wind disappeared from his angry sails. She was right. She didn’t need saving and here he was rushing to her rescue as though he was the only one that could fix this.
Standing on shaky legs, he took a few steps toward her, pausing just out of reach. But he couldn’t stop himself from lifting a hand and grasping one of her curls that blew toward him on the wind. He wrapped the silken strand around his finger. “I didn’t know what had happened to you,” he said, his voice a rasp. “The Titans are very dangerous, Kore. You could have died.”
She licked her lips and the sight of that pink tongue nearly drove him to his knees.
“Hades,” she breathed. “I think we need to talk.”
He didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t when the relief was spreading through him like a wildfire. She had no idea how easy it was for her to break him. He was the terrifying King of the Underworld. He communed with the dead and walked with monsters every single day.
But the knowledge that she was safe when he had been so worried? It made him quiver like a child.
“Not yet,” he replied. “Not yet, wife of mine.”
Hades broke through the awkward nature of their relationship and reached for her. He took hold of her shoulders and yanked her against his chest, holding her firmly against his heart. Her scent filled his nostrils, easing the torment of his soul, and for the first time since he’d heard where she went, Hades took a deep breath.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “I thought I had lost you forever, and I don’t know if I could suffer that.”
She turned her head to the side, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and letting out an answering sigh of her own. “Hades, I didn’t know if you would even miss me.”
“Why not?” He drew back to stare down into her vivid green eyes. “Why would you ever second guess that? My life has been consumed by you since I first set eyes on you.”
“That’s the problem,” she whispered.
He could see the hesitation in her eyes. The shadow of uncertainty that broke his heart to know how anxious she was. He’d always thought it was just because she was so very young, but then he remembered she wasn’t a child.
Her mother made everyone think she was just a little girl, but Kore was so much more than that. She was a goddess, just like the rest of them and had been shoved aside by everyone for so many years.
He’d seen what she could do. This shyness, it wasn’t because of her age or because she was innocent. It was something else entirely.
“You question my sincerity,” Hades said, though the words weren’t a question. He knew what her nerves were now. He understood them in a bone deep way.
He’d been a bad husband. Though he had been taking her all over the Underworld, he still hadn’t convinced her that he was doing so because he wanted to spend time with her. Hades wasn’t sure where he’d gone wrong in that endeavor, but he had failed both her and himself.
He reached up between them and cupped her cheek in his hand. “You question my sincerity every day,” he whispered again. “You don’t know how much I want to be by your side with each breath.”
She shook her head. Those big green eyes were wide and if he wasn’t mistaken, they would fill with tears any second.
“Listen to me Kore, and I need you to hear every word I’m saying.”
Hades waited until he was certain she was listening intently. It took a while. Her eyes kept darting to the side, as though she were trying to escape the fierce emotions between them.
But he waited, and when she was ready, he continued. “Never in my life have I met someone who glowed from deep within their soul. You are the light to my darkness. The beacon in my never ending night. I know that can be difficult to understand or believe.”
Already, he sensed he was losing her. She melted away from his body like she was searching for a way out. She didn’t want to hear these words, even though they were the ones she had just been begging for.
“You don’t believe me,” he said with a small laugh. “That’s all right. I know it will take some time for me to convince you, but we have all the time in the world. I knew