Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I steel myself against the rush of arousal and approach the bed.
With the fire crackling and the rustling of the sheets, I can imagine her here. She turns over in my bed. There’s a sultry sinful look in her dark eyes, filled with lust as she peers back at me. The innocence is still there as she pulls the silk threads to her chest and her pouty lips, slightly swollen from pleasuring me, slip open at the sight of me towering over her.
My Persephone. My Queen.
Her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths.
I know her so well. Every curve of her body already. For months I have watched her as she slept. I have been in her dreams, cloaked in darkness.
A deep groan of discontent bellows up my chest. The voices of warning hiss at my impatience.
She will be mine in every way. Every possible essence of her will bear my mark.
Time, the warning echoes in the back of my head. In time…she will be yours.
In time.
I come back to the present hell, my forehead cool against the glass, and straighten. My realm stretches below the window, but it is empty.
Oh, it is filled with souls. Bursting with souls. There are too many of them. The balance has been thrown off.
But without Persephone, it is empty.
The crackling of the fire in the grate sounds like a mockery now. It’s taunting me with the idea of Persephone in my bed. Desire so fucking strong that being without it could be the end to me.
I back away from the window and fold my arms over my chest. Cerberus pads to my side, sitting close so that I can reach his heads. I stroke each one in turn, biting back wave after wave of emotion.
This is what has to be done.
I knew it would have to be done when all of this began.
And it began, as so many tortures do, with Zeus.
He wanted Persephone weak, and then dead. He offered her to me as my Queen for he did love her, but he feared her more than he cared for her.
So he poisoned her. Even knowing him, I am stunned. How much time is left?
I am too selfish, and too stubborn, to let that happen so easily.
Minox enters and before he can speak I command him, “Take her in the night. Go now.”
“My Lord–” Minox begins.
“Aphrodite has opened the realm. She made a deal with a demon. I cannot enter but you can. You must. Tonight. No more time can pass.”
“My Lord… I have never ventured to Olympus. If caught…
“If caught, you will die. If you do not return with her this evening, I shall kill you myself. You will go. Now.”
I will have Persephone as the Goddess she is. I cannot allow Zeus to harm her.
Present day
I cast my intention in the obsidian wall, in which her power lies:
With a hand against the cold crystal I pray: Let her recover from the poison that had seeped into every part of her. Give her the time and space and guidance she needed to discover the powers within. Bring her back to me. Let her grow in my realm as Zeus did not allow her to do in Olympus.
From my realm, I cannot see her, and that causes me more grief than Zeus can possibly know. I stare up at the sky, which has been splitting and raining down souls for days, and imagine that I can speak into Hekate’s ear despite the distance between Olympus and the Underworld.
“Do not fail me, Hekate,” I call to her. “If Persephone does not return to me, Demeter’s reign of death will be met with my reign of destruction.”
For the good of all and to the harm of none
May vengeance and justice be a healing path
May it be quick; may it be severe
May we all receive what we deserve
May it be screamed for all to hear
So mote it be
His in the Fire, book 2, coming 2026.