Damsel Of The Damned

Chapter 17

I fell asleep soon after arriving at the cottage I used to live in just a couple of days ago. My dreams were filled with images of Hades. His face, his smile, his laugh all echoing through my brain.

I woke up multiple times in the night. I was restless and I realized it was because I missed Hades. His laugh and smile. His bed and warmth. Even though we'd only shared the same bed once It felt like if I wasn't with him I would never sleep the same again. He had enveloped my whole life in less than a week.

I had never been one to fall right into the arms of someone. I was usually labeled as hard to get, but here I was barely putting up a fight when it came to him. Almost everything he did I blindly followed.

So why was it so hard for me to accept the darker side of him? He had never hurt me. In fact he had saved my ass a couple of times. He seemed to genuinely care about my well-being and I'd seen scarier things in my life than Hades devouring an evil soul. I have met spirits that have freaked me out way more than that. I've known about the supernatural world for a damn long time so learning about one more supernatural ability of his shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did.

Maybe it was because he had killed someone. But then again, they were already dead and it was an evil creature that would've hurt someone else had it continued on its way.

I was over thinking all of this. He won't hurt me and he made me happy and that's all that mattered. With this thought in mind, I made my decision.
I would go back to Hades' place tomorrow. For the time being I was going to clean up the cottage then go into town to check up on things there.

When I finished cleaning it was only noon, so I took a quick shower and changed into clean clothes. Luckily my car was still here so I took that into town and decided my first stop would be the cafe for a quick bite to eat but when I got there it was closed and a sign out front said for sale. How could they go out of business in just a couple of days?

I slowly made my way through town and I noticed quite a few changes I hadn't seen when I left the house. The grass was greener and there were flowers growing all around and leaves on the trees. It was just winter.

Winters in Oklahoma weren't always the coldest sometimes it didn't even snow in some places. On the other hand some winters there are blizzard like conditions and ice storms. When I was last home there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. I knew the weather changed fast here but not this fast. Something wasn't right.

I stopped at the local grocery store and grabbed a newspaper from the stand out front. The date said: April 14th.

It was December when I left for Hades house. That was almost four months ago! How in the world is this possible? I walked inside the bell above the door ringing. Everything here was the same except the lady at the register wasn't the same. Usually Mrs. Michelle worked the registers like she had for over forty years I'm told. I walked over and the lady's tag read Lauren. She was young and quite possibly barely twenty.

"Hi... I was just wondering what happened to Mrs. Michelle?"

"Didn't you hear? She died last month to a heart attack" Lauren told me.

Died? She was the sweetest person in this town. I'm really going to miss her I thought.

"Oh... uh thank you for telling me." I said and walked out.

I got in my car and drove home. There was no use in exploring the rest of the town. I'm sure everything had changed and I wasn't sticking around long enough for it to really matter. It'll just change more when I'm at Hades house. Better to not confuse myself later on if I ever came back. I've already figured out that about a month or a month and a half passes by here during one day in the underworld and I think I can deal with that. At least until the point where I should be forty and still look about twenty-ish but I'll cross that bridge later.

When I got there the front door was unlocked and I knew for a fact I had locked it before I left. I crept through the house as silently as possible looking for any possible intruders. It was silent and every room seemed to be empty. Nothing was missing or broken either. I slowly relaxed. When I re-entered the kitchen, I noticed a small, ruby colored vase on the island's counter top. Inside it was a beautiful black rose. Beside that was a small envelope. On the front in fancy cursive script was my name. I opened it and pulled out the paper inside. It read:

Dear Avangeline,

I miss you and I hope you come back to me soon. If you have decided to move on just leave the rose on the back porch and I'll leave you in peace forever. I apologise for scaring you, but I cannot change who I am and I hopefully you can accept that.

Forever yours,
Hades

I quickly opened the back door. Not to throw out the rose but to look for Hades. He was nowhere in site.

"Hades?"

I watched as he came out from behind one of the large oaks. He looked tired with dark circles underneath his eyes. His hair was a mess as if he had been constantly running his hands through it and his eyes were filled with pain and sadness.

I felt extremely guilty because it was all my fault he looked this way. I had rejected him and who he was by asking to leave. I hadn't really thought about how that would effect him. If our positions were switched and I watched as my anima, my soul mate and one true love rejected me I would be destroyed.

I was so upset by what I had done I started to cry. I reached my hand out towards him and waited for him to walk to me and grab it. When he did I pulled him to me wrapping my arms around him and cried even harder. I felt his hand underneath my chin raising my face to look at him. He ran his thumbs against my cheeks catching and wiping away my tears.

"Why are you crying my love?"

"Because I've hurt you and I'm so sorry" I hiccuped through my tears. "I've accepted you. All of you."

"I was hoping you'd say that" he whispered into my hair as he hugged me tightly.

I had my face buried in his chest and when I looked up we were in his room once again. Together we settled on the bed wrapped in each other's arms and I wasn't going to let go.