Queen Of Hell & Paradise (Immortal gods: Book 1)

Chapter 46- Insanity

A short Hades POV just for those of you who have missed him!

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Hades

I can still feel her.

Her scent had haunted me, teasing me into embracing a Samantha that wasn't in front of me. It was a sweet mixture of vanilla beans and coconut fruit-- her signature bottled fragrance. I could have reached out and touched the tendrils of gold that encircled me. They resembled her appearance so accurately, I thought for a moment she'd actually cared enough to look for me and had found me.

She had run to my side, whispering my name over and over again as she planted small kisses down my neck. Her hands wandered all over my body, clutching the fabric of my cloak as she captured my lips in hers, urging me to kiss her back.

And I did, but it was short-lived.

Her mouth didn't taste like the glimmering lip object she so often wore to her school, and they didn't kiss me with the jealousy of a lover. Samantha could play coy all she wanted, she would neither confirm nor deny that something existed between us to her peers. She kept us a mystery, especially to her teammates-- but the moment one stared at me for a beat too long, her eyes would blaze with something akin to indignation.

Her fingers would find their way to my hands, my arm, and in some cases --quite possibly the times I favored it most-- thread themselves in my hair. It was an odd sensation, one I've never experienced before when she would stake her claim with those subtle gestures. It felt strangely satisfying to be coveted-- a giant stroke to my ego when she glowered at their peering eyes as if saying 'mine!'.

But the lips that were kissing me didn't carry that element of fervor.

Instead, they felt empty, drained of the warmth Samantha always brought. They mocked me, making ridicule of a man held prisoner in a place devoid of noise and life. In a void lacking her real laughter, her real scent, her real touch.

She had suddenly pulled back, fixing her eyes on me.

"Do you love me, Aidoneous?" she asked, reaching to caress my bruised temples. Her fingertips felt foreign on my skin, as if they didn't belong there. They felt too heavy, too fleeting, too rehearsed.

I didn't answer her then, I couldn't. My throat hurt from the screaming, my voice was hoarse and barely a whisper from the strain, and my neck felt swollen from the pain. I did not know what she wanted me to say, I wasn't even certain if she was real or simply a figment of my lonely mind.

At my lack of response, the golden mist grew irritated.

"Would you place the entire world in danger for me? Would you be willing to sacrifice the lives of a thousand mortals for my sake?"

It took all my strength to lift up my gaze and shake my head.

She wasn't Samantha. She could have been a dream-- a projection of my own insanity, or the cruel creation of an angry Zeus. I couldn't tell then and I don't know now. In fact, for several days or weeks after that, I grew weary and doubtful. There was a chance I had been wrong about her, perhaps she did not care where I was or how I was doing.

How foolish I had been! To think a mortal girl would give up her very lifestyle to search for me! To believe she yearned for my presence and touches of affection! Oh what bliss ignorance brings! I had deceived myself into believing she felt even a fraction of what I felt for her.

I had offered myself to Zeus on a silver platter for her life! I'd preferred a life of loneliness and torture so she could live her own without the shadow of danger lurking behind her until she took her last breath! And she probably did not care, she was as fickle as Zeus had said her to be.

Time after that passed rather slowly, and my mind was consumed with these kinds of thoughts. Once again, I'd grown bitter and lonesome. I couldn't shake the image of the loving glances the young mortal had sent her the day Zeus came for me. The feathery touches she would give him, the sweet smiles exchanged across the dinner table.

Jealousy could have eaten me alive. Perhaps that had been the purpose of Zeus imprisoning me in the Void-- for my own reclusive thoughts to turn me against my love. He had been rather close to achieving his goal. As a matter of fact, had it not been for the intense pain that suddenly assaulted me last night, the hysteria brought on by the Void's nothingness could have seized control of my entire rationale.

Images of events that have not yet come to be flashed in front of my eyes. Pictures of the young earthling Daniel in agonizing pain blazed by, reflections of heated arguments between Samantha, Poseidon and me filled my mind. I even caught bits and pieces of her soft gasps, her fingers clenching my hair and back as we demonstrated our mutual affection in the ultimate act.

She had gone to see the Fates.

I am certain of it! Only they have the power to show us the future, and only they can unite two strands as one. I've never felt pain like the one that devoured my veins yesternight, I've only heard of it once or twice from Hera. It is the ache of the union between two threads of life, the combination of a lifetime of hurt from two destinies becoming one.

Her face, her touch, her blonde locks, her vanilla scent-- in an instant, I can feel and hear her in me. All her thoughts, all her worries, her painful memories --the distance from her father, her mother's departure, the young mortal who was the reason behind her tear-filled nights-- I can hear and see them all as if they were mine to claim. I feel the thick, undying desperation gnawing at her bones, her thoughts of finding me echo in my mind.

The anger and disappointment she felt when she realized it was Zeus in disguise as me she'd found in the fields of Enna-- I feel that as well. I can see the memory through her eyes-- the gentle thumb stroking my face in a longing caress. The soft fingertips toying with the ends of my hair as she leaned down to kiss my --his-- temple. The curvature of her breast giving Zeus comfort as she brought his torso into her embrace.

I could not find it in me to hate her for loving me so, even if it was not me she had been touching.

She had thought it was me, and that is reason enough for me to love her more. She had left her life behind in search for me, she had not been fickle as Zeus claimed her to be. She ached to find me and hold me just as I did her. I was not the only one thinking himself foolish for sacrificing freedom for a girl he had not known for long. Samantha had been doing the same, despite the fact her thread was made to be fragile and short.

And it only further incensed the dislike I already held for my youngest brother. He knew what her kisses and touches felt like. He inhaled her scent and experienced her earnest affection, whereas I've yet to be on the receiving end. I am more than certain he would have ravished her if Thanatos and Hecate had not been nearby, whether she reciprocated his want or not.

I shake my head, grateful she had chosen that moment to leave.

When the reeling of her memories faded, the locks on my chains suddenly broke loose, and the words of the Fates remained engraved in my mind as I fell with a thud.

Bloodshed is on the horizon, and we give nothing without a steep price...

They'd given me my freedom.