“Nobody stole me.” He knelt down in front of my chair, careful not to touch me. “I’m still yours. I’ll always be yours, and I’m sorry about being with Aphrodite. You’re right, it wasn’t fair to you, and I should’ve asked you first.”
I took a deep, shaky breath. “It doesn’t matter. We’re over.”
“Persephone—”
“No.” I stood and moved around him, narrowly avoiding kneeing him in the chin. “I was happy because of you, and I can’t be that happy ever again, not when I know what you did with her. You stole that from me—you both stole that from me, and I will never forgive you for it.”
“Persephone, come on, don’t be like this—”
“Don’t be like what? Angry? Upset? Hurt?” I whirled around to face him. “Why did you do it? Out of all the girls you could’ve slept with, why her?”
He hesitated, looking to his left for a moment. “Because—I don’t know, all right? It’s Aphrodite. If she wants you, you can’t say no.”
I balled my hands into fists. “Wrong answer.”
As I stormed toward the door, the sound of his footsteps scrambling behind me echoed through the long room. “I’m sorry, all right? She was there, you weren’t, and it isn’t fair, but it won’t happen again. Ever. I love you.”
“If you really loved me, you would’ve never touched her in the first place.” I flung open the door. “Hades would’ve never done that to me.”
I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the stunned look on his face. “Hades? You’re really going to compare me to Hades now? You don’t even love him. You don’t even want to be with him.”
“If you’re my only other option, then maybe he isn’t so bad after all,” I snapped. “Leave, Hermes. I don’t want you here anymore.”
With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked out of the room and down the spiral staircase that led to the lower floors. My eyes brimmed with tears, but by the time I reached my destination, I’d blinked them away without shedding a single one. Hermes wasn’t worth it. I would’ve given him everything, but if he couldn’t spare me honesty or fidelity—
I was an idiot for expecting him to stick with me. No one ever did. Not even Mother had much love left for me anymore, not after my failed marriage and centuries of being with Hermes. The only constants in my life were the seasons and Hades. No matter what I did to him, no matter how I acted, he was there for me without complaint. Always.
I should have loved him. I should’ve loved him so much that I ached over the thought of having hurt him. I wanted to so badly that part of me did, but that wall was still there, preventing anything real.
I hated that wall, and if it were possible, I would’ve ripped it down with my bare hands. Loving Hades should’ve been the easiest thing I’d ever done. He was a good man. Better than me, better than Hermes, better than every god and goddess who dared to call themselves Olympians. In a pit of deceit and jealousy, he was the one thing that hadn’t been tainted by time. And I’d hurt him again and again.
Without bothering to knock, I burst into Hades’s chambers. He sat at his desk, shuffling through scrolls and parchment, and he looked up as I strode over to him. “Persephone?” he said, a hint of confusion in his voice. No wonder, either, since I hadn’t stepped foot in his chambers since our wedding night. “To what do I owe—”
Before he could finish, I crawled into his lap and kissed him. Not the kind of hesitant kiss we’d shared few times before, but the burning kisses I’d shared with Hermes. The kind that filled me with fire, all-encompassing and eternal. The kind that begged for more no matter how much I’d already fed it. It was the kind of kiss that no one, not even Hades, could ignore.
And he didn’t. For a long moment, he didn’t move—he didn’t touch me, he didn’t kiss me back, he didn’t react at all. But at last his hands found my hips, and his lips moved against mine with equal fervor.
That wall inside me loomed, as dark and resentful as before, but despite the way my entire body screamed for me to stop, I kept going. His touch burned my skin, and that hatred wrapped around me so completely that I could barely breathe. But I needed this. I needed to be loved, even if the only person who could do it was the man I couldn’t stand.
“Bed,” I whispered between kisses, leaving no room for negotiating. He lifted me up without protest, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me across the room. I’d sworn to myself I would never go back here, but as he laid me down amongst the silk, I steeled myself against my body’s protests and pulled him down with me.
I don’t know how long we kissed—long enough for both of us to get undressed, long enough for us to be seconds away from doing something neither of us had thought we’d ever do again. But before we got that far, Hades broke the kiss, his eyes searching mine.
“You’re sure?” he whispered, and after a split second, I forced myself to nod. He loved me—I could see it in the way he looked at me, feel it in the way he touched me, everything. He loved me in a way Hermes never would, and I was an idiot for throwing all of that away without even trying. I knew what love was supposed to feel like now, and I could have that with Hades if I tried. I just had to want it bad enough.
He kissed me again, gentler this time, but he still didn’t close the gap between us. “Why now?” he murmured, brushing his lips against the curve of my neck. I let out a frustrated groan.
“Because—because,” I said, my voice breaking. “Because I want to, and you love me, and—can’t we at least try?”
Hades pulled away enough to look me in the eye. “And what about Hermes?”
I swallowed, and something must have flickered across my face, because Hades frowned. “It’s over with him,” I said. “Please, can’t we just…?”
“Do you love me?” he whispered. I blinked.
“I—I want to.” I ran my hand down his bare arm, feeling the muscle beneath his warm skin. “Please give me the chance to try.”
He exhaled deeply, as if he’d been holding in a breath for eternity. “I made that mistake once.” He kissed me again, this time with aching gentleness. “I will not make it again.”
Suddenly the weight of his body was gone, and he turned away to put his clothes back on. I lay there, exposed and shivering in the open air, and the tears I’d been holding back all evening finally broke through. “Don’t you love me?”