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)
But then Persephone's chin comes down. She does not pull her neck out of my hand. She does, however, change the angle—it’s a subtle resistance.
"No," she says, and lowers her eyes. That’s not a subtle resistance in the least.
Disappointment chills my heated needs.
Perhaps she does know what she’s doing to me. Perhaps even her tears and her hunger are purposeful and calculated. That sends a frisson through my body. It’s not doubt. More a recognition of how powerful Persephone could be if she would give me a fraction of her trust. I wouldn’t need much to awaken what I’m sure lies within her.
I wouldn’t need much at all. Only a sliver of an opening. In all honesty, I had thought Persephone would break quickly. I want to know how long she can resist—the curiosity grows every minute—but I want to be finished with the facade that she’s not going to give in at all.
She will.
She has no other choice.
I shouldn’t give her another chance to change her mind. I shouldn’t find myself willing to bend at all. This game we’re playing won’t be won more easily if she sees me as someone weak myself.
I cannot be weak. It is not the God I am. And I certainly won’t be weak with her.
“No?” I question, in spite of the strongest instincts telling me to remain silent. To give her nothing that would make her think—
Persephone lifts her eyes to mine. For a moment, it’s there—that fire, that light.
But just as quickly, it fades back into bleak darkness.
“No,” she says, and refuses to say anything more.
PERSEPHONE
Surely he did not capture me so that I may perish. The Lord of the Dead knows more than others what is to become of a Goddess who no longer has life within them. Nothingness. That is what I offer him if he merely offers me this. He can turn me into nothing and that is what he will have. I will offer him nothing more.
When Hades realizes I’m not going to say another word, his eyes go black. A deep void of power that lies in the depths of his iris. It consumes me as I stare back. As if seeing through him.
It is clear he thinks he’s hiding his feelings from me. The desire and the need to have his hands on me. It is clear what he wants of me.
I do not know him. I do not know how he lives. I do not know how the Underworld was before I was brought here.
But I do know that the small twitches in his expression are a mirror of his mind.
He releases my throat, and I gasp in a breath. The lack of his palm on my throat feels like an immediate loss. I reach up and touch the place his fingers were.
My heart beats fast and hard. His footsteps retreat from me, and I hold my breath again, my mind filling with questions. Will he turn around and come back? Will he move me to the bed? Will he bend me over it, locked in his chains?
Will he lose his patience?
Most importantly the question riddles in the back of my mind: Do I want him to?
There’s a push and pull within me that’s far too dangerous. Like playing with fire. But the bedroom door opens, and then slams, and there is silence all around me once more.
I’m alone. Nothing. I make myself nothing.
I remain still, all my senses tuned to the door. I no longer hear Hades’s footsteps. He has not called out to anyone. He does not seem to be waiting at the door, ready to come back in for me.
After a minute or two, I let my shoulders slump. I massage the rest of the heat from Hades’s palm out of my neck.
I regret it once it’s gone.
The windows that Hades threw wide open have been closed part of the way. There’s enough space to let in the blustery air, and it keeps the room cold. The room is dark as well, though I can’t tell if that’s because I am losing hope or because they are meant to be dark.
It’s black outside the windows as well. Late at night. It seemed like Hades was gone for weeks, but if I do my best to remember, there was daylight, and then darkness.
Should I keep track of the days and the nights? A prisoner… I’ve conceded that I am in fact a prisoner.
My muscles ache and my bones crack as I get up from the rug and move around the room, my legs shaking with weakness. I cannot find anything to make a record of the days.
I pause at the table and dig my fingernail into it until it makes a scratch.
While I wait to gather my strength and go back to the rug, the scratch vanishes as if it were never there.