The Death King

by Jovee Winters

I’d called him my lesser, but it wasn’t true, and I knew it. I was more physically powerful. That was fact. But Hades was pulling a spell over me, just as he had before, and I knew that if I gave in again, I would be lost for good.

  “When will you realize that I am not your enemy? You say you are alone, but you never were. Always I’ve kept my eye on you, waiting for you to grow stronger, waiting for you to become form again, waiting. Always waiting, but always watching. Always making certain that you were safe, that you were sane and as well as could be expected. Yes, you’ve suffered a trauma, but bloody hell, woman, so have I!” he snapped, and I shook, awed by his fury.

  He was like a regal male lion, majestic, powerful, and so bloody dangerous to my sanity and my health. I wet my lips, completely awed by the male before me.

  His skin was sparking, turning that golden shade the rest of his pantheon’s did when the god power rode them hard. But his body was rolling and curling with snapping blue flame that made me hiss as it licked at my flesh and made me undulate—not away from—but deeper into him. I moaned as that beautiful and deadly fire spread from his hands to mine.

  But he was not done yet.

  His face was a mask of fury, and my soul flowed through me in wonder to watch his divinity take him so.

  “You think you were the only one who suffered? Blast you! I’ve been dead inside, dead!” He slapped powerfully at his chest, causing the very earth around us to boom and roll with his own fury.

  I gasped, delighted and hypnotized by the deadly grace of the male before me.

  If he had been dead before, he certainly wasn’t now. I wasn’t the only one creating. He was too. Jagged outcroppings were ripping up from the earth’s crust, but these weren’t just any rocks. They were raw gems of sapphire, rubies, and amethysts. And they were covered in the golden shells of my creatures. We were building a city of water and rock, and it was all so beautiful that I couldn’t stop looking at what we were doing together.

  I’d not been able to do this before, make something this beautiful, this… perfect.

  He continued pounding on his chest, bringing my tear-filled eyes back to his. “I am not right without you. Whoever you are, whatever you are, it is only for you that my soul yearns. I cannot be without you, Thalassa. Don’t you understand that yet? Don’t you get that? You think I lie. You think I trick you. Well, damn you to the bloodiest pits of Tartarus for it! I’ve never wanted a thing in my life, not in my entire life, save one. One thing.” He stuck his finger in my face, his own contorted into a mask of righteous fury that stole the very breath from my lungs and made me burn, made me sizzle. “You. You and your harridan tongue. Gods above, I’ve never wanted anything more than you. And since you never seem to believe a bloody word I say, then here. Here is your proof!”

  And without giving me a moment to wonder what it was he was about to do, he slammed his hands to my cheeks, and I felt the godhood flow through me. He was ripping me open and pouring himself into me. It was an invasion of the most intimate kind, and I screamed as I felt it all.

  The pain of our separation. His agony. How he’d wailed and gnashed his teeth in the first days, marching down his halls, screaming out for me. Tearing at his body with his large, powerful hands until he bled. Then the rage morphed into something colder, something more sinister.

  I watched as that strong and powerful god became a husk, a shell of his former glorious self, sitting on a throne of black-stained skulls, staring straight ahead as ice and snow swirled all around him, lost to the world, looking so alone and so bewildered.

  I jerked, shaking my head because I saw it, finally. He understood it completely, the agony of feeling adrift, of feeling abandoned and betrayed, the pain of it all.

  And then the impossible and agonizing joy of finding me again only to note that I was no longer the woman I’d once been, the woman he’d kill for, the woman he’d die for.

  I watched it all, crying the entire time, confused and scared. Scared because I didn’t know what to make of this or of him. Scared of what I felt now. Confused by what this meant for me, for us, for all my future plans.

  When it was over, he was looking down at me and shaking his head. His voice was a throaty, shivery whisper as he asked, “Have I no choice then? Is there no hope at all?”

