The space beyond the hollow inside my chest hummed with the thought, and my knees threatened to give out beneath me.
I’d called him my Hades in my journal several times. I was starting to see why.
As if the devil could read my thoughts, he took one more step closer, eyes fixed on me.
I resumed my retreat, and he matched me step for step with that inhuman grace, never breaking eye contact. My recoil ended abruptly when my back hit the rough bark of a tree. His shadows followed him, surrounding us both until we existed in our own pocket of darkness.
He braced one hand against the bark beside my head, caging me in, while those burning eyes held mine captive.
“Wolfe…”
"Shhh," he whispered, his breath tangling with mine.
With his free hand, he cupped my jaw and traced along my jawline with the tip of his thumb. “I realized something a long time ago.” The skeletal features flickered again, shifting from bone to flesh. “You were never meant to pass through my life, Elariya Grayson. You were always meant to be mine. Mine whether you remembered it or not.Youbelong tome.”
“How can you be okay with claiming me when I have no memory of you?” I stuttered.
“You stepped into my darkness once,” he said, voice low and reverent. “All I need to do is remind you.” His voice whispered over my skin, spreading heat from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“Remind… me?”
He pressed his powerful body against mine, moved his face until our lips were mere inches apart, and dragged his thumb in a slow, devastating caress down the sensitive slope of my neck.
My body betrayed me instantly, melting against him even as my mind screamed protests. Every nerve ending came alive under his touch, and I hated how perfectly I fit against him.
"Tell me you feel nothing when I touch you like this.” His lips brushed against mine, and his canines lengthened.Arousal. It meant arousal. “Tell me your body doesn't recognize mine, even if you don’t remember me.”
I couldn’t tell him anything.
If I said no, it would be a lie.
If I said yes, I was accepting defeat.
Shivers ran through me, and though I tried to steel myself, my body, mind, heart, and soul had already surrendered. Being this close to him burned away every rational thought.
“Can’t do it, can you?” He brushed his lips over mine again. “You can hate me, fight me, resist me all you want, but you can’t change what we are. We are…inevitable.”
His thumb paused at my throat, right over my pulse. His gaze drifted to my mouth slowly, as if he were committing the sight of it to memory.
Then his hand slid to the back of my neck and he kissed me, his mouth crashing into mine like he was taking back something that had always been his.
My body answered like it had been waiting, and it wouldn’t allow me to stop him.
His mouth was firm and unyielding, a claiming rather than a quest, reminding my body of a truth it had never truly forgotten. Heat flared sharp and consuming, and my breath shattered against his lips.
I should have pushed him away. I should have remembered everything that stood between us.
That he was keeping me captive.
That I was leaving.
That this could never be.
Instead, I kissed him back like I’d been starving, and my fingers curled into his hair.
A low sound tore from his chest at the contact, rough and broken, and the kiss deepened.
My Hades kissed me like he was relearning me, like every brush of his mouth was a vow carved into skin and bone. His thumb pressed lightly into my pulse, feeling the way my heart betrayed me, how it raced for him.
