Persephone looked over and met his gaze. The tears in her eyes were for him. Glittering on the ends of her lashes like tiny diamonds. “Hades,” she whispered.
“I’ll loose the Titans,” he replied. A few of the nymphs gasped at his suggestion. “I can prevent you from having to go back.”
She reached forward and cupped his cheek, carefully smoothing her thumb over his jaw. As if she were trying to remember the texture of his skin. “You can’t do that. Not for me.”
“I can and I would,” he rasped. “A thousand times over.”
“And where would that place the Underworld?” she asked, and her words rang with truth. “Your duty is to this place. These people.”
“And you are their queen.” Hades would argue until he lost his breath. He wanted her to stay, and he knew in his heart that she also wanted to remain with him. She couldn’t want to leave when there was so much left unsaid between them.
“My duty is to here and to the land above.” She let her hand drop from his face, limp at her side. “I wish I could say that I will forever remain here with you, but I will not have millions of deaths on my hands just because I wouldn’t return and see my mother.”
“She’ll never let you come back,” he croaked.
“Perhaps not. But I think we both know neither of us would ever let that happen. Not even my mother could keep us away from each other.” Persephone looked back to Hermes. “I’ll come with you. But do you mind if I eat something before we go?”
“Zeus has plenty of food,” the messenger replied. He gestured with his hand for her to hurry. “Come on, stop stalling. I don’t have all day.”
Hades felt his heart breaking. Torn in two pieces, one throbbing in her hand and the other limp and lifeless within his chest. Without her, the Underworld would return to the cold gray place that had made him so sick before she’d been here.
He wasn’t sure he would survive it.
But then she looked at him with that heat in her eyes, and he knew exactly how much she wanted him. He could feel it.
When she reached across the table, he was stunned to complete silence. Surely she didn’t know what she was doing when she picked up the pomegranate. Surely she didn’t understand that by shaking out six blood red pieces and placing them on her tongue that she had promised herself to remain in the Underworld for that amount of time.
Six seeds.
Six months.
Hermes growled. “Oh, come on, you didn’t have to do that! Why are you insisting on making things so complicated?”
“Because I love him,” she replied, then turned back to Hades. “I love you.”
The words were what he had hoped to hear his entire life, though his heart was shattering that they were said at such a time. Hades reached for her, pulling her into a tight hug that likely squeezed the breath from her lungs.
“I love you too,” he replied. “And I will wait for your return. Every day will be another dagger in my heart until you pull each one out.”
She laughed against his shoulder, then pulled back to look up at him. “I will return, my heart. I have to now.”
Hades kissed her with desperation, lust and sadness on his tongue. She kissed him back with the same fervor until he couldn’t tell whose tears he tasted.
When he finally released her, it was with reluctance. She stepped away from him to Hermes’ side, and then she was gone.
The Ascent
Chapter 33
Chapter 33
Ambrosius stared up at the Oracle with his mouth hanging open. Though he was once certain this story wouldn’t change his opinion on Persephone, now he was so engrossed he could hardly contain himself.
“He just let her go?” he asked, stunned. “But she was his queen. The woman he had fallen in love with.”
“What choice did he have?” The Oracle shifted, walking over to the nearest fire pit where some of her followers warmed themselves in the cooler months. With a wave of her hand, the flames burst higher.
He hadn’t realized the Oracle was powerful, like the gods. There were rumors about who she was, that she was an immortal. Or perhaps even a goddess herself.
Ambrosius forced himself to consider her words and not her actions. “He could have fought Zeus. You said he considered using the Titans, and wouldn’t that be a good thing?