Hot as Hades by Alisha Rai Page B

I…you know. Immobilized him.”
    “And it worked? He couldn’t get free?”
    She tried not to preen under the obvious admiration in his tone and face. “Ahem. Yes. Anyway. He’ll be free soon, and then he’ll take me away. You know that none of us have any choice about me going back.”
    She didn’t mean for it to be a question, but he nodded anyway. “Yes.”
    A deep inhale. “Let me come here again, Hades.”
    Poker face gone now, clear misery was written all over him. “I can’t leave the world vulnerable to breaches, Sephie. Only those who belong here are supposed to come. Traveling back and forth is against the rules.”
    “Except for you.” She clenched her hand around the black rose, turning her palm up and opening it again to display two black orchid blooms. Edible orchids. “Let me belong here.”
    He ignored her offering and continued to stare into her eyes. “You would be stuck here forever if you eat those.”
    “This is your world. Your power. You told me I should make my power my bitch, manipulate it as I see fit, that I was the only one who should place limits on it.” She extended her hand to him. “Give me some of your power, the ability to come back and forth. Give me the option of seeing you again. I know how territorial you are about this world. Give me your trust and believe me when I say I won’t abuse it.”
    He searched her face. “You could destroy my world.”
    “I could.” Not a promising reaction, but she continued to hold out her hand. “You could destroy the mortal world, which needs me, by tricking me into staying with you for all time.”
    He swallowed, this big, strong god suddenly nervous and unsure. “I wouldn’t ever do that.”
    “I know. And I won’t hurt you. Or your world.”
    As if in slow motion, she watched his palm come down over hers, sealing the flowers between them. The slight tremble in his fingers touched her heart. He waited a minute and then took his hand away. “It’s done.”
    She looked down at the flowers, beautiful but innocuous. “That’s it?”
    “Yes.”
    The trust went both ways, she realized. He could very well have done nothing, and this could be trickery. No god would fault her for refusing to eat the flowers.
    But she would fault herself. She quickly ate both of them as he watched her, eyes hooded. Nothing happened. “I don’t feel any different.” No, wait, was that a small burst of warmth in her belly? She pressed her hand against it.
    “You may not. But you now have an all-access pass to the Underworld, Sephie. If you should wish to come back, ever, simply think of where you’d like to be, and your power should do the rest.”
    She didn’t miss the qualifying if . “I will be back, Hades. Six mortal months to this day, at midnight, I’ll be standing here again.” Six months should give her time to figure out some way to calm Demeter and make provisions for the mortals who needed her.
    “I’m so glad you’re having fun planning your next rendezvous, however you plan on accomplishing that,” Zeus spat as he stalked into the room. “I definitely won’t be helping.”
    “I don’t need your help.” She stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed Hades on his mouth. “Be good. Don’t flay too many souls while I’m gone.”
    “They always deserve it.”
    “I know.”
    Hades grasped her hand. “Six months, Sephie.”
    “Six months.”
    “By the way, you were created from a shard of Gaia’s power.”
    She froze. Gaia? The Earth? She was created from the freakin’ Earth? “What?”
    “You son of a bitch. You promised,” Zeus squawked.
    “I lied,” Hades replied easily. “They didn’t want you to know because they worried you would become too strong.”
    “Gaia…” she said, touched by reverent awe. “Truly?”
    “Truly.”
    “That’s amazing.”
    He squeezed her hand. “You’re amazing.”
    “If we’re done here, can you move your ass, Persephone? I’m so fucking ready to get out of this place,”