It tasted like home.
I moaned into his mouth. His hand tightened on my throat, just enough pressure to make breathing harder. To dominate.
“Mine!” he declared.
SMACK.
His other hand came down hard on my ass.
The sound cracked through the air. Pain bloomed across my skin, and I cried out against his lips.
He slapped it again. Harder.
Stars burst behind my eyes. My body clenched around him, helpless. My need for him ached. I was so wet.
“Fuck, you love that, don’t you?” he groaned. “My perfect queen who gets off on being spanked while I’m buried inside her.”
“More!” I gasped. “Please.”
He smacked me again. Each blow landed in a new place, painting my skin with marks. The exquisite pain spread like fire and fused with the pleasure, until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
We broke the kiss only when my lungs burned for air. My lips felt swollen, bruised from his claiming.
My armor was gone now. Every piece of black metal lay scattered on the black marble, leaving me bare under the blood moon. I was vulnerable before my king, exactly how he wanted me. I gripped the railing as his hand moved to cup my breast before seizing my taut nipple.
He pinched it hard. Sharp pain shot straight to my core.
“Such perfect tits,” he growled. “They were made for me to hurt.”
I whimpered.
“Tell me why you need the pain,” he commanded. “Tell me what it means.”
“To remember,” I gasped, the words broken by his thrusts. “To never forget what we endured. What we survived. How many times they killed me. How you searched for me every lifetime.”
He pinched my other nipple, twisting and rolling the sensitive bud between his fingers until tears pricked my eyes.
“That’s right, baby,” he said. “We revisit the pain so we never take this for granted. So we never forget how hard we fought to be together.”
He eased the pressure and caressed my breast. My pussy clenched around him, wrenching a groan from his throat.
“In those mortal lives,” he continued, his voice rough with emotion, “you hurt yourself to cope with being torn apart from me. But we’re finally whole and returned home. The pain is no longer about survival. It’s me worshipping you. It’s about pushing us to the edge to see what we find there.”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Hurt me. Use me. Mark me as yours.”
In the distance, the volcanoes erupted, lighting the eternal night. Beautiful in its violence. Honest in its fury.
Hades drove into me harder. His fingers found my clit, circling, pressing, pinching, until I writhed against him.
Even with the explosion, I could hear the sounds of our joining: the slap of flesh, the wet rhythm of his thrusts, my cries tangled with his possessive grunts.
He was the King of the Underworld, reclaiming his goddess queen after too long apart. The realm and every being in it bent to his will, except me, for I owned his heart.
Illuminated by the flowing lava and blood moon, the Underworld sprawled before us.
It’d suffered without us here. The eternal night had grown darker, more oppressive. Volcanic fires guttered. Gothic structures crumbled at the edges.
I remembered how stunning it had been once I saw it not as a prison, but as a kingdom. Not a punishment, but a gift. A place of honest darkness and terrible beauty. Its black lakes stretched across the landscape, their surfaces smooth glass. Obsidian forests rose from the valleys. Mist wove through it all.
