The breeze carries the murmurings of a conversation and before I can even move, she picks up the hem of her gown and runs. Toward me. Persephone’s steps kick up ash as she goes, throwing a cloud of it into the air.
Again I’m struck by the thought that it’s a dream. My love. She runs to me. Her steps are light as she rushes down the garden path toward me. With my arms out, I erase the distance between us, craving her more and more with each beat of my heart.
Is she real? She must be.
Then the starlight catches her face, and it is my queen. She is here. The curve of her cheek begs me to brush my thumb over her soft skin.
There are a few final seconds where there is still space between us, and then Persephone is in my arms. Where she is meant to be. Her embrace is everything my shattered heart needed.
There is no hesitation in the way we come together. I throw my arms around her, and she throws her arms around me, scrambling up onto her tiptoes to loop her arms around my neck. My love. My heart races and my blood heats. My love has returned to me. I’ve never felt such relief, such a feeling of completion.
Persephone drops kisses all over my chin and neck until I put my hand on the back of her head and pull her in for a deep, fierce kiss. I’m hungry for her. Needing her love more than I need air. Her legs lift with the kiss, wrapping around my waist, and I groan into her open mouth.
My queen. She clings to me.
All I can do is taste her. I’ve been starving for her. I’ve died a thousand deaths without her. I’ve been condemned to an eternity in the dark without her, and I did not know how close I was to insanity until I could kiss her again. With every thought of losing her again plaguing me, I hold her close to me, my heart beating against hers. My grip is ever moving with my hands on her back, under her ass, around her waist. It would not matter if I let go, because Persephone has her legs wound so tight around my waist that she would not fall.
She kisses me back with equal ferocity, her body arching into mine, the heat between her legs pressing into my waist. Persephone threads her fingers into my hair and grabs it in her fists. Forcing a hint of pain that intensifies the pleasure. Fuck me. I’ve never been this hard for her. She slides her hands around my neck and tugs me closer. Her nails gently scratch as she goes. It’s heaven. She’s my heaven. She grips my shoulders, then my face, panting into my mouth.
“Is it you?” I ask, my voice hoarse with all these days apart. Nothing has ever felt worse. Nothing has ever been more torturous than having Persephone on Olympus. “Tell me it’s you, my queen. Promise me it’s you. Not some trick or spell.”
“I’m not a trick.” She breathes with a twinkle in her beautiful eyes, and then kisses me so deeply she can’t speak. She tastes like honey, and her skin carries the scent of flowers and sunlight, and this is everything she is. My queen is life and warmth and a beating heart. She pulls away for a moment, breathing deeply, her chest rising. “I’m here. I came with Hecate. She brought me back.”
“Hecate,” I repeat, my mind slow to understand anything beyond my embrace with Persephone. Slowly, I register what’s happened. Hecate did not betray me, then. “She stayed with you?”
Persephone makes a needy sound and kisses me again, seeming as if she has forgotten my question. I’ve almost forgotten it, too, by the time she tilts her chin and looks me in the eye. She settles her weight more firmly into my arms and gazes into my eyes, stroking my hair back from my face and tucking it behind my ear. “I…what did you say?”
“Hecate. Did she stay with you?” More thoughts race in my mind as I swallow thickly, imagining my queen on Olympus. I’ve only known stories of her laughter and beauty she brought to the heavens. Images of her from the dark pool of water.
“She was not my chaperone in Olympus. Surely you know the Titan was not needed there where—” She drifts and then clears her throat before looking me in the eyes once again. Persephone shakes her head. “She was there when it counted. She was there when I needed her. She brought me back, and they don’t know. We hid in the garden.”
“What garden?”
“I used to go to this place in the garden when I was a child and wanted privacy. No one knows about it. Not even my mother. So I waited there with Hecate until the moon rose, and then?—”
Then I know what happened. Hecate bends the crossroads to her desire. She moves between realms with her hounds. And she did as she has for centuries. Hecate, the mistress of the dead, came back to the Underworld with the sliver of the moon before it turned dark completely, and she brought my queen with her.
As I gaze into Persephone’s eyes, I fall into the depths of them. My need to love her turns ravenous. Hecate can take what she needs from this place, for at this moment, I am an absent king. I need my queen and that is all I know.
Persephone cannot speak anymore, although she doesn’t try to. I have my mouth on hers again, and I cannot stop tasting her. With one hand and a snap of my fingers, I form a silk blanket from the ashes on the ground and lower us both down so that I lie above her.
She blinks, her eyelashes fluttering, and strokes my hair that’s fallen again. One kiss is tempting and the sound of it fuels me for more. Her hair is spread out under her on the blanket like a halo. I kiss her lightly again and this time a flush rises from her chest into her cheeks. Light glows on her face. It is from sconces in the gardens around us, but it is a low, pleasant light and was not burning until she came. She brings light to my darkness.
Persephone searches my face, tracing her fingertips over my features. “It felt like forever,” she murmurs. “It felt like lifetimes.”
“Yes.” I lean down and kiss her again, trailing my lips along her jaw to the side of her neck. “Longer than forever. Eternities. I could not stand it.”
“Neither could I,” she agrees with a quiver in her voice. “I couldn’t…I…”
Persephone’s eyes widen as if she is awestruck by me. As if she has never seen anything more beautiful. As if I am the only man she has ever wanted like this. It is true—I am. There was no one else before me, and there will be no one else after me. I will not let her go. I will never let her go. “I…I need you.”
There is more she wants to say. I can tell. So I kiss her neck and suck softly at the flesh there, feeling her breathe faster. I drag my lips up to the tender spot just beneath her ear and suck there as well.
“Hades.” She breathes my name and my cock throbs.
I drag my lips over her skin now, down to her shoulder, pulling the neckline of her gown open to expose the tops of her breasts. “You are my queen no matter where you go. On Olympus, in the mortal realm, in some other realm no one has discovered…you would still be my queen. You will be my queen. Always.”
“Don’t—” She shivers as I pull her neckline down farther, until both of her breasts are exposed to the air and her rose colored nipples pebble. “Don’t you—oh.” Persephone gasps as I breathe above her right nipple, then directly onto it, then close my mouth over it. “You are my king,” she says in a rush. “Wherever I go. There is nothing that can stop you from being my king.”
