“I know you’ve got some aggression and rage you need to work off,” I said. I found the bottom of his shirt and slipped my hands beneath it, rubbing my hands up his chest, then scratching, not exactly gently, down his chest and stomach.
I could hear his ragged breaths, the low growl deep in his throat. He had an iron grip on my hips and ground himself against me again, hard, and I bit back a whimper. After all these years, I knew how to touch him, and he knew exactly how to touch me. The way we were connected through the demon marriage bond, as well as the bond I’d formed with him as the goddess of death, kept us in tune with one another.
“I think you need to learn to relax a little,” I said. He didn’t say anything in response, but his hands left my hips and the next thing I knew, he was firmly cupping my breasts, laying claim to what he’d always considered his. There is no bullshit between the two of us. I belong to him, and he belongs to me. When he touches me that way, with that sense of need and ownership, it’s enough to make me lose my mind.
And we were just getting started.
“Strip,” he said, and I immediately pulled my top and bra off, then climbed off of him so I could shimmy out of my pants and panties.
I heard the rustle of clothing, the sound of his zipper, and then he was behind me, rough hands squeezing, rubbing, tweaking my breasts as I reached behind me and scored his thighs with my fingernails.
“Remove the enchantment from your wings. I want to feel all of you,” he told me, and I did, gratefully letting it go. He released my breasts and gently ran his hands over my wings, through the long black feathers, then to where my wings meet my back, where feathers turn to flesh. He ran his fingers slowly, achingly, maddeningly, over the crease that formed the transition between the two, and I felt my whole body go haywire. My breasts felt heavy, and heat pooled deep in my abdomen. He did it again, and again, and then, when I was sure I couldn’t take it anymore, he went back to torturing my breasts, prolonging the release that had already been building. I was gasping, thrusting my bottom against him like I was in heat, needing him in a way I’ve never, ever needed anyone else.
“I have so much aggression to work out, baby,” he said in that low, dangerous growl of his. “And so do you.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Without another word, he pushed my torso down so I was bent at the hips, my face resting on the mattress of the bed. I braced my arms on the mattress, barely able to breathe with the anticipation.
He stood behind me, so close, running his big hands over my shoulders, down my sides, over my hips and ass, then back up my back, to those sensitive spots under my wings again.
I was about to start begging, his hands slowly, slowly feathering down my back again. I pushed my hips back against him, and he laughed, low, mocking, teasing.
“I always expected that at some point you’d get tired of me, Molls,” he murmured. He slipped his hand between my thighs and hummed low in appreciation. “Guess we’re not there yet, though.” And before I could answer, he grasped my hips and slammed into me. I buried a scream of ecstasy, pressing my face into the mattress, and he did it again, my hips lifting, my feet losing contact with the floor under the force of his thrust.
It was exactly what I needed. It always was. He hammered into me hard, fast, and I tried to get a hold of the bedspread, something to keep me anchored to my sanity. It was pointless. As soon as he realized what I was doing, he grabbed my wrists and pulled my arms behind my back, holding them there. I was utterly at his mercy, my big, cold, rough demon, his rage and lust roaring over me, through me, as he claimed my body as only he can. The way he had me, all I could do was take it, revel in it, and fall over the edge of bliss over and over again.
He released me abruptly and climbed onto the bed, pulling me on top of him.
“Your turn,” he growled.
I mounted him, not needing any more invitation that that.
When we’d finally had our fill of one another, we lay side by side on the bed, the covers and pillows tossed aside somewhere, the headboard bearing claw marks from my fingernails. Both of us breathed roughly. I could sense Nain’s satisfaction, his smug cockiness that once again, I’d done every single thing he’d wanted me to do for him. He knew there was nothing I wouldn’t do to please him. And I knew that he would do the same for me, and did, without fail.
“I love you,” I whispered, turning my head toward him.
“I love you too,” he said sleepily. “Still think I must be dreaming when we’re together. Almost every time I look at you,” he added. “I never thought I’d have something like this… didn’t even know something like this existed.”
“Same here,” I said, reaching over and resting my hand on his chest. The scratches I’d given him were already healing. All the more reason for me to give him more of them sometime soon.
“What we have…” he began, letting the words fall away. “I’ve known hundreds of demons in my lifetime. Maybe thousands. None of them has ever had something like this.”
I sensed worry from him and sat up a little, resting my head on my hand. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t lose you, baby,” he said.
“You won’t.”
“These things have tech that killed Demeter,” he said, as if he was still trying to make himself believe it. “Killed her. And we’re trying to find the motherfuckers.”
“Our son is a god,” I murmured. “Our best friends. Either we find these things, Volodhal and the rest of them, or they’ll hunt everyone we love.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“I’m really, really hard to kill,” I reminded him. “And stubborn as fuck. And not a bad fighter.”
“You talk like ‘Hulk smash’ is an actual fighting method,” he said wryly, and I dug my fingernails into the firm flesh of his abdomen. He grunted. “Don’t start something you’re not able to finish, Molls,” he warned. “Weren’t you just begging me, telling me you couldn’t take anymore?”
