Wicked (Eternal Guardians #9) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,151
since before they’d even known Zagreus was coming back. She had no desire to take him down there and share him with them, though. She wanted him all to herself.
“So…” She slid her hand over his shoulder and down his arm, tracing the serpent tattoo on his skin. “Are you going to tell me what happened in the Underworld and how you escaped? Or are you going to make me lie here and guess.”
“I didn’t escape. I was let go.”
“Hades let you go?”
“No. My mother.”
She sat up. “Persephone?”
“Yeah.” He rolled onto his back, his arm still behind his head, and looked up at her. “Shocked the hell out of me. One minute I was in Tartarus, being tortured, then the next… I was in the Fields of Asphodel. With my mother.”
Her eyes widened as he relayed the story, and when he was done, all she could do was blink.
He stared at her for several seconds then slowly sat up. “You don’t seem totally shocked to learn Hades isn’t really my father.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am, but... I think some part of me already knew.”
“How?”
“Nysa. When you first brought me to Ehrendia, she hinted you weren’t Hades’s son. That you were something more. I didn’t believe her then, but... It makes sense. That’s why the nymphs just stepped aside when you arrived here and let you lead them.”
He shot her a sexy smirk. “And here I thought it was because of my wicked reputation.”
“Well...” She smiled and skimmed her fingers over his muscular shoulder, unable to keep her hands to herself when he was so close. “They all did want to fuck you. Still do, probably. But...” She tipped her face up to his. “You were clearly waiting for me.”
His eyes shifted from sexy to downright smolder. “I was waiting for you, mono mia. I’ve spent my life waiting for you.”
When he leaned down to kiss her, she sighed, all those nerve endings inside firing with the need to be claimed by him again.
“Speaking of the nymphs,” he said, easing back a breath. “I must have been imagining things earlier when I walked through the courtyard before coming up here, because it almost seemed like several of them were...”
“Pregnant?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly as if just realizing that was what they’d look like.
She smiled. “It wasn’t your imagination. They are pregnant. Almost all of them.”
“Seriously?” His brow lifted. “All of them?” When she nodded, he looked around then said, “Wild. Their orgies finally worked, I guess.”
“It wasn’t the orgies. It was you.”
His gaze snapped back to hers. “Me?”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. I don’t mean like that. I mean, what happened at those orgies is how they got pregnant, but you were the reason those orgies finally worked.”
His brows knit together to form three little lines between his confused eyes. And the look was so cute, it was all she could do not to kiss it away, then feast on every inch of his body.
She laughed again. “Actually, it was us. When I showed up here, that changed things for you.” Her fingers grazed his chest then fell to his lap, where they skimmed his semi-hard erection. Leaning in close, she kissed him gently and said, “My being here made you wake up.”
He sucked in a breath. “You don’t mean...”
“I do, actually. Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstasy and fertility, remember? Your libido is linked to the nymphs’ survival as a race.”
“Whoa.” He glanced around the lookout, letting his gaze skip over the candles he’d obviously conjured with his magick and the couch and chairs and tables she’d moved up here on her own. “Okay, that’s fucking wicked.”
She smiled and brushed her nose and lips against his jaw. “Would this be the wrong time to tell you that I’ve always wanted children? Not right away, of course. I want you all to myself for a while. But down the line, I’m thinking, two, three, maybe even four. Definitely more than one, though. I’m an only child, and I want our kids to be able to torment each other. It’s not real parenting until you have to referee wrestling siblings.”
He turned his head and looked at her, but his eyes weren’t filled with fear or shock. They radiated absolute love. The kind that runs soul deep. “Kids, huh?”
“Mm-hm.” She nodded. “What could go wrong? I mean, Zeus has a bunch of kids and look how well that turned out.”
He laughed and pulled her onto his lap. “Would this be the right