the love I feel for you. You could be gone a century, and the fires would still be burning in my chest. I adore you, Persephone. Kore. Daughter of Demeter and Zeus. I would never have married you if I didn’t think that love would be lasting and true.”
She wanted to argue a bit. That the Olympians married for other reasons, and that most of their marriages were unhappy. She’d seen the horrors of what those marriages had wrought.
Zeus and Hera, with all their adultery and hatred for each other.
Aphrodite and Hephaestus, and the way they tore down each other’s self esteem.
Poseidon and Amphitrite, the wife no one had known about or seen for centuries.
The list went on and on, each story more horrific than the last. Persephone hadn’t thought about any of those people when she’d first married Hades. She’d just been glassy-eyed that a god like him would spend any time with her.
He must have seen the thoughts dancing through her head. He leaned down and pressed their foreheads together, breathing in her exhalation. “We are not like them,” he growled. “Nor will we ever be like them. Do you understand?”
She did, but the burn of jealousy and anxiety still made her chest ache.
Persephone nodded against him. “Yes, husband. I understand.”
“Then let’s go home.”
Chapter 39
Hades whistled as he strode through the black sands a few weeks later. In his hand, he held a stick for Cerberus to chase after, though the beast kept looking behind them. Every few steps Cerberus would stop, plop his butt down on the ground, and whine as he stared at the castle.
“I know she’s back there,” he said with a chuckle. “She’s not going on a walk with us today.”
Apparently, such a thought was insulting to Cerberus. All three heads huffed at him before Cerberus took off. He remained ten paces in front, looking over his shoulder every few moments to let out another frustrated huff.
Hades understood the beast’s desire to walk with Persephone. He preferred their walks to be with his wife as well.
And now she was finally home. After all this time of waiting and hoping she was safe. It had taken far too long in his opinion to get her back, and now there was the ever looming realization that she would return to the mortal realm.
Because Demeter wouldn’t rest until her daughter was back in her arms. Even though, according to Persephone, there was very little for her to do while she was in the mortal realm. The last thing she enjoyed was being bored, and she was always bored with her mother.
She’d engrossed herself in the work around his castle. Hades grinned and tossed the stick again. The beast took off, black sand blasting out from his feet.
Persephone had taken it upon herself to fill his realm with greenery. All sorts of plants that grew in the dark, moist places. The Underworld now emanated with the scent of green things growing and the beauty only she could create.
Everywhere he stepped, he could see her. In the mushroom caps on the hills in the distance, to the trees impossibly growing in the dark. How lovely was it to know his wife had returned? That she was here with him, after so many months of darkness without her light?
Cerberus returned with the stick, breathing hard and his sides heaving. One of his heads looked around Hades, and then that head released its hold on the stick. The other two heads peered around him, and then his tail thumped hard on the ground.
“Ah,” Hades murmured. “So she came on the walk, after all.”
He turned around and watched as his beautiful wife strode across the sands. She wore a billowing white peplos that snapped in the wind. It plastered to her beautiful form, clinging to the roundness of her hips and belly, revealing a neatly tucked waist and legs made strong from weeks of hard labor.
No one could say Persephone was a slight or delicate goddess. She was, in all ways, a queen.
She reached his side and he knew immediately something was wrong. Her expression was off. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it certainly wasn’t a frown either. The expression was a mixture of twisted lips in thoughts and furrowed brow in worry.
“What is it?” he asked, stepping toward her with his hands outstretched.
A thousand possibilities ran through his mind. A neighboring god might have come into the Underworld. That would cause issues, although he wasn’t sure what they would want