  He was cracking before my very eyes, and I was so bloody sorry. Sorry for hurting him as I had, sorry for wishing him such pain for so long. I was terrified out of my mind, even as I dared to touch him again.

  He flinched away for a split second, and I pulled my hands back as though burned. He looked down at my fingers, which were no longer tipped in claws, and he groaned from deep in his belly.

  “Oh, my darkness,” he murmured almost tenderly, “if you touch me, let it be with love and only love. Otherwise, leave me be, for I ache all over and do not think I can stand anymore of this agony tonight.”

  I blinked, biting down on my lower lip. I wanted so badly to trace my fingers along the perfect smoothness of his sides where I’d just stabbed him not too long ago. He’d healed as I’d known he would, but I was so unforgivably sorry for it and wished I could take it back, wished I’d never harmed him in any way.

  I’d done it to try and push him away, my last pathetic attempt to rid myself of the one thing I knew would spell the end of the me I was right now. But it had been a vain and futile gesture because if he’d abandoned me, I’m not sure I would have allowed that either. I was drawn to him just as I’d always been.

  I wet my lips, staring at the space where I’d punched my claws through him, watching the shredded edges of his shirt undulate through my waters, mournful and ashamed by my actions. And yet, even still, he wanted my touch, but only if it was done in love, and the truth was that I didn’t know if I loved him.

  I was drawn to him, pulled in. But was that love? I did not think so.

  I only knew one thing. “I do not hate you, Hades. I’m not sure I ever really did.”

  His nostrils flared, and I realized distractedly that he and I were floating. The waters had become so deep that they rivaled the deepest trenches of Seren itself. With a snap of my fingers, I created a massive oyster bed that we could share.

  He glanced down, one brow raised sharply as he noted, no doubt, that there was more than enough room for the two of us to rest upon it quite comfortably. He looked at me, and I looked down at my feet.

  I owed him an apology, but I was too raw right now, like a wound that’d been picked open one too many times.

  I’d felt the depths of his agonized love for the woman he’d once known as Calypso, and it hurt me deeply.

  You and I are still the same. You just have to accept that. Accept me…

  I felt that same powerful wave I’d felt in the first days after the curse shoving at the walls of my head, wanting in, demanding that I let it in. But I was scared and unsure. If I let that wave in, what would become of me? Would I even still be me? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything.

  I clutched at my breast. “I… I do not.”

  I clamped my mouth shut, breathing heavy, not even certain what it was that I’d meant to say. It was all a jumble of noise and confusion in my head. So, so many thoughts rolled one on top of the other. I hugged my arms to my chest, feeling tiny and weak and exposed.

  “What is your favorite color, Thalassa?” he asked deeply.

  I gasped, caught quite off guard by that innocent and not very pertinent question. “What?”

  He was so beautiful sitting there, staring at me with his big, star-lit eyes that were now so clear blue they could rival the glassy waves of my calmest waters. And again, I felt myself drawn to him like a moth toward flame. He would spell the end of me, I just knew it. And yet, I was no longer sure it would be the worst thing in the world.

  For so long I’d grappled with only pain and darkness as my constant companions. But now there was something else, something lighter and indescribable. Something that made me hope and wonder and dream.

  My hand
s curled impotently in my lap.

  “Color?” he asked again softly.

  I blinked. “Purple. I love the color purple.”

  Swallowing hard, he nodded his head, but remained silent after that, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to understand why he’d asked me such a trivial question that did not matter.

  But the thought of opening my mouth to speak made me feel like I was suffocating, like I couldn’t breathe right. All my plans for destruction, for ending the reign of the petty and lesser gods would die completely if I took this next step. I was at the crossroads, and I had only one choice left.

