Bride of Fire Read Free

But she hadn’t backed away from him, hadn’t resisted when he took hold of her. Instead, she had gazed up at him while she knelt in the grass as if she found him strange and wondrous. Her hands had trembled in his, but she had not pulled free. She had left them in his grasp. And when he bent to kiss her, she did not evade. She left her face upturned to his, and when his lips touched hers, she had opened them in invitation.
    He had captured Persephone’s maiden imagination as surely as he had captured her body. Now he had only to capture her heart, and she would be his in full.
    “You will not be permitted to keep me.” She spoke softly, but clearly.
    “You are wrong,” Hades said. “I am lord here. My word is law. None grant me permission. I do as I will. And outside of my realm, sweet Persephone…” he bent to brush a kiss against her temple, “none know that I have taken you. To the world above, you have simply vanished.”
    *****
    Persephone caught her breath as his words sank in. Vanished, without a trace. The earth had opened up and swallowed her. She had been alone; no witness to her abduction existed except the sky above. She swallowed the lump in her throat and whispered, “Why?”
    His arms caged her in a loose embrace. He didn’t pull her closer. Yet. “Why did I take you? I am a king without a queen. I chose you.”
    “I will not be yours.” But she couldn’t bring herself to break free, to draw away from him. The heat of his body drew her. She wanted to warm herself against it. She could almost imagine herself blossoming for him as if he were some dark sun and she a rare night-blooming plant like his orchid. Her nipples brushed his chest, and the thin satin felt like no barrier at all between them. The thought of standing before him naked heated her from the inside.
    He gave a low laugh. “You already are.”
    Could he sense her reaction to him? Did he know the curiosity he aroused? Did he know, oh gods, that her body warmed to his?
    “Return me,” Persephone said again, but this time her tone was unsteady, her voice a thread of sound.
    “No.”
    She licked dry lips. “After.”
    His eyes burned like dark flames. “After?”
    “If I go to your bed…if I give myself to you, will you let me go, after?” She forced the words out, forced herself to be clear and not flinch.
    “You think once will be enough for me.” His arms tightened around her, and she caught a sense of power barely contained. “You think I want only to be the first to claim you. Do not delude yourself, my sweet. I will be your first, your last, and your only. No man will ever have you but me. And I will never let you go.”
    “Please.”
    “Ask me anything else.” Hades drew her inexorably closer, by degrees, until her breasts were flattened against his chest and her body molded to his. His hands slid lower until they cupped the swell of her buttocks and pressed her hips tighter to his. She could feel him hard and engorged against her belly. The evidence of his desire made her tremble. And tempted her. To see, to touch…would he undress for her, display his dark, masculine beauty for her? Would she be allowed to explore his turgid shaft with curious fingers, to learn the shape and texture of him before he buried himself inside her? “All that I am, all that I have is yours for the asking.”
    He had set his mind on her. But men’s minds were changeable. He saw her as a prize, but once she submitted to him, he would tire of the game. Even if he did not, it was absurd. He would never be allowed to keep her. And she did not belong here, in this strange world he ruled.
    And yet.
    What would it be like, to sprawl on that huge bed with him? Beneath him? Could they satisfy their mutual curiosity with no harm done, no one the wiser? Could she satisfy this odd yearning he awoke in her, this ache?
    Being Hades’ cast off lover would hardly interfere with her life. He would send her back to where he had found her, and she