“Unfortunate thing about having a healing factor? Sex aches disappear pretty quickly.”
He flipped me over onto my back. “Well. I’ll have to work harder next time,” he murmured as he hooked my knees over his forearms.
Devoted and disciplined as he is, my husband always, always keeps his word.
Chapter Eleven
It was just after dawn when we all met in the hallway again. My friends all looked less well-rested than even I did.
“Don’t you people sleep?” I asked as I double-checked my flamesword and headed toward the stairs.
“We do. Do beings of the Nether ever stop rutting?” Heph asked, his voice rough with sleep and annoyance.
“Not if we can help it, old man,” Nain said, and Heph shot him the bird and grumbled something about needing to get back to his wife.
We turned in our room keys and left the inn. E reappeared with another box of cozonaci, which brightened Heph’s mood, and after a few of them, he was mostly back to his usual cheerful self.
“So you say we need to go further northeast?” he asked Nain, brushing crumbs from his beard.
“Yeah. A bit further. Not sure how far, though,” Nain said.
“We’ll move into Russia, then,” Heph said, and Athena nodded, the two of them conversed with E for a few moments, and then the rest of us gathered around them, finding ourselves in the next instant at a gray, empty seaport. It was cold and depressing, and it didn’t take Nain long to tell Hephaestus that we needed to go further northeast.
“Siberia?” Athena asked Heph and E, and they nodded.
“Worth a try,” Heph said. One more jump, and we stood in the middle of an ancient-feeling forest, enormous evergreens overhead, ground carpeted with golden needles. It was even colder here, and I thought, not for the first time, that I was glad temperatures didn’t bother me anymore. I’d always hated being cold, back when I was more mortal. Too many nights spent on the streets or in cars, with hardly any protection from the e
lements. Even now, now that I really didn’t need it, I always kept fires burning in the fireplaces in the palace in the Netherwoods and in the fireplace of our living room at home.
I felt a pang of homesickness and shoved it aside. I didn’t have time for that now.
I glanced at Nain to see him standing with his eyes closed. “We’re close,” he said quietly. He started walking, and the rest of us followed him. He reached back and took my hand, and I walked at his side, our friends and Persephone following us.
“The feeling is definitely more intense here,” he told me as we walked. “The buzzing feels like it’s everywhere. You know how, back in the day, you could hear the buzz of fluorescent lights?”
I nodded.
“It’s like that, but more. It feels like my skin is buzzing.” I sensed for him. He was confused, and a little excited. I understood. Either we’d finally face these assholes in battle, or we’d find something or someone else we’d likely have to fight. This, whatever this was that he was describing, wasn’t like anything I’d heard of before, and the sense I got from the others, who had overheard Nain, was that it was new to them, too.
Which pointed to Volodhal. Because even I’m not unlucky enough to have two mystery beings after me at the same time.
Nain walked for a while in silence, then stopped, turned wordlessly, and walked back the way he came. Then he did it again, and we all stopped following him, letting him do whatever he was doing without us in his way. We watched him as he walked back and forth in one direction, then back and forth in another.
He finally stopped about twenty feet away from where we were standing. “This is where it’s strongest. The feeling gets weaker if I start walking away from this spot.” We all looked around. More trees, more pine needles. No different from anywhere else we’d walked since arriving in the heavily forested area of Siberia.
“None of you sense anything?” he asked.
I shook my head and looked at Persephone.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said quietly. “Whatever this is, the Earth does not recognize or acknowledge its presence.”
“We should send her home now, queenie,” Hephaestus said. “She’s no help to us.”
“I can fight just as well as the rest of you,” Persephone said softly.
“As if we’d be dumb enough to put a weapon in your hands or free you to use your powers,” Heph muttered, rolling his eyes.
“If what I saw when I was with Nyx was any indication, you will need all the help you can get,” Persephone pressed.
“None of us buy that bullshit. You know that, right?” Heph said. “Whatever happened with Nyx, I don’t believe for a second that you weren’t in on it. That’s the kind of shit you do now, apparently. You plot, and you lie, and you kill. You didn’t used to,” he finished, looking away. And I realized then that it wasn’t just anger over what she’d done to our world, rage over the fact that she’d kidnapped his son. Heph, and the rest of the older immortals, I realized, felt disappointed and betrayed. They’d considered Persephone a friend. They’d mourned with her when my father had died, considering her as much a widow as my mother was. They’d lived their entire existence with Persephone somewhere in their lives, and they were realizing how very wrong they’d been about her.
Doubt like that leaves scars. Their trust had been shaken to the core by what Persephone had done. I hadn’t taken the time to look at it closely before, too busy with cleaning up the mess afterward and then getting on with the task of making a world that was safe for both the Normal and supernatural beings I wanted to protect.
“We may need help. I wish I could trust you,” I said to Persephone.
“Why would you?” a voice said from the forest. I quickly looked around, trying to find the source of a voice that was far too familiar. I felt my mother and Persephone’s emotions go haywire.
And in the next instant, a figure in black stepped out of the trees. A tailored black suit, black wings sweeping the pine needles on the forest floor. Dark hair, black glowing eyes.