  You think ending them will bring you joy. But, Thalassa, I was never weak. My love for Hades, and his for me, was what made me strong. Made us strong. Learn him. Know him. And then you’ll understand. Then you’ll finally awaken to the truth. Love is the most powerful force in all the realms, in all the worlds. Aphrodite taught us that. You only have to believe. Just believe…

  She was so close to the surface that I could almost feel her like a tangible presence. I was shocked to discover that she wasn’t the weak-willed hag I’d thought her to be. I could feel her power, and it was stunning how strong it was. She would completely obliterate the me I was now, obliterate this violence in me, I knew. Deep down, I just knew it. Calypso would come back in, and that would be the end of me.

  I took in a choppy breath, shuddering it out with my release. He wanted her, and I was just in the way of their happiness. I closed my eyes, my long lashes flickering upon the tops of my cheekbones.

  No one really wanted me. They never had. This part of me had always been too dark, too wicked and full of hubris and violence. It was why she’d drowned me out in the other life and why she would do it to me again. I could have destroyed them all and reclaimed what was rightfully mine, but with just a few words, this lesser—no, greater—god had destroyed me completely.

  I clutched at my stomach, butterflies diving and swarming my insides, making me ache, making me want. I looked at his profile, mouth tipped down in a soft frown. I should give her back to him.

  I wasn’t one for acts of kindness, but then, I’d never really liked anything enough before to want to bother. My throat felt tight and hot.

  “What… what was her favorite color?” I asked softly, so softly I was sure he’d not hear me. But his neck whipped around, and he stared at me as if I was something foreign and strange.

  “What?” he asked, voice a deep, shivery tremble.

  I shook, feeling heat and warmth and other more powerful, deeper things start to slink through me. The wave in my mind was growing stronger.

  I’d made my choice. I was tired of being alone, tired of hanging on to so much hate and rage. I looked him square in his eyes, trapped like a fly in amber, and felt a rolling spark of something new and dangerously addictive beginning to wind through me.

  “What was her favorite color?”

  Dark, thick brows lowered, and he gave his head a slight shake. “Why would you want to know that? You’re not her. That’s not what I’m trying to do to y—”

  Unable to bear his gaze any longer, I hung my head and stared at my dainty ankles as I whispered, “I am not as unlike her as I might have led you to believe, Death.”

  I saw his entire body still, saw his broad shoulders become as boards and his spine turn rigid and inflexible, saw his flesh blanch to nearly bone-white, and my soul quickened. He truly did love her. It was so bloody obvious to me now that I almost smiled to see it.

  The wave in my head grow louder, fiercer.

  I was dual-natured, and I was about to lose myself to her. I knew it, but I was strangely okay about it all. Hating something was too exhausting and painful, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be so full of hate and rage anymore. I didn’t think I wanted to be alone anymore. If I destroyed the golden ones, I would be hurting him, and I no longer wished to hurt him. More than that, I would forever be alone, then. I would ruin any chance I had of knowing him or of him knowing me. And I wanted to know him. I desperately wanted to know him.

  He was the one thing that I truly never wanted to hurt again.

  “What. Do. You. Mean?” he asked me slowly, each word enunciated oh so carefully.

  He was like a caged tiger gearing up for the strike, the way he held himself so still.

  I shook my head. “I… I don’t know,” I admitted softly. “I don’t know. But I think that your female was far stronger than even she imagined. Even now, I feel her, Hades, deep within me, fighting to break free.”

  “How is this possible?” His voice was a thread of sound, full of hope and burning with agony. “She said she could not—”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand it. She did not lie to you, you know. There are two very distinct sides to me in this body.” I closed my eyes, shuddering.

  If I let her in all the way, I would lose me. I had been born alone, and I would die alone. It was not me that Hades wanted. It was her. And she was just as desperate to get back to him.

  But all the rage and anger of the past few months had me weary to the bone. I did not want to be mad at him anymore. In fact, I wanted something very different now.

  His thumb was pressed to my chin, and he was turning my face toward his. I could no longer hide from him because he saw me. He was seeing me and not just Calypso trapped within me, but me, the me sitting here on this oyster bed with him as life continued to form a brand-new world of wonders all around us.

