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)
The next time I offer the glass, Persephone slaps it out of my hand.
I’m delighted—the speed of the slap, the daring act—but I don’t let it show. My heart pumps furiously with heated blood and my cock presses against the fabric of the trousers beneath my cloak.
She is not prepared for my speed, or my reaction. My hand wrapped around her throat. The feel of her blood pumping beneath my touch is everything. Fire to my blood. I keep my grip close enough to her chin that she cannot lower her head. Persephone’s eyes are wider now, and her breathing shallow. Her eyes narrowed with the same hatred as before. They darken and flash with such determined defiance. I can feel every heavy pound of her heartbeat. Persephone swallows. Yet her body remains still. Tense and still.
“You are going to eat,” I tell her, my voice soft as I lower my head to hers. My lips so close to hers. “Because your soul will never leave. You have no choice but to be mine.”
Thump. Thump. Our hearts compete for the symphony that is silence.
Persephone narrows her eyes. Her lips part. She wets her bottom lip with her tongue, every little movement seemingly erotic. I could kiss her until she was panting and begging with need. I could slip my fingers in her mouth and tell her to suck. She may bite me and I would fucking love it.
I continue before she can say a word. “There is no way out of the Underworld.” Persephone’s expression falters. “No one is going to save you but yourself…by choosing to fight.”
She blinks, the fear in her eyes turns to a deeper shock, and then denial.
“How can you fight with your powers so weak and your body even weaker?” I have her with that statement. Persephone confirms that this was her question with a tiny, involuntary flinch.
I offer her something no one else did. How could they, when they were so unaware of how she’s been suffering. “I will teach you magic. I will give you everything…including your powers back.”
The corners of her lips turn down, and her eyes soften.
“I know you’ve suffered loss lately… have you not?”
She stays silent at my question, merely observing me.
“I can make them come back.”
“You can’t—”
“I can save you from your fate if you give in.” Thump. Thump. The air turns tense between us, a flash of heat and a knowingness that this moment was meant to be.
Persephone swallows again, the movement delicate under my hand. Ever so delicate. I will think of this when I’ve left her again. I will think of that gentle movement, and how her bare throat calls for me to squeeze.
If only she knew what pleasures can be had from submission. If only she would let herself understand.
She watches my face so carefully, like she used to do when I came to her in dreams.
“There are things I can teach you, that you could use for your own survival. For your own reign.”
Her chin comes up a little. The barest of bits. Our faces are so close that I could take her mouth without the slightest effort. At this range, with my hand around her throat, I can read the truth in Persephone’s heartbeat and even the set of her lips.
I want nothing more than to bury myself within her. The pleasure builds within me.
The tension between us is thick and strong, like the currents that pull the spirits to the Underworld. They are connected to the earth and to the Gods from the moment they are born, and they never see the threads that bind them to the beginning and the end of their lives.
Her neck is hot in my grasp. I cannot take my attention from her pulse. My mouth waters with the nearly uncontrollable urge to feel her skin beneath my lips and teeth. Persephone is like a storm about to break. She has no idea how beautiful she would be in her submission, and her power. It is only a matter of time until she bends to my will.
She must be able to feel that. It is the pull of the thin golden strings. I’ve tied the two of us so closely together. She cannot escape it.
I want her cold body, warming under my touch. Blood throbs in my cock, but I ignore it, choosing instead to breathe her in. To study her as closely as she is studying me.
The will in her eyes is mesmerizing. I stay very still. Persephone could accept me in this moment. She wants the power I can offer her, and the knowledge. If she would only let those desires guide her.
I hold my breath in anticipation. It's so close. The moment is within reach.
If she would only give in to it. If she would only give in to me—