“I’m not sure. He showed me how the Parthenon once appeared, and told me to cherish my husband. Then he said looking at me was like looking at the angels... I don’t know, it may have just been flattery.”
“Riona!” Persephone shot an advisory look at her friend before turning to her husband.
Riona swatted her concern in midair. “He already knows. He figured it out this afternoon.”
“Yes, I did,” Hades acknowledged. “Curiously, Persephone, how did you come upon this knowledge?”
A hacking chuckle emanated from Riona. “She found out the same time I did, when I almost used an Angelic Blade to plunge our Thanksgiving dinner into damnation before Ramiel stopped me.”
He felt his insides churning at just the mention of the bastard’s name. “Always there to save the victim, isn’t he?”
“Who? Ramiel?” Riona asked absently. “Yeah, he’s great.”
His suggestive eyes fell onto his wife, whom he credited with at least having guts enough not to cower. “So I’ve been led to believe.”
“So what was that I walked into? It was like college all over again.” A ghost of a smile flitted across the keystone’s face. “I guess the wild sex parties weren’t made up after all, huh?”
Persephone’s shoulders bobbed. “Everyone tends to pair off into private before actually doing it.”
“And you two were...” Riona let the implication fall.
The statement brought both gods to a standstill. He longed to look at his wife, and see what expression she wore in response. Truth was, he was too scared of disappointment. He wanted Persephone to confirm it, to say she kissed him because of her feelings for him. He didn’t want to believe it was simply because she desired the sheer intoxication of it; or worse still, that he was merely a convenient substitute.
“I’m sorry; that’s none of my business. Forget I said anything.” In a smaller voice, Riona added. “But if I may ask, why would Big Boss create you guys that way?”
Hades pulled open the gate and let the two women pass. “I may be old, Riona, but I’m not wise enough to understand everything He did. I can only guess that it was meant to encourage fidelity to our spouses, so we’d literally find them intoxicating. Maybe that system would have worked if we remained mortal, still fearing death. Since the rapture, however, and since we became immortal, our perspectives have shifted. There’s so few of us left now, and we’ve been around so long, intoxication is very comforting and fidelity means very little.”
“It still means plenty.” Persephone retorted through pressed lips. She neither backed away, nor made any motion to reciprocate the gesture. She took up almost as much room in their foyer as she did in his heart. “But fidelity can only endure when the foundation of the relationship is love, not obligation.”
“Is that what I am to you now? An obligation?” Hades sucked in his bottom lip as he lowered his head to Persephone’s.
Riona was halfway up the stairs when he heard her say, “I’m going up to my room and leaving the two of you alone.”
Finally, privacy, he thought. Alone with Persephone. That was a place he rarely found himself. She was a damn maestro in her avoidance of being isolated with him. Hades had no intention of squandering the opportunity.
Persephone turned her ire as well as her sharp tongue back up to full blast the moment they were alone. “How many times do we have to go over this? Don’t you ever get sick of hearing me say I don’t love you?”
“I only grow sick of you lying about it. Both to me and yourself.” He held his place, refusing to back down. “I admit, I began to suspect you were telling the truth, but the way you kissed me tonight...”
“Was nothing more than me having a cocktail,” she interrupted. A spray of hair fanned as Persephone turned and marched up the west wing stairs. “If that confused you, I’m sorry. I thought our understanding was pretty clear. You said if I ever needed a release, I could come to you, with no obligations for it to be construed as anything else.”
“Because you get everything else you need from the angel?”
She stopped and circled him, her mouth wide and eyes fierce.
“Oh, yes, I know all about your lothario.” He couldn’t help a proud smile from creeping onto his face. “There’s little you can keep hidden from me, even when it doesn’t happen here.”
“Chipper.” With one word, she found out the culprit, accused him of betrayal, and sentenced him to death. “The stupid mutt.”
“He reports to me, you should recall. When he told me an angel came to see you and he did so without an agenda... Heartstring, there are few things you fear in this world, or any other, but you’ve always been scared stiff by angels ever since...”
