by C. R. Jane
Suddenly a blinding light shot down towards us from the opposite end of the hallway. A powerful voice thundered some order I was too out of it to understand. The shadow screeched when the light hit it, an unholy sound that echoed through my ears, bursting my eardrums. I faintly realized that the terrible scream was the first sound I’d heard the dark spirit make.
The force that held me to the door disappeared and I fell to the ground, sucking in giant breaths as I realized it had been restricting my breathing. My body was trembling as I laid there. I could sense the shadow was gone but I wasn’t improving. The icy feeling was still licking at my skin and it felt like one of the hardest things I’d ever done just to suck in a breath. I tried to keep my eyes open, but it was a losing battle. I stared blankly at the ceiling, the decorative carvings came in and out of focus.
“Elena,” a familiar voice whispered. I was so out of it though my mind couldn’t connect who the voice belonged to.
The voice made my insides feel good though, if that was a thing.
A golden tinted figure appeared above me. The light emanating off of it was so bright I had to close my eyes since it threatened to sear my retinas. Even with my eyes closed the light was so bright that tears streamed down my face.
“Shit,” the voice muttered, and then the light was blissfully dimmed.
I kept my eyes closed, too weak to open them, as I was picked up by a pair of strong arms. A scent that reminded me of sunshine and grassy fields overwhelmed my senses, again so familiar, but yet not. I snuggled closer to the warm chest, absorbing the heat and the growl that emanated from the man’s chest. It was definitely a man.
“Stay with me, little human,” the voice murmured. A rush of air crossed my face and my head got even dizzier.
The man tried to lay me down on what felt like silk sheets but I groaned and flailed my arms, trying to keep him and his warmth close.
I was so cold. It felt like I was never going to be warm again. Like I was never going to be happy again.
Was this what dying felt like? The sensation that all was lost and you no longer existed?
I didn’t even have the energy to ask the stranger if he knew.
The man blissfully followed me to the cool sheets. His body melded against mine giving me all the heat he had to offer, but still I shivered. I could feel my heart making desperate, stilted beats in my chest.
My eyes were cracked open and I watched in horror as the gold mist began to leave my chest with every exhale. I moaned, unable to make out actual words.
“Fuck,” the man growled.
His face appeared right above mine, still emitting a golden glow, but one that I could actually look at without feeling blinded.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then his lips were pressed against mine. Instead of kissing me however, he breathed life into me. That was the only way to describe it. His lips were sealed against mine and I could feel energy flowing from him into me. I didn’t know how it was possible but energy buzzed through my veins and licked at my skin. My heartbeat, which had been practically non-existent, started to beat a more normal, steady pace. A sweet taste filled my mouth, like ambrosia. My eyes closed as I was able to relax, bathed in a cloud of bliss.
“Sleep, angel,” the voice whispered.
Those words were the last ones I heard from my savior as I fell into a perfect, dreamless sleep.
Zeus
I held her gently in my arms, unsure of what exactly I was feeling as I stared at the beautiful little human. She sighed in her sleep, her sweet breath softly brushing against my skin and I struggled not to shiver in pleasure.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
The second I saw her, I wanted her. She’d been standing there, scared to death, but trying desperately to hide it. She’d kept her spine straight, her face blank, as she took in a world that would have terrified almost every other creature.
Her beauty...was surprising. As a god, I’m surrounded by beauty. I see it so much I’ve become immune to it. Aphrodite’s beauty doesn’t even catch my eye anymore. To think that a human woman could sweep my feet out from under me...I didn’t know what to think about that.
But when I saw her, I’d lost my breath. She was...incomparable. A dream personified that I didn’t even know I’d ever had. I’d thought that maybe it was a trick of the light, that maybe the wine was making me hallucinate...sprite wine did have a tendency to do that.
But nope, the closer I got, the more painful it felt...because she was perfect.
So perfect that it took me a second to realize Hades was standing next to her.
Elena moaned softly in her sleep and my gaze slid across her face. I should have felt like a creeper lying there next to her, but I wasn’t capable of feeling emotions like that. I was selfish to my core. If I wanted something, I got it. Immediately.
I ached to brush my fingers across her face. I wanted to know what it would feel like for her perfect lips to actually move against mine and not just be pressed against me. I wanted to know what it would feel like for her to touch me...for her body to dance against me. Something inside my chest quivered and I rubbed at it. It almost felt like...I was feeling.
I’d somehow found myself in Hades’ morose lair tonight. I never came here. There were too many memories, most all of them sharp and painful and best forgotten. It was a wonder Hades hadn’t gone mad staying here. Or maybe he had, I hadn’t been around him enough for years and years to really know anything about him at this point. All I’d known was that I needed to see her again. Just that brief interaction had stayed with me. It burrowed into my skin until I thought I was the one that was going to go mad without another glimpse of her face.
