The tattoo I saw before but didn't know what it meant. The tattoo that reminded me of the runes Elandra had over her arms.
Tilting his head, he studied me, dragging his eyes from the tips of my boots to the top of my head, pausing at my eyes as an energy I had never felt before vibrated around us.
And there they were, the shadows I saw so many times, touching his shoulders, his hair, staying in the background as if they couldn't interfere this time around.
And I couldn't wait any longer.
"Who are you?" My voice rang over the clearing, carried on the wind. I would've missed the flare of his nostrils or the parting of his lips the moment I spoke had I not been looking at him.
My hand itched to touch him, to convince myself he was real, to see if his skin felt as good underneath my fingertips as I imagined it would. He felt familiar, but not because of my dreams. Not because of my grief. He… There was something here, something I couldn't understand.
"Tell me," I demanded, instead of begging him. "I need to know."
"The better question is," he answered finally, his voice caressing the wounded parts of me and destroying the walls I had built to protect my fragile heart with simple words. "Who are you?"
14
HADES
Dreams starteda little bit less than a year ago. But when you've been living for more than five thousand years it felt like they started just yesterday. I feared closing my eyes because I knew I would see her again.
I feared this was my punishment as my insides decayed, reliving that day over and over again.
The same heartbreak.
The same pain.
My Persephone standing on the cliffs, clutching her middle as she bled, looking at me with all the love she felt, telling me she would find me. She would always find me.
"In another life," she whispered the last time before she fell. Before the dark seas surrounding this eternal prison of ours swallowed her body, taking her from me. Destroying the happiness I thought I had finally found.
But in the dream, she wasn't Persephone anymore. She wasn't the Goddess that stole my heart on a sunny day. She wasn't the woman who held my soul in her hands. Instead silver eyes looked at me, piercing through my very soul, through this decaying heart left behind to wither and die with time.
For so many years I stopped living. I stopped caring about anything and anyone, until that first dream. Until the nameless woman stood in front of me, dying over and fucking over again, leaving me behind, unable to stop it from happening. Unable to ask her anything.
I thought my mind had finally snapped, my disease spreading from my body to my mind, finally bringing me to the sweet ending I so desperately craved.
But she was here. I knew the moment she stepped on this island.
Her energy, her… power, called to me, yet I didn't know this woman in front of me. But the same silver eyes stared back at me with questions in them I couldn't answer. And the same silver hair danced on the wind as she stepped away from the cliffs and toward me, her hands trembling at her sides as she perused me just as I perused her.
My chest tightened at the sight of the scar on her left eyebrow, wishing to know how she got it. I wanted to know everything about this woman in front of me, yet I had no idea why. My heart, my soul, only ever belonged to one person.
But now… Now I couldn't look away from this witch, this enchantress sent here to tempt me, to make me forget about the one I loved the most. And I promised.
I promised to the skies, to the Fates, to the destiny that fucked us over I would never love another. I could never love another person like I loved Persephone. We were written in the stars, our souls meant to become one for eternity, and no one else could ever come close to that.
But this… feeling. This wickedness passing through my bloodstream, as the scent of vanilla and fresh apples reached some quiet part of my soul the closer the silver-eyed woman came, awakened the need, the desire, to touch her. To claim her.To make her scream my name while others listened, jealous of us. Jealous of what we had.
My own knees protested as I forced myself to stay rooted in place, unable to trust my body right now. Unable to trust my instincts, because they all screamed the same thing.
She's back.
The soul of my soul, the only reason to breathe, to live, to exist in this wicked world, was back. She felt like her. She felt like my Persephone, but she wasn't her.
Those light eyes held a darkness Persephone never had. A grief I could recognize almost instantly, rolling off of her in waves strong enough to suffocate everything and everyone around them. Those were not the lips I once kissed. Hers was not the body I worshipped. The silver hair cascading down her shoulders was not the one I touched, played with, and braided.
But it was her.