“None of you are trustworthy,” he said, black gaze fixed on me.
All I could do was stare.
“Hades,” Persephone sobbed, “my darling.” And then she fell to the ground, fainting from the shock of seeing my father as alive as he’d ever been.
In all honesty, I was not all that far behind.
Part Two
Chapter Twelve
The forest was absolutely silent, as if not even the wind dared to make a sound in the face of what was happening. I stared at Hades. My father, who looked healthy, alive, and whole. The memory of his death, of his final moments, weakened, clothing on fire from Hyperion’s attempt to destroy all of us at one time, sword clashing as he fought the titan…and then stumbled.
The memory, burned into my mind, of his head falling to the ground at my feet. I’d been too late. Too slow to save him.
Unbelievable as it seemed, here he was. I could barely breathe, and I knew my mother felt the same, staring at him as he glared at us.
And yet, when I looked at him, it was like looking into an abyss. There were no memories. No sins. No moments of pride or jealousy or lust. Emptiness.
My mom seemed to have frozen, and my family and friends were in shock, their emotions swirling around me, nearly choking me with their intensity. For his part, Hades… or whatever the fuck this was that stood before us, stared at me with utter hatred in his eyes.
I tried not to think about that, about how much it hurt to see that expression on my father’s face.
“You have something that belongs to me,” he told me, his voice just as I remembered it.
“Do I?”
“My power. My gifts. I am the God of Death.”
I bit my lip. “Yeah? How do you know that?”
He looked confused, just for a fraction of a moment, then went back to glaring at me. “It is what I am. And you are a usurper and a liar who has no business having the power you stole from me.”
I felt Nain’s rage behind me. As I expected, he was the first one to get over his shock. He and Brennan were both alert, watchful. Angry and confused, sure, but they’d both shifted back into warrior mode.
“I never wanted it. But it’s my duty now. And I don’t know who you are, but you’re not Hades.”
“If I have to kill you and take that power from you, I will,” he said coldly.
I felt my mom’s anguish and uncertainty. Mom. This isn’t him. There’s nothing of Hades in this thing.
I sensed for her, felt her calming down a little. Before any of us had a chance to do anything else, Hades drew his sword and leapt at me. I dodged his blade just in time, ducking away from him as I fumbled to draw my flamesword. Nain and Brennan both charged him, and the three of them were nothing but a blur of fists and fur and blades for a moment. Nain’s ax swung out, and Hades seemed to disappear.
Okay. So he could rematerialize. Immortal. I’d been able to feel his power, and that, at least had felt familiar, even if nothing else had. Shit.
We all looked around us, scanning the forest, readying ourselves for another attack. Persephone still lay slumped on the ground, and that was probably for the best.
“The fuck was that thing?” Hephaestus grunted, glaring at the trees.
“It wasn’t my father, that’s for sure,” I said quietly.
“It was not,” Athena affirmed, and I had to admit being relieved at the fact that both she and Hephaestus immediately agreed that no matter how much that creature had looked and sounded like my father, it wasn’t.
“Immortal powers, though,” Nain muttered. His eyes, like those of the rest of our group, never stopped scanning the forest.
My mom was about to say something when he appeared again, slashing out at Triton before anyone realized he was there. Triton grunted and fell to the ground, and Hades disappeared again.
“Coward,” Triton bellowed, and it was probably the first time I’ve ever seen the
normally laid-back immortal pissed. “Get back here and face me.”
“Take it easy, Red,” Brennan said after he shifted back. He pulled his clothes on and took out his daggers. “You should get out of here before he comes back and finishes you off, though.”
Triton stood up with a wince, clutching his shoulder where Hades had stabbed him. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “I’ll heal.”
“Not if he comes at you again before you’re ready,” Brennan said, and Triton was about to argue.
“Go,” I told him. “Pass word along to my aunt and the Guardians, especially Quinn. They need to know so they don’t do something stupid. Like let him in,” I added. Triton bowed and in the next instant, he was gone.
Sure enough, almost the second Triton rematerialized away, Hades appeared right where he’d been, slashing out wildly with his sword, then barreling toward Hephaestus in rage when he realized Triton was gone. Heph met him easily, and E was at his side in an instant, the two of them battling Hades while the rest of us positioned ourselves to take advantage of the fact that he was focused on them. I was right behind him, and I lifted my sword.
Hades raised his hand, gave an almost careless wave, and sent the rest of my friends careening into the trees. He slowly turned on me, black eyes blazing, mouth set in a hard line. We circled one another, both of our swords raised, ready.
Give him no quarter, My Prison, Nether whispered. Do not hold back.
I didn’t acknowledge her advice, focusing completely on the being circling me. He moved exactly like my father. If I didn’t have the abilities I have, if I couldn’t see into the very depth of what they are, I’d never have guessed that anything was off.
I was going to fucking kill Persephone. I had no doubt that somewhere along the way, she’d succeeded in creating a body. But whatever had filled it…
Before I could think about it more, Hades struck, and I met his blade with my own, swatting it away, then slashing out at him quickly. He met me easily and struck forward, trying to stab me through the gut.
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