“Don’t!” Persephone’s hand sliced through the air and his words. “Damn it, I should have known the cerebi were only there to spy on me. You’ve never been able to stand seeing me with anyone else, no matter how many women you’ve had. Part of the great, old Homeric tradition, huh? Men can screw every third woman they encounter, and that’s fine, but a woman who so much as looks at another man...”
He braced both her arms and held her squarely before him. “You think I care if you have the occasional meaningless liaison to let off steam? Hell, no. But when you’re out in the mortal world alone, where I can’t protect you, I worry. I sent them to watch over you. That job becomes impossible, however, when you sleep with the enemy.”
“Ramiel is not the enemy!”
Was she serious? “Ramiel is an archangel, one of the seven who followed Big Boss’s order to hunt us down and destroy us. If I hadn’t imprisoned you in the Underworld, you might have joined the ranks of the dead that day. I had to send the cerebi, to protect you from anything like that happening again.” Damn the tears that betrayed him. “I’d go into the sunset if that happened. I love you too much.”
“But you don’t love me enough to let me go,” she said. “I don’t love you, Hades.”
“But you did once,” he countered.
“Not anymore.”
“If I were king again. If I again reigned over a realm...”
She loosened her arms and pushed two fingers to his lips. “It has nothing to do with losing your throne, and you know better.”
It was true. Persephone never cared what title he held. Heck, she was even happy in the Underworld, devoid of all the flora that previously gave her comfort. When they met, she didn’t even know he was a king. He crossed Elysian Fields on his way from the portal that was hidden in an outcropping of rocks that fated day. He saw her there, talking to flowers, and convincing them to bloom before they were ready. He remembered the dismay on her face as the nascent buds opened at her command, only to wither into brown stalks when the task asked too much of them. He remembered comforting her, and reassuring her that she would learn the way of her gifts and eventually how to use them responsibly. He remembered her scent of lilac and grass, and how she kissed him when he escorted her back into the village. She kissed him. He fell in love that very moment, and never regretted it.
“Fine, you don’t love me.” Hades’ throat bobbed as he swallowed. “But for the time when you did, grant me this: one more night in your arms. Even if it’s only for one last memory I can hold onto. In the morning, you can return to hating me.”
“I don’t hate you,” Persephone interjected. “You still have a place in my heart. Just not in the way you want.”
His eyes fluttered closed and he pressed a kiss into her palm before laying it flat against the supple flesh of her bosom. “And you know that here is where mine beats, breathes, and resides. Please, Steph, one night. And I swear, if you still desire, I will release you from this marriage.”
Her hand snapped back. “You’ll... what?”
“I won’t keep you against your will any longer.”
“And then you’ll dissolve our marriage contract?” she asked. He nodded. “My father will be furious.”
“Let me worry about Zeus.” Hades extended his han
d. “Change is coming. We both feel it. Perhaps I should prepare to change with it. Perhaps you need your freedom to change as well.”
Slowly, cautiously, tenderly, she maneuvered her hand into his. He squeezed it a moment, overcome with gratitude. A smile flitted across her face, followed the next moment by a gasp as she found her back against the cool marble wall. Hades pinned his wife with his hips and held her hands over her head. The moment she surrendered, his body responded, anxious to fulfill all of her desires. He brought his mouth down, consuming her neck, darting his tongue out to lick a line from her breastbone to the sensitive spot right behind her ear that drove her crazy.
“You don’t forget a thing, do you?”
He laughed against her cheek. “I’ve made a career of cataloging your body so I could perfect pleasure. I have indices of seduction where you’re concerned. I am consumed by you. Don’t you understand, Steph? For thousands of years, there’s been no one for me, but you.”
“You keep saying that, but we all take lovers to...”