  Emerald-scaled fish burst from the waters in a symphony of motion, as if in tune to my pleasure, aware that I was altering, becoming more, bigger, better.

  I clutched a hand to my throat, so scared of what he was doing to me without his even trying to. Just simply by being him, he was altering me, changing me. I should hate him for it, but I didn’t. I just couldn’t.

  I’d spent the last of my anger with him.

  I shook my head. “I did not know, Hades. I simply didn’t know.”

  He swallowed hard, and I knew he understood what even I wasn’t sure I meant. But there was a peace in his gaze and a warmth in his smile that I felt, deep in my bones, was meant for her alone.

  The wave in my head was encompassing me, growing and spreading. There was no way to stop it now, not anymore.

  My shoulders wilted, and the pain of the past months was turned quickly to soul-deep exhaustion and sadness. I’d spent so much of my time drowning in hate that I didn’t know how to handle not hating.

  He shook his head, his eyes still searching mine. “Oh, my beloved female,” he murmured tenderly as he drew me into his arms. “Ask me anything you wish, Thalassa, and I will tell you everything. Anything.”

  “Why? Why would you still care about me after all I put you through? Why would you do this?” I asked, even as I rested my cheek against his chest, hearing the silence of a still and empty chest, just like my own.

  But I swear it was weird, because somehow, I felt like I heard the beating of our hearts. I’d never heard it before, but it was like the very second I’d decided to let him in again was the moment I heard the first beat of us.

  It was small and barely a teeny bump of sound, but it was growing with each second that passed.

  Boom.

  Boom.

  Booooom.

  I felt the wave growing within me, felt it surging faster and faster. I closed my eyes and drank in the scent of him, dark and cool, exotic, and so bloody appealing that I felt drunk on him.

  I planted my palm upon his chest. The exhaustion was making way for other things, deeper and richer things. My body was starting to ache, and I was drawing closer and closer to him, practically crawling onto his lap, and he let me.

  “Her favorite color?” I whispered.

  He chuckled. “Purple, Thalassa. Purple like my favorite stone was what she always said.”

  11

  Hades

  I could not begin to describe the sensations coursing through me—wonder, awe, and complete and total shock. No
t even Aphrodite had known that Caly was still in there. I wondered if Calypso had known she would be, or whether this was a shock to all of us.

  Thalassa was so unlike the female she’d been the first day I’d been with her, which now felt like ages ago rather than the three days it actually was.

  She was talkative and she laughed. There was still an edge to her that had been missing with Calypso, but like a butterfly bursting forth from its chrysalis, she was a completely altered woman, as if the shackles that had held her bound were free.

  She was beautiful, and I was falling all over again, deeply, completely. She consumed me in her fires, and I reveled in the burn.

  I held her tightly, my hands clasped around her waist, basking in the sensation of her luscious, pillowy breasts pressed tight to my hard chest. If this had been our other time, I’d have laid her down, stripped her nude, and given her three, four, five orgasms with my tongue and cock by now.

  Her desires had been as ravenous as my own, and our sexual romps had been exciting, adventurous, and experimental. Whatever she’d wanted me to do, I’d done and had found myself enjoying some rather odd requests more than I’d ever thought I could have.

  Playing with carrots had always been a favorite of ours, oddly enough.

  But we were learning one another all over again, isolated in this oasis of light and wonder we’d built together, trapped in a cave filled to bursting with exotic gems and fish I had never seen, with heads shaped like puppies and eyes that burned red and were large and lovely and could be terribly wicked if it wanted to be.

  She was smiling, and so was I. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.

  “Tell me, Thalassa, if you had one desire, one wish above all else, what would it be?”

  She grinned and pushed back on my chest, even as her thumbs continued to rub hot circles on my flesh, making me feel dizzy and breathless as pleasure and desire coursed like hot lava through my veins.

  Her look was shy and innocent, and stars above, she was glorious. I bit my bottom lip, and the pupils of her dark eyes flared wildly, making me throb all over.