Page 43 of Curse the Flame

The entire world that I knew… it’s gone, too.

I would only go if it gave me my freedom, but how could I do that to Hades? He waited inside of me all those years for his Persephone, and when the day came that we did enough to satisfy the damn magic, how could I separate them?

That was my concern for too long. Now? I don’t know how I’m going to willingly walk away from my blossom.

Willow…

That’s the name she gave me. I know she keeps looking at me, waiting for me to slip up and use her other name. But just like she’s careful to call me “Aiden” and not “Hades”, she’s “Willow” to me—even if I accidentally called her “Blossom” once and the look of surprise, followed by pleasure on her face warmed my heart so swiftly, she’s been my blossom ever since.

She makes me feel warm. She makes me feel alive.

She makes me want to live again, but only if I get to live with her at my side.

I’ve never wanted anything more than I do to spend the rest of my existence with this woman.

If only I wasn’t so sure that, the moment our story ends and a portal appears to bring her back to the life she lost when she followed Cerberus into the Other, she’ll skedaddle out of here—out of my life—so that she can return to hers…

Mirrorside, she’s a schoolteacher. She has family; I’ve heard her fret about how her cousin must be worrying about her and how long she’s already been gone. She has friends and a home and everything that I was already missing when the Other swallowed me whole.

Here, all I have is Willow, and after she’s been in my realm—in my soul—for part of the season, I have to admit the truth if only to myself: I’m a goner.

What makes it so tough is that I don’t remember falling in love with Willow. Though, if I’m being honest, that’s probably because I never had a chance not to. The Fates chose her as my soulmate, just like Persephone is Hades’s, and damn if they didn’t choose right.

I didn’t want to accept it at first. When Cerberus led me to that clearing in the woods where I found a Roman fool attempting to recreate the Rape of the Sabine Women because he thought tying an unsuspecting girl to a tree and announcing she was his bride somehow qualified as romance, I convinced myself that everything I felt afterward belonged to Hades.

The relief that nearly brought me to my knees the moment Persephone’s scent reached me. The possessiveness when I saw the marks left behind by the ropes around Willow’s wrists. Even the way I felt a jolt all the way to my bones when she walked over to me and placed her hand in mine.

That wasn’t me. It couldn’t be. Yes, I was attracted to Willow. She’s the most gorgeous gal I’ve ever seen, in my old life and the long, long one with Hades that I’ve shared since my mortal life ended. Her scent went straight to head, and those gams she has… they went straight to my loins. I wanted her, and I was instantly infatuated, but love? That belonged to the god. That was Hades finally finding the goddess he’s spent countless lifetimes with and even more searching for.

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself. For the entire autumn season, I told myself that I was doing this all for the magic, for the story, for Hades. God, it would’ve been much easier if that had stayed true—if it ever was.

‘Cause, you see, the problem with convincing yourself that a god is responsible for your emotions is that eventually the evidence starts piling up against you and even a bonehead like Aiden Murphy—who honestly believed killing all those names on Teddy Thanos’s list made him a hero, not a villain… and do I know better now—has to realize that, somewhere along the line, his heart got involved.

Because Hades… Hades is made for Persephone. But Aiden? Aiden doesn’t know Persephone. He brought Willow down to the Underworld, and he has learned everything about the sunny schoolteacher that he can.

Persephone has nothing to do with the way Willow apologizes every time she accidentally inconveniences somebody, from tripping over Cerberus or when she shyly told me that she was in need of fresh undergarments because I foolishly provided chitons for her and sandals and that was all.

The goddess of spring certainly isn’t responsible for the ridiculous little wrinkle that appears between Willow’s eyebrows whenever she’s trying to understand something, refusing to admit she’s confused or that she doesn’t know the answer. Nor would Persephone be embarrassed after asking Charon whether the River Styx had fish in it swimming alongside the dead because, in her words, “Like I used to tell my students, you never know until you ask.”

The ferryman spent the next few moments trying to decide whether she was making fun of him or not, but she wasn’t. She genuinely wanted to know, and he stuck a bony finger into the river to summon the shade of a naiad with a fish tale to my blossom’s delight.

Willow has a habit of asking questions that no one else would think to ask, and because she does it with those big blue eyes and that earnest expression that makes it clear she expects an honest answer, people answer her.

Even Charon.

Especially Charon.

The ferryman of legend has become oddly fond of her, just like Cerberus—Sir—has. Not that he’d ever admit it. When duty calls and I must leave Willow to stay in the palace with the Furies and the nymphs and our other servants, she has my blessing to explore. Just last week, Charon ferried her across all five rivers in the Underworld. I nearly burst into flame to hear that he risked Willow falling into the Lethe and losing all of her memories, or how he traveled along the Phlegethon that is a fiery river that leads to Tartarus, but it was the Cocytus that had my heart catching in my throat.

The Cocytus is the home of the Unmentionables, the souls who have no chance to be reborn and, because of that, no home in the Underworld.

Willow didn’t need to know about that. I’m careful not to reference our past together for fear we might not have a future, and though I’m sure Persephone has told her that our story must play out together, one way or another, for now, we’re just existing together.

At least, that’s what Willow is doing. Me? I’m falling deeper and deeper in love with her, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

It’s been a full turn of the moon, a complete month since Willow found her way to me.

I think of the moon as I slip off to my sanctuary. A small room that I subconsciously decorated similar to Teddy Thanos’s office—only with black and silver furniture and decor, with flames flickering in their sconces—it’s the one room in the palace that belongs to Aiden rather than Hades. Willow is visiting with Minthe and Leuce in the nymphs’ quarters, conjuring flowers and weaving them into their hair.