I’d gotten here just in time. It had taken me a moment to realize what was happening. I’d recognized the energy in the air right away, but it had caught me off guard. Because I couldn’t fathom how she could be here. Persephone. It had been so long. So much had happened since she disappeared. But I couldn’t deny what I felt the second my feet had hit the marble floor. Persephone would always be a living, breathing memory...larger than life. Tonight had proven that.
All I knew when I saw what was happening, when I saw Elena’s soul and lifesource being devoured, was that I couldn’t let it happen. Something had come alive inside of me when I’d first seen her face. I didn’t want to live without it ever again.
I felt him before I saw him. Hades could cloak his energy from most people, but not from me. I used to know my brother as well as I knew myself. A few thousand years changed a lot of things, but not that.
“Get the fuck away from her,” he hissed. His words crawled against my skin. His death form was creepy, even for me. When he was in that form, his words weren’t heard… they were absorbed into you. It wasn’t my favorite way of communicating.
Hades stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room, and I wondered how often he spent time watching her while she went about her business unaware. I probably should have been angry about that on her behalf...but I would do the same thing if given the chance.
Hades was a sight to behold in his death form. He was more shadows than anything else. The embodiment of the creature who lived under the Grim Reaper’s robe that the humans were always going on about. Wisps of black mist curled around his skeletal form. He’d send Elena running for the hills...or the nearest mental health hospital, if she were to see him like that.
He lunged at me, obviously desperate to get me away from her, but the thing about shadows was that they would always be repelled by the light. I held up my hand and sent a stream of light barreling at him. Hades barely avoided the beam. Elena made another soft moan and shifted against me, burrowing her head against my chest. We both froze as we watched her. I was dying and somehow living at the same time as her cheek rested against me.
Why the fuck had I chosen to wear a shirt today?
Being the asshole I was, I shot Hades a particularly wide grin. His form flickered in and out of focus. He was s
truggling to maintain his ghastly state of being, something that told me just how much this little human had gotten under his skin.
Hades was nothing if not known for his composure.
It would be fun to taunt him eternally, but I didn’t want to wake her up. I pushed her into a deeper sleep so she wouldn’t notice when I moved, and I slid out of the bed. Which was actually quite comfortable. At least Hades had given her sheets with a nice thread count while she was in this depressing place.
I took a step away from the bed and realized I couldn’t leave her unprotected. Persephone’s energy was faint, but it was still there. She could come back to finish the job the second I stepped away. I muttered a few words and a golden cage flickered into place around Elena’s bed. She wouldn’t be able to see it when she woke up but it would keep anything or anyone away from her while she was sleeping.
Satisfied my sleeping beauty would be safe, I stepped out into the hallway. Hades appeared silently behind me. Or at least he was silent until his fist was flying at my face. I’d been distracted, thinking about Elena, and he was able to hit me. I went flying against the stone wall.
“Fuck,” I growled, conjuring up another beam of light as I darted towards him. I sent it at him just as he sent his black mist at me. The forces collided, knocking us both backwards. I grunted when my back once again hit the wall. His grunt sounded across the hallway.
Life against Death. It was a never ending battle between our two forces. And there was never going to be a winner.
He stood up, a trickle of black blood falling from his nose. “Are you done yet?” I asked in a bored tone, pretending to examine my nails.
He growled and his whole body shook as he tried to control himself.
“I’d thought for a minute that no one was ever going to be able to stop you from your self-imposed eternity of mourning.”
There was a tic in his cheek but he didn’t deny it. Whatever was happening in my chest flexed again. I’d kind of been counting on Hades casting Elena aside like all the others.
But I should have known better.
She was very, very different.
“I’m warning you right now. You need to stay away from her,” Hades growled. There was years of conflict in his warning.
If he’d said something like that just a few days ago, I would have laughed.
But now...now I had no intention of letting his threat go.
“I saw her tonight,” I told him sharply.
Hades cocked his head. “Saw who?”
“Don’t play dumb, Hades. Persephone. I saw her.”
The tic in his cheek jumped again, but he didn’t say anything.
“Don’t you want to know what I saw her doing?” I asked menacingly, taking a step towards him.
“Haunting the third floor. Opening and closing cabinets?” he muttered sarcastically. He’d let go of his death form and was back to his predictable, boring appearance that seemed to drive everyone wild. I personally didn’t see the appeal. Who wanted to be with someone who was liable to burst into tears mid thrust or call you by the wrong name?
At least when I called a woman by the wrong name it was by accident.
“That would have been nice. But no. I saw her while she was trapping Elena against a wall and fucking sucking the life out of her,” I all but growled.
“What?” Hades looked shocked.
“Fun fact. Persephone can get her body back by draining energy from living souls...or did you know that already?” I studied him closely. It had just occurred to me that his whole curse thing could be some kind of cover for him to get sacrifices for his beloved Persephone. He looked genuinely shocked though.
“So you saved Elena.” Hades finally said slowly, his gaze darting to Elena’s door. His desperate yearning to be with her was written all over his face.
“I did.”
“And…” He cleared his throat like he was afraid to ask. “What happened to Persephone?”
