Hades blew out a ragged breath and growled, “Marry me.”
“What?” He hadn’t said the words she thought he said. The Lord of the Underworld wouldn’t ask her to—
“Marry me,” he repeated. “Never has there been another goddess who could single handedly bring the God of the Underworld to his knees. I cannot survive without you by my side. Rule with me on a throne made of bone and smoke.”
She shouldn’t. They’d only just met, and the words he said were madness. The frenzy in his gaze after a single kiss should have been a warning. She should throw up her hands and weave a web of vines and thorns so tight he would never break through them.
Kore’s lips opened, and a word slipped off her tongue on a breath light as snow. “Yes.”
Again, his eyes sparked, and she realized it was more than just heat in that gaze. There was a blue flame so hot it could sear flesh from bone. “Then so be it. A queen you shall be.”
He melted from her arms like smoke drifting on the wind. But she knew he’d return.
Chapter 11
Her kiss... her kiss.
Hades curled his fingers into a fist just to keep himself still. He wanted to rush back to the temple in that flowering glade. He didn’t know what he’d do once he arrived. Probably stare at her again or bask in her beauty, and the innocence in her gaze.
He’d forgotten what it was like to have someone look at him without fear. Without judgement.
She didn’t see him as the terrifying Lord of the Underworld. Instead, she saw him as Hades and that was so incredibly refreshing.
Perhaps the proposal had been a knee jerk reaction, but he didn’t know what else to do with the feelings blooming inside him. She’d planted seeds within his lungs and he could feel them stretching through his entire body. Taking over all his senses.
He had to have her.
Not as an object, because she was too glorious for that. He wouldn’t put her on a pedestal in the Underworld and never see her again. Hades wanted to fan the fires of her power and see what would happen.
But mostly, he wanted to feel like a person again. Not a symbol of fear and death.
Thus, his plan. He arrived in Olympus and stepped through the gates. He landed on the clouds surrounding Zeus’s temple and resolved himself to an argument.
Apparently, Zeus had thrown yet another party that Hades wasn’t invited to. Maybe the rest of the family was still partying from the first time he’d met Kore here. It wouldn’t surprise him.
Countless Olympians, gods, and nymphs laid out on the pillows strewn across the floor. Each in some form of drunken state.
Poseidon was half in the fountain, half out. An oceanid laid across his arm and a nymph across the tiles, laying with her back against the cool stones.
Apollo was asleep next to the ambrosia and nectar table, unsurprising considering his addiction. His sister laid beside him, a goblet still clutched in the huntress’s hands.
How many more gods and goddesses could he pick out in the piles of bodies strewn about? Too many to count, and he didn’t care about a single one. They could lay there and rot for all he cared. Hades was here for one reason, and one reason alone.
He’d meant what he said to Kore. He wanted to marry her, as crazy as that sounded.
As he picked his way through the mounds of sleeping gods and goddesses, he thought through the details of his plan. He needed Zeus to agree to their marriage. First, because Zeus was her father. And second, because he needed someone on his side to convince Demeter.
Demeter would be a nightmare. She had no intention for her daughter to marry anyone. And if she did, it would have been someone Demeter picked.
Not Hades. Never Hades.
He knew that.
Sighing, he stepped over Aphrodite where she lay in the middle of two twin mortals. He wasn’t sure how the goddess had gotten them to Olympus, considering humans weren’t allowed here. Maybe they were demi-gods.
Movement from the back balcony caught his attention. The curtain shifted, gossamer threads catching on a body more lovely than any artistic creation. The curves of the goddess’s body were what poets spouted nonsense to worship and had for many centuries. Her jet black hair fell over her shoulders in soft waves and framed a face like marble. Heart shaped, with berry red lips and caramel skin. She was almost