makes them feel better about taking a husband, then I’ll accept the offerings.”
Offerings to get married. What a strange thought.
Kore floated in the water and let the burbling voices of the nymphs crash over her head. They talked more about the mortal men, but she had no interest in a mortal whose life was fleeting. They were boring to watch.
No, her mind was on a dark, shadowed figure who had held her hands so sweetly. A guardian who had taken care of her when she was at her lowest points.
Hades must have removed all the bodies before Artemis came back. That was all she could think of. He had been the one to hide what she had done, but for what reason? So no one knew what she could do?
It should have frightened her. Instead, she felt like someone was finally on her side.
She had a secret she held to her breast like a pearl within her shell. She clutched the knowledge of him with her entire soul and hoped that no one would ever find out.
Hades was hers and hers alone.
But now, with the nymphs’ voices bubbling around her, she wondered if he would know what it meant to summon the sea within a woman.
Chapter 10
The nymphs all drifted off to sleep, their dreams calling them away from the realm of the living. But Kore remained wide awake, staring at the stars.
They had talked for hours about what men were like. How they felt when someone pressed their lips against theirs. Though Artemis had laughed and called them foolish, Kore wasn’t so sure they were.
Her mother wanted her to remain a child forever, but was it part of becoming a woman to allow another person to touch her body? She decided no; it wasn’t.
Becoming a woman meant having control over her own body. Knowing what she wanted someone to do and allowing them to do that. Not having someone else decide what she could and could not do.
She pressed her lips to her fingers as he had done, but it wasn’t the same without the warmth of Hades’ touch. She couldn’t replicate the way he’d made her feel. And now, she had even more questions to ask him.
He had to be the person who had taken care of those bodies. He must have hidden them for her, and the blood. She couldn’t imagine how he’d done such a thing. What spell had he cast to clean the entire temple? A temple that wasn’t his?
She leaned her elbow on the window and stared up at the moon. Silver light filtered through the opening and soothed her aching soul.
Kore had realized while the nymphs talked about marriage that she’d never even conversed with another person about her future. She was expected to live here with her mother forever. She was to be the maiden placed on a pedestal but never touched by anyone other than herself.
That future was so bleak.
She wanted adventure. She wanted to find new ways to find inspiration, excitement, to experience new feelings. Now that she’d had a taste of Hades, she didn’t think she could go back.
Her mother would have screamed if she heard her daughter’s thoughts. Demeter didn’t want adventure. The only way to live life in her eyes was to be quiet, calm, and boring. Oh, so very boring.
Pillowing her cheek on her palm, she blew out a long breath. “A boring life in a boring place,” she muttered.
The sweet scent of a narcissus flower reached her nose. Impossible. Demeter hated narcissus flowers. She said they were born out of magic and heartbreak. Such plants had no place in her realm.
But Kore had smelled them before. And when she glanced down underneath her window, an entire bed of them had bloomed right before her eyes. Another bud reached up to her window like it wanted her to touch it. Slowly, the petals unfurled in a graceful dance. She was mesmerized.
Kore felt her eyes grow wide even as she reached out and touched a finger to the petal. Glittering, silver dust clung to her fingertip as though it were sap.
“Where did you come from?” she whispered the question as if someone might overhear it.
Another voice answered, deep and smooth like fine wine. “I’m afraid they are over eager to see you again. My fault, dear goddess.”
How had he found her? How had he slipped past Demeter and into her sacred lands without her mother knowing he was here?
Excitement burned in her chest. Having him here was