
A laugh escaped from his lips before he could stop it. The sound was startling to his own ears. When was the last time he had laughed, or even smiled? His mind traced through centuries of memories and came up empty.
“A king does not cease to be a king simply because he is not lazing on his throne.”
“Is that so?” Once more, he could sense the smile playing on her lips.
How he wanted to see it! “Indeed.”
A beat of silence, the night filling the space between them. He moved closer until he was standing behind her.
He wanted to turn her to face him, but he stayed his hand.
“Tell me, female, do you belong to another?”
A snort. “No one will everownme. Not even a king.”
A smile curved on his lips at her indignation. “Then, are there anyyouown? A male, perhaps?”
“Only all the living things in the world,” the female said with a sigh. The words held a weariness he knew all too well.
This close, he could taste her scent like it was a physical thing, no longer contaminated by the other smells in the orchard. Pomegranate and budding flowers.
The scent was stamped in his mind from one breath to the next.
“Give me your name.” His words were commanding, as was fitting of a ruler.
Yet if she knew him better, she would’ve detected that it was not the same distanced orders he gave those beneath him. This was an order he could not bear to be refused.
“I told you, Hades, King of the Underworld—you have no claim to make demands here.”
“Then consider this me begging.” The plea in his voice—never had he made that sound before.
Finally, she turned to him. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the moonlight, a smattering of freckles covering her face, moving like constellations over her skin as her lips tipped up into a smile. It was even more devastating than he’d imagined. Her green eyes lit with mischief, an innocence that was foreign to him after his centuries in the underworld.
“I am known as Persephone.”
Chapter I
When the sobs started,they choked me.
It should have been me.
Blood caked my hands from where the skin had torn as I’d tried to pierce the ground.
It should have been me.
Time no longer mattered to me. It could have been seconds since he’d been taken from me. It could have been years. All of it was the same—time without him. The one male who had made me feel alive. Loved. Cherished.
The tears had dried on my cheeks, but I couldn’t stop the sounds that left me. My wails were painful to my own ears, but still, they continued. I could do nothing as my voice shook, dried out, turning into a mournful rattle.
There was no catharsis in them.
The ground beneath me was perfect. Even, unbroken, for as far as I could see besides the pathetic dent I’d made in the ground.
As if it hadn’t just swallowed the love of my life.
