much power laid out before her. So much she didn’t know yet, but he was confident she would discover if only she would allow him into her life. If only she would let him in.
Kore parted her lips. She licked them and watched as his eyes followed the swift dart of her tongue. He stared at her like she was a feast. More than the food on the tables far beyond them. More than the nectar or ambrosia that had coated the god’s tongue when they first met.
“Kore,” he murmured, and it was almost a moan. A rumble of thunder followed his words.
She knew it wasn’t Zeus. He threw lightning at the mortals to remind them how afraid they should be. But thunder? The rolling storm barreling toward them wasn’t from Zeus. Not at all.
“Kore!” Demeter shouted her name from the table with the mortals. “Where did you go, girl?”
The spell between them shattered as if she’d dropped a glass upon marble. The glittering edges of his power disappeared as she released his hands and abruptly stood.
“I have to go,” she said, but she didn’t want to. Kore would have stayed kneeling in the dirt with a narcissus between them for centuries. If only she could stare into his eyes and see the woman he saw.
Now she knew someone understood just how powerful she was. Or could be.
“Kore!” Her mother shouted again. If she waited much longer, Demeter would come looking for her.
Hades stood. He dusted the earth from his chiton and gave her a sharp nod. “Run back to your mother, Kore. She has need of you.”
“But... I—” she stammered her response. “Will I see you again?”
The darkness in his eyes flashed with the fires of Tartarus. “Of course you will,” he replied. “Our story has just begun.”
Chapter 7
“What did you think of the festival, darling?” Demeter asked as they returned home.
Kore was hardly thinking of the festival. She didn’t care about the mortals who had made her so uncomfortable. All she could think about was warm lips on her knuckles and how his hot breath had slipped between her fingers. It was hard to focus on anything other than Hades.
Blinking at her mother, she asked, “What?”
“The festival, Kore. Where is your head, girl?” Demeter shook her golden locks with a heavy sigh. “Sometimes I think I’ve given you too much leeway. You’ve become a very flighty young woman. I’m disappointed.”
The words sent a spear through her heart. But it didn’t sting as badly as it might have only a few weeks ago. Instead, Kore realized they were just another chain around her neck.
Her mother guilted her into doing whatever it was Demeter wanted. Kore didn’t want to be the little puppet anymore. She wanted to stand on her own two feet.
They walked through the blooming garden that never stopped producing the most delicious harvest any mortal had ever seen. Wheat fields, corn, grapes the size of her fist. She paused next to one of the vines that was struggling under the weight. Lifting the bundle of grapes, she sent a little strength into the plant.
“Mother?” she asked as Demeter passed her. “What do you know of Hades?”
Demeter froze, one foot held suspended above the dirt. She looked over her shoulder with so much hatred marring her usually beautiful expression that Kore flinched. “What did you just say?”
“I...” She shouldn’t continue. Obviously her mother didn’t want to talk about the Lord of the Underworld. But if anyone would know about Hades, then it would be Demeter. “He was one of the original Olympians, like you, is all. I’ve never heard you speak of him.”
“No, and you never will. That man is nothing but pure evil. The mortals are right to fear him and the world he lives in.” Demeter’s shoulders shook in a shudder. “There is no life in the Underworld. No plants. No growth. Just the horrors of the end. Gods and death do not mix, my daughter. You’d do well to remember that.”
Kore could understand her mother’s fear of what happened after death. Gods didn’t know if they even had an afterlife. But if anyone knew, it was Hades.
And he didn’t seem like the dangerous or evil man her mother made him out to be. He was kind and sweet. He saw something more in her than any other god or goddess had. Surely he wasn’t all bad?
She licked her lips and tried again. “I was just curious about him. I thought, maybe if you would tell