“Can’t you feel her? She’s still haunting the halls of this dreadful place. Just a little further past Elena’s room.”
He looked relieved, and I wanted to kill him. If it was possible.
I was on him in a flash, grabbing the front of his shirt and shaking him so hard his teeth rattled.
“Before you think about warning me off from Elena, brother. Think about this. I didn’t hesitate for a second tonight in saving Elena’s life. Would you have done the same if it meant getting Persephone back?”
I whisked myself back to Mount Olympus, I couldn’t stand to look at him for one more moment. The truth had been all over his face.
He was going to destroy Elena. I just needed to be sure I was there to pick up the pieces after he was done.
11
Elena
He was here with me. The perfect man. Full lips, a chiseled jaw, and a dirty smile that made me desperate. He was everything. The man stood there at the foot of my bed, tall and broad and more than I could have ever hoped for. The early morning light brushed against his skin. I swallowed down a question as he leaned in to press his hands on either side of my face, watching me watch him.
“Please be mine,” he begged in his perfect, deep voice. “I’ve wanted you forever.”
I whimpered and reached out for him. I needed to feel him against me. My fingers dove into his hair and pulled him down, crashing my mouth against his. He matched my hunger. We kissed, hard and deep, long strokes of his tongue against mine, and I demanded more. I was a wanton ball of need. Closer to animal than human because I only had one goal in my head.
Everything was heightened. My pulse, his lips, my breath, the warmth of his skin...the way I could feel he wanted me. It felt like my soul had been tied into knots. He tasted like everything I’ve ever wanted or needed. I couldn’t let him go. Not after I’d waited for so long. Somehow I knew that my soul was on a first name basis with this man. He was what I’d been waiting for my whole life.
Mine.
My world exploded into a bright light when he pressed between my thighs and my lids snapped open.
“Fuck,” I panted and swiped the damp hair from my forehead. The inside of my room slowly fell into focus.
It was just a dream. Nothing more.
A flush burned against my chest as images from the dream crashed through my mind, so vivid and colorful it was hard to comprehend it hadn’t been real.
As I drifted back to sleep I was only faintly aware that the man in my dream hadn’t been Hades. It hadn’t been Zeus either.
My soulmate was apparently a stranger…
Zeus.
The second time I awoke was with a gasp. And unlike the last time, where I’d been caught up in a dream land and still unaware of my surroundings, I was very much aware of the fact that something terrible had happened to me the night before. And that the golden hero who had saved me was Zeus.
I remembered his face. The way his lips had felt against mine.
I also remembered what it had felt like to have my soul sucked out of me.
Persephone was a bitch. Someone really needed to inform Hades of that.
I curled my legs up to my chest and looked around, wondering why I didn’t feel more vulnerable in my bed all alone. She was still out there, I knew she was. A ghostly specter that evidently could freaking eat me. But strangely, I felt at peace.
That was certainly a plot twist. It was bad enough she controlled Hades’ heart, the memory of her preventing him from ever being able to move on. But then she had to actually be dangerous.
I shivered again thinking of the fear I’d felt as I was cornered against the wall. How helpless I’d felt.
I’d never been classified as brave. The thought was almost laughable honestly. But feeling that way last night...it made me want to do more, to be more. I sighed and ran a shaky hand down my face.
I had the feeling I was forgetting something important. But for the life of me I couldn’t think of what it was.
The second I got out of bed I rea
lized something was different. The air was suddenly colder and the fear that had been somehow absent when I’d first woken up came barreling in.
Curious and confused, I sat back on the bed and immediately was enveloped in a sense of calm. Standing up, the calm disappeared. I repeated the exercise a few more times, getting the same results. There had to be some kind of magic on my bed. I felt crazy saying the word magic but obviously after everything I’d seen there was no denying that magic...or some kind of power I didn’t know the name of, really existed.
Deciding to ask Hades about my weird bed thing, I walked to the bathroom. I glanced in the mirror reluctantly, expecting to look like death warmed over. I gasped when I saw how good I looked.
Not just good...amazing. There was a golden tint to my skin that had never been there. I looked healthy and alive...and glowing. My hair hung in perfect waves down my back like I’d gotten it professionally styled. I usually woke up in the morning with my hair looking like Medusa’s hair dresser had gotten a hold of it, but not today. Even my eyes looked more vibrant.
I stepped closer to the mirror when I saw how smooth my skin looked. I had a scar right above my lip where I’d scraped my face against a stone wall after falling over on my bicycle as a child. The doctors had told my mother I was lucky that’s all there was but it had always bothered me.
The scar was gone.
Frowning, I smoothed my finger over where the scar usually resided, noticing all the other little imperfections on my face were completely gone as well.
What happened to me last night?
Had some weird healing voodoo happened when Zeus saved me? Were my looks all that had changed? Because while I was standing here staring at myself, I was also realizing how awake I felt...how good I felt. Like I could go climb Mt. Olympus or something.
Which was significantly different from how I usually felt.
