Well, that was true, and since it was no secret, he let his hands trail up her sides and to her breasts. He loved them—their fullness, their weight, the color of her hardened nipples. He wanted them in his mouth, and though Persephone inhaled against his touch, her hands stilled his.
“I want to talk, Hades.”
“Talk,” he said. “I can multitask…or have you forgotten?”
He sat up, and Persephone’s arms wrapped around his neck while he lowered his head to tease her nipple through the fabric of her nightshirt. Meanwhile, his hands moved up her naked thighs.
“I don’t think you can multitask this time,” she breathed, her fingers twisting into his hair. “I know that look.”
“What look?” he asked, pulling away with the intention of lavishing her other breast with just as much attention, but Persephone clasped his head between her hands.
She might be able to stop his mouth, but his hands continued his exploration, moving beneath the hem of her dress, skimming up her sides.
“You get this look. The one you have now. Your eyes are dark, but there’s something…alive behind them. Sometimes I think it’s passion. Sometimes I think it’s violence. Sometimes I think it’s all your lifetimes.”
He said nothing, but he felt every word she spoke and knew they were all true. His hands tightened around her waist, and as he moved to kiss her, she spoke his name, but whatever she intended to say was lost as his mouth closed over hers. He rolled so that she was beneath him, parting her lips with his tongue, kissing her deeply before shifting, trailing kisses down her neck and over her breasts, but he was halted by Persephone, whose thighs clamped down on his waist.
“Hades. I said I wanted to talk.”
“Talk.” It wasn’t as if they hadn’t managed a full conversation during sex.
Then she spoke, and what she said drained the heat from his body. “About Apollo.”
Fuck Apollo, he thought as he sat back on his heels. Why was he suddenly haunting his days? First Leuce and now Persephone?
“Tell me why the name of my nephew is on your lips.”
“He’s my next project,” she said, as if that explained everything, but Hades felt agitated to the point that his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. Apollo was not the kind of god one turned into a project, and if project meant what he suspected—that Persephone hoped to write one of her articles about the God of Music—the answer was no.
She seemed to see his frustration and continued in an attempt to convince him. “He fired Sybil, Hades. For refusing to be his lover.”
He was not surprised. Apollo’s response to rejection was revenge.
Spurn Apollo once, and never again.
Which was why Persephone could not write about him, but even as he looked at her, he knew this was going to be an argument. He could see the flash of determination in her eyes. She wanted to change Apollo, but Apollo was power, and power did not necessitate change.
Hades left the bed. Once again, he needed a drink.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I can’t stay in our bed while you talk about Apollo.”
He was honestly surprised by how triggering it had been to hear her speak his name, but perhaps it had something to do with Leuce’s return. She was a reminder of Apollo’s fury, and Hades could only think that if given the chance, Apollo might continue to execute his revenge.
Persephone pushed off the bed and approached as he poured himself a drink.
“I’m only talking about him because I want to help Sybil! What he’s doing is wrong, Hades. Apollo can’t punish Sybil because she rejected him.”
“Apparently he can,” Hades said, glancing at her as he took a slow sip from his glass.
Her features hardened and her eyes turned a vibrant green. Her glamour was burning away, which was how he knew she was truly mad.
“He has taken away her livelihood! She has nothing and will have nothing unless Apollo is exposed!”
But his frustration was growing too, and he drained his glass only to pour a second. He started to drink this one too but paused, staring at the amber liquid, one hand braced against the bar top, knowing that what he said next would just exacerbate the situation.
“You cannot write about Apollo, Persephone.”
“I’ve told you before, you can’t tell me who to write about, Hades.”
He set the glass down and turned to face her. He felt like a fucking giant, towering over her, yet she just seemed to grow braver.
“Then you should not have told me your plans.”
He regretted those words as soon as he spoke them. He was glad she had shared her intentions, but would she again given how this was turning out? He wasn’t so sure.
“He won’t get away with this, Hades!”
Her fists clenched, and he could sense her magic awakening beneath her skin. There was a part of him that wanted to reach out and touch her, urged on by his own magic, which always seemed desperate to tangle with hers.
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” he said, realizing that he had to change his approach or she would never see reason. “But you aren’t going to be the one to serve justice, Persephone.”
“Who, if not me? No one else is willing to challenge him. The public adores him.”
And they always had.
Apollo was the golden god, the light bringer, the epitome of youth and male beauty in ancient Greece. He had numerous temples built in his honor and even more today. His most basic role was driving away the darkness—something all mortals feared. He was their hero, the representation of everything good in their society. If they let themselves see the bad, they’d be forced to acknowledge the cracks in their own world.
And no one wanted that.
“All the more reason for you to be strategic,” he said. “There are other ways to have your justice.”
She glared at him. “What are you so afraid of? I wrote about you, and look at the good that came out of it.”
If she was referring to their relationship, that would have been achieved by their bargain without her scathing articles, though he could admit that her words made him want to prove her wrong, to be better, and some good had come from them. The Halcyon Project, for example. But everything else was a thorn in his side, especially the public’s obsession with both of them.
“I am a reasonable god,” he said, though Persephone raised a brow at his response. “Not to mention you intrigued me. I do not want Apollo intrigued by you.”
Her features softened for the first time since they began this argument.