His mouth pressed hers, cutting off her words and stealing her breath. The kiss rendered her stunned. Hades released her wrists and braced his hands around her legs, which she wrapped around him as he carried her towards her room. “I’ve never lain with any other woman but you in centuries. I tease, I boast, I cajole, but I never consummate. Your body is my temple, and I shall have no other goddesses before me.”
Her body fell onto the bed when he let her go. In a moment, he disposed of the clothing they were wearing, took his place atop her, and entered her with tacit reverence.
“I don’t need a soul, you are my Heaven, my Persephone. You are my everything.”
Chapter 15
Tree. Tree. Cow. Stop sign. Thigh.
No, do not look at her thigh.
The car was somewhere south of Cologne and north of Munich. Where Dee’s mind was, however, was a completely different location. The owner of a lion’s libido since he was old enough to understand what that tingling feeling in the pit of his stomach meant, Dee and temptation were no strangers. His moral right pointed due north to “whatever two consenting adults choose to do remains between them and the mattress, or floor, or shower stall.” He learned, however, that sometimes, a bottomless pit of despair existed between should and could. Like in this one. Even with no moral issue sticking its pointy nose in, he couldn’t trot up a quartergod’s path without expecting some deep puddles.
Tree. Cow. Milky white wrist he’d like to wrap his lips around...
Jerry snorted in the backseat, giving Dee another distractive reprieve. His eyes shot up to the rearview mirror to see if his fellow wiccan caught him sneaking a peek at Anwen, but Jerry’s eyes were still sealed shut, although his lids moved wildly.
Exit sign. Petrol station. Billboard for coffee. Breast.
Breast?!
His eyes became tractor beams, steering his attention to the slip of cleavage on his right, and pulling it, sure and steady, to where Anwen’s pale skin disappeared behind the lace border of the goddamn luckiest bra ever stitched. Not that the chest in question measured too high on the Richter scale. Like most of the proportions of the petite, feisty woman, they were pleasantly modest. Such a slender, little reed of a woman, she was still one he’d like to have a good chance to blow. She seemed so meek, but that proved to be a facade. She escaped demons before, so clearly, she wasn’t a pushover. Sooner or later, however, her luck would run out. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t shake his undeniable attraction to her. As a guardian, to protect Anwen was both his duty and his honor.
Making love to her would just be his immense privilege. Dee could offer more satisfaction than the Rolling Stones’ song stuck on replay.
“Where are we?”
It took Dee a moment to avert his eyes from the small patch of flesh visible through a rip in Anwen’s jeans, to her sleep-laced, watery eyes now peering at him through the dimness.
His voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears. “Southern Germany.”
“You weren’t kidding about knowing some back roads, huh? You’re going to get us there fast.”
He could get her there fast. Repeatedly.
Anwen pushed her arms up and over the back of the seat, rolling her spine through an arcing maneuver, ejecting the thrall of sleep from her limbs. Her movement’s resemblance to a woman reaching her zenith as she rode him was just a little too much for Dee to ignore. He felt his entire body pulse as his heartbeat sped up far too much to blame on the cup of coffee he downed.
“Ahhhh-hhhhhh.” Anwen finished off by folding herself forward. Despite the cramped cabin of the rented coupe, her small figure in the tight confines looked graceful. “Do you know how good this feels?”
Jim. Fucking. Dandy. Someone had replaced his tongue with sandpaper. “Oh? Um, good. Yeah, must be easier to feel comfortable for someone your size. I’m so big, I always find myself jammed in too tight.”
Okay, seriously, what the fuck? Was he suddenly a teenager again? He hadn’t gotten the hots for someone like this since his first Bettie Page calendar. Anwen was cute, even attractive. She had just the right balance of can-I-help-you? and go-screw-yourself! attitude. She could crack a joke, or all the bones in a man’s hand. And, given the right circumstance, he could make her body quiver like a feather in the wind.
