As time passed, my life in the Underworld was plagued by many things. First, Hades had a sharp mind that was delightfully philosophical. He was every bit as logical as I might have expected from a god who oversaw eons of mortal disputes. Who had created a kingdom for their afterlife and judged where they went inside it.
"The river Styx is one of the many ways I keep mortals from defying the fates," he said, showing me the part of his domain that was at least open to an infinite night sky. This was the second thing that plagued me.
Styx had more vitality and excitement than anything I had seen before, surging through life and death itself. Hades noted my wonder and the corner of his mouth quirked into a rare grin.
"You really shouldn't swim." He said so drily I didn't realize he was joking until several moments passed.
"Have you tried?" I asked him with a laugh.
"No. Athena once made Ares drink and he was silent for seven years."
"I'm sure they were the happiest in Olympus," I replied. I still hadn't forgotten how he had meant to marry me.
I continued to walk beside Hades, and wondered if an easy friendship wouldn't be so bad. The last thought that plagued me, worse yet than all the rest, came in these moments I talked with him so long I forgot myself.
His world of darkness made me feel sharp too. Not philosophical like Hades. It made me want to be wild, as if I could explore the dangerous parts of myself and no one would ever see. The vitality of the river cooled my face and I found myself tuned towards the minute movements in a world that was otherwise so still.
Most of them came from Hades himself. The shift of his body, or the sound of his breath.
"What is this?" I would ask at every little discovery of rocks and bones and stars I didn't recognize. He was eager to show me everything in his world, often surprised by the interest I took.
"I want to show you something," he said one day, brazen enough to take me by the hand. My face flushed as he led me down cavern after cavern until the light was so scarce the space seemed endless. When we made it into the pitch black, it was the strangest type of claustrophobia I had ever felt.
"Close your eyes," he told me.
"I can't see anything with them open," I said.
I heard his footsteps return and he sought m my hands in the dark. At first, his fingertips only grazed the soft part of my forearm but he traced them down until he found my palms. I wondered if I had been wise to come here with him, where no one could see or hear us.
More importantly, I wondered when I had grown to trust Hades enough to follow him so far into the caverns at all.
"I'm going to light a torch. I want to watch the moment you open your eyes," he said.
His touch ventured for my face so he could guide my hands over it, and I tried to hide the hitch of my breath. It was so quiet here, and now I wondered if I had been wise to come where no one could see or hear us for an entirely different reason.
He withdrew like a whisper, leaving me alone in the shadows that might have extended forever. My heart fluttered for him to come back so I wouldn't be alone in it. I began to have more sympathy for his lonely millennia.
I felt the light before I saw it, and the fire danced orange in front of my eyelids. I opened them.
The walls were embedded with gemstones of every color, but it was impossible to tell where they began and ended against the incandescent firelight bouncing off them. It was the closest thing I had seen to daytime since I'd arrived, a dazzling display that would make any goddess in Olympus jealous. I skimmed my hand against the rough finish of rubies and opals and diamonds. So many iridescent diamonds.
"Zeus once told me that if I mined this, I would have double the treasures of Olympus," he said.
"If you mined this, you would destroy the greatest treasure I have ever seen," I replied. His face brightened and his skin was cast in every color by the light of the precious stones.
"You are the first Olympian who has ever understood that," he told me and waved the torch so the light shifted in a way that was particularly impressive.
I had never met another deity so taken with the wonders of the earth. For a moment I let myself be in awe of the things he showed me. It was simple, uncomplicated pleasure. He seemed to have the same amazement, but his gaze was fixed on me.
I raised my eyebrows, and the smallest smile crossed his lips.
"You're radiant," he said.
My heart pounded as he stepped closer and I hoped he couldn't hear it in the silence. Hades reached out and I tilted my face, but he merely slid the torch into the iron hoop behind me.
I let out a long breath, and he peered down with an amused grin. I pressed my back against the gemstoned wall to keep space between us but his face was only a breath away.
"Your face is red."
"It's the fire."
"Have you never been kissed?" he raised an eyebrow. At first I was defensive. Of course I had been kissed, thank you very much. But I was sharp enough to play with him, so I met his gaze and asked,
"Have you?"
He chuckled and moved his mouth even closer.
"Yes," he said and I could feel the word. I had the inexplicable urge to say it back. "I have."
Unlike me, his words were laced with the suggestion he had experienced more than a kiss. By the way his hand clenched on the wall beside my head, I could tell he wanted to show me. I inhaled to steady myself, but only breathed him in. That same masculine smell unlike anything in springtime.
I had always imagined being swept away by someone's touch, and yet Hades made me dizzy with the closeness of it all. His fingers centimeters away from my hair and his mouth, lingering so close I might kiss him by speaking. I wanted him to close the distance. I wanted to feel him and to touch him and to know him.
"Thank you for showing me this," I breathed and turned my face away.
He tilted my chin back to look in my eyes, and his gaze swept over the blush that had only deepened in the moments that had passed.
"Of course," he said, stepping back. But his eyes held that same twinkle that I realized I might possibly be flames.
YOU ARE READING
Hades and Persephone: A Fated Love
Romance"You can have anything you want," He plucked the ripest for me from the tree. "Everything in my world is yours." With all of my mother's warnings, I had been afraid to eat from his table or drink his wine. These were binding things, and I would sta...
