Heir to Desire

                                                                                      Prologue

          “Dear, where are you!” Vivian ran down the hallway in a drift, her green hair batting against the wind of her simple speed. “Dear!!” Looking in each room she passed, she frantically waved her torch around the air to see. The dungeon walls dripped with a forest moss, filling the cracks of the ruptured bricks.  The light from the torch glittered against it, giving it a dewy shine.

            “Dear Eros! Sweetie where are you!” Stopping by a cell with it’s door cracked open, Vivian slowly pushed through, and instantly dropped her source of light into the leaked puddle by the door. Rushing in towards the back of the darkened room, she kneeled down by the broken body leaning against the wall.

            A painfully groaning noise lifted from the man’s throat as he looked up at his wife. “Vi…Vivian…”

            “Sshh, don’t talk, I’ve got you know…” The young woman lifted her husband, bringing his arm over her shoulder to carry his weight. Time seemed to simply pass them by as they trudged out of the dungeon cell, and back though the way she had entered.

*****

            “Eros, can you tell me what happened?” Vivian asked, placing a damp cloth on her husband’s wounded chest. They had returned home to the Gods, and she had bandaged him up as much as she could. Now her husband rests in his bed.

            Eros opened his eyes, weary as he was, and forced himself to sit up against his will. The pain struck against his bones like a blade drilled through his body, and he groaned is such agony. Vivian attempted to keep him lying down, but he resisted. The injured man lay back against the headboard and looked to his wife with dreary eyelids.

            “My dear Vivian…,” he coughed a small bit of blood coming up in his hands. “…Prisoners of Hades have gotten loose…and they tried to attack our youngest…,” He coughed once more, gripping the stabbing pain in his bandaged abdomen.  Vivian leaned down over him, helping him control his grip. “I am not going to last, dear…my time is coming to an end…”

            Vivian’s expression deepened to a deep blue, tears welling up in her eyes. Standing up, she peered down over her husband. She wasn’t a Goddess, like everyone else on Olympia. She was a simple demon, a betrayer of Hades himself. Eros took her in, and eventually they married. However, since she wasn’t a Goddess, she did not know what she had to do. “If you are dying…then who will take your place? A God of Love is needed…” A point of worry filled her voice. “And if you are gone I’ll be sent back…. Eros you can’t die…not yet...”

 

            The man raised his hand up, taking hold of his wife’s fragile fingers. “Vivian, I love you, and if you trust me…you will follow my instructions.” He grunted, pulling himself up and her to him. Tight in a hug, she wrapped her arms around him, and nodded. Eros kept his voice low, whispering into her ear. “Well then, out of our three children, only two of them can take my place. They must go to Earth and find the one by the name of….”