Damn, this was getting out of hand. Not to oversimplify, but Dee usually wanted every woman right after he first met her. Genetics for him was a bitch like that. But his human, non-jackass side usually kicked in after a few minutes. The years of resisting unless he received an invitation to do otherwise gave Dee a tremendous amount of reign over his libido and its agenda. Until Anwen crept onto his to-do list.
A sign on the side of the road denoted an exit a few kilometers up, and a billboard advertised a service station.
“I need to get out and stretch a little,” Dee announced, moving into the far lane.
Anwen’s feet landed on the dashboard as she semi-straightened her legs and pushed down at her knees. “Yeah, it would be nice to give the gams a go-about.”
“You want to drive a while?” Eyes on the road, eyes on the road...
“No, I like riding better.”
Sweet, baby Jack Daniels...
His foot pounded the gas with a force that threw all three of them back in their seats. Jerry mumbled a string of ancient profanities that Dee was surprised he understood. It took him a moment to recall Gaius Gallicus was a Greco-Roman Pure Soul the first time he was alive thousands of years ago. Apparently, the Greek he spoke as his native tongue, and thus, his cursing lingua colloquia, wasn’t very different from what Dee learned growing up on the Mountain.
He pulled into the gas station and parked the car hastily next to the service building. Dee swung the door open and leaned down to whisper to Jerry in the backseat.
“You drive. I need a break.”
“Yeah, no problem.” The ex-demon rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Are we out of gas? We just filled up, didn’t we?”
“Still got half a tank,” he replied. “I just need to use the bathroom. I’ll be out in three...” He shifted his hips to conceal his condition. “Um, two minutes.”
Chapter 16
The stars above Olympus really put on a show, unlike a certain Lord of the Underworld. If Hades didn’t come soon, Riona would have to give up and go to bed. As entrancing as the night sky was, astronomy wasn’t really her thing.
Just when she decided enough was enough, a shadow slipped down the stone steps. Ready to rip into him for making her wait so long, the moment he got close enough for her to yell at the top of her whisper, his droopy eyes and forlorn brow arrested her rant.
He sighed and pivoted, sitting down on the bench next to her.
“Well, I guess someone had to sleep on the couch after all,” she joked.
He glanced her way quickly, then returned his eyes to the ground. “We have separate bedrooms. You should know that from when we were both naked in mine, Steph was not
there threatening to kebab me.”
“I know. I meant...”
“I know what you meant, keystone,” Hades interjected. “No, I was not sent to... How do you mortals term it, the dog house? My cerebi must find that very amusing. For your edification, I just finished making love to my wife. It’s not from a loss of consortium that I am melancholy.”
She wasn’t sure why she cared, or even that she did. “What, then?”
“I made love to my wife,” he repeated.
“I know I’m new to this marriage thing, but isn’t that generally considered pretty routine? Why would that make you sad?”
“If I said we made love, that would have been amazing. We didn’t. I did. She merely tolerated it as a means to an end. I thought...“ His spine straightened as his voice became resigned. “Nothing. I should have known better. In any case, Steph will be sleeping off the effects of what I did to her for some time.”
Riona’s eyebrow arched. “You’re that good?”
A crooked grin flittered across his face. “I am a virtuoso, and Persephone is my instrument.”
“And you? It doesn’t affect you at all?”
“Suffice to say, the punishment I was given is multi-spectral.” Before she could inquire further, he changed the subject. “Still interested in meeting my connection?”
“I’m up for meeting anyone who can help me get a grip on all this, yeah.”
“Come, then.” Hades shifted forward, rising from the bench. “We have to go outside the village.”
Low voices, and lighter steps, Hades cautioned. Even in the dim moonlight emitted from the halved, silvery orb in the sky, she recognized many of the same houses and streets she saw from Zeus’ mountain perch. For an hour, they walked without words, across Elysian Fields, then toward the forest from where she first emerged. As the trees grew denser around her, Riona wondered if Olympian television had a missing persons program on which her mug might soon appear.
Hex Goddess (All My Exes Die from Hexes Book 3) Page 11
