Somehow, I did have the courage to join him at his table that night. He was waiting for me there, and turned to watch me as I took my seat. I expected him to tease me about our kiss, and I fantasized about him catching my hand as I passed and pulling me onto his lap. I took a deep breath and shook the thoughts out of my head.
What had become of me in the dark?
"We're returning to Olympus in six hours. Zeus has summoned a meeting of the Olympic counsel to settle...this," he announced.
This. I didn't know what this was anymore. Things had become a tangled web of laws and politics I wasn't privy to. I knew my mother was raging for my freedom, and that Hades was drowning with the prospect of returning to his life in solitude. And for their obsession with drama, I was sure the rest of the pantheon had their own interests in the mix.
"Are they going to take me back?" I asked.
"I don't know," he replied. A beat passed, and the question hanging between us that would settle this once and for all: Are you going to let me go? I didn't ask. I didn't want to know his answer.
"No matter what happens I hope you will consider returning. We could always begin a passionate affair," he teased to break the tension, but the idea was too strange to laugh at.
I couldn't imagine myself married off to another god and still returning to Hades like this. A husband didn't fit in our picture of dining together and the things I felt when I looked him in the eyes. And I hated the idea of sharing his bed while I was pledged to someone else. Our first night together would be rushed and secret, dictated by the moment I'd be yanked back home by some imaginary chain.
"Apollo wouldn't notice, and Ares would disfigure me for that," I said.
I shouldn't have said such a thing out loud, and I didn't know what I expected him to say. Perhaps another quip about the gods or even anger towards them. But Hades's eyes were unbelievably sad as he watched me across the table.
"I'll always be here if you need me. Only call my name."
"I can't ask you to protect me—"
"I don't care about their laws. I care that no one hurts you," he said. "No matter what happens tomorrow, I'll always be a friend."
My throat tightened. "I'll always consider you one."
I wanted to tell him that I would be there if he needed me too, but that obviously wasn't true. Hades didn't need me to protect him from the other gods, he needed me to stay. And that was something I couldn't promise.
"I have been thinking about when you told me you wanted to take the vow of the huntresses," he said finally.
"I remember. That was quite the conversation."
"I realized that was after I told you that Ares and Apollo were vying for your hand," he continued.
"Yes," I replied quietly.
It seemed like the only way out of the marriage prospects Zeus was apparently arranging, and it was why I had been so angry with Hades. If I crossed that line with him, I would throw away my only chance at maidenhood. And if Hades decided he wouldn't marry me after all, then I would be at the complete mercy of Ares and Apollo. Worse, the lesser gods who had no accountability not to abuse a tarnished bride.
I couldn't sleep with Hades out of wedlock. And the decision of whether I wanted his touch badly enough to pledge myself to him forever was quite possibly the scariest of my life. But I knew that if I didn't have him, I didn't want anyone else.
He ran his hands over his face, and finally peered at me with a look of resignation.
"I would do anything for you," he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"I'm sorry for that," I said.
"Don't be," He stood to go and I watched him through teary eyes. It was the first time he had left the table first. He paused in the doorway and I knew this might very well be the last time we would be alone in a room together again.
"I love you, Persephone. More than I love myself or anything else. I need you to know that no matter what happens tomorrow and no matter how much time passes, I will never forget about you," he said softly.
And then he was gone.
STAI LEGGENDO
Hades and Persephone: A Fated Love
Storie d'amore"You can have anything you want," He plucked the ripest for me from the tree. "Everything in my world is yours." With all of my mother's warnings, I had been afraid to eat from his table or drink his wine. These were binding things, and I would sta...
