I shouldn’t. Deep down, I know that. Hades thinks I’m Persephone, that I betrayed him in the worst way imaginable.
Except…
“You’re using my name,” I say, my voice a whisper. “Myrealname.”
Serapina.
He referred to me as such before, too. But I haven’t had a chance to comment on it. And I’m just groggy enough to do it now.
“Why?” I ask.
His fingers comb through my hair again, only he knots them at the ends to tilt my head back. I startle as I meet his intense gaze, his dark orbs seeming to radiate a dozen emotions at the same time, making him impossible to read.
I shiver, despite the warm water, and fight the urge to touch him. His purr is soft and soothing, the sound emanating from his chest and inspiring so many competing desires within me.
To rest my palm on his tattoo.
To curl into him and soak up his strength.
To simplysubmit.
It’s a heady need, one that worsens my dizziness. I don’t want to give in to the wills of my body, not while my mind is still radiating warnings about the Alpha who is currently touching me.
“You possess my mate’s soul,” Hades says, his grip tightening in my hair as his opposite palm goes to my lower back.
He pulls me closer, which is when I realize I was swaying, and his hold is all that’s keeping me in place.
“As you’ve learned, she betrayed me,” he goes on. “And given that betrayal, I assumed she was playing a dangerous game, one meant to hurt me even more than she already has.” He cants his head to the side. “It’s hard for me to believe that I may have been wrong in my assumptions. Almost as hard as it was to accept what she did to me.”
I swallow, my eyelids growing heavy.
It’s his purr, I realize.Or maybe it’s him.
“But watching you fall apart proved to me that you’re not my Persephone at all,” he adds, his low voice sliding around me in a silky caress.
One that seems to tighten like a noose around my neck as the meaning behind his words begins to register.
“Watching you fall apart proved to me that you’re not my Persephone…”
He’s talking about when Maliki pleasured me.My orgasm.
My eyelashes flutter. “Is… is that why…?” I can’t formulate the question I want to ask. Not because I don’t want to know the answer, but because I’m just not quite sure what I want to know.
“Morpheus suggested I kiss you,” he says. “He told me that would be the best way to test my mate—because anOmega is a slave to her Alpha’s touch. And your kind can’t fake pleasure.”
Some of the fog begins to leave me as I continue to process his comments.
But he’s not done.
“It’s an intrinsic response to your needs. Omegas are made to take an Alpha’s knot. It’s how we bond. So the best way to test you was to see how you reacted to another man’s touch,” he murmurs, his grip tightening as he leans in to run his nose against mine. “And the way you responded to Maliki told me everything I needed to know,Serapina.”
Chapter 5
Hades
The way Serapinastiffens in my arms tells me that I’ve done something wrong.
She was relaxed.Content. I dare to even believe that she temporarily feltsafe.
