Radiant Darkness by Emily Whitman Read Free Book Online Page B

whisper of breeze in the storm's lull. "That's when I knew you'd never take me with you. And I realized that's what I wanted all along."
       How dare he smile? The storm whips up again. I step closer, my fist raised to pound on his chest, and now I'm shouting at him: furious, humiliated, devastated by my loss.
       "So you've been playing with me, that's all! Waiting for me to ripen, like a plum, until I was ready to kiss you—or more!—and then you'd be gone. As if I were a toy! A game! That's it, isn't it? Well, isn't it?"
       He doesn't answer, just grabs me. And then he's pressing into me, wrapping me in arms as strong as bronze, and his mouth is on mine, hot and hungry, filling me until everything else disappears—the meadow, my anger—and this is all I want. It's all I want forever.

    "Persephone." His voice is soft and deep and endless. "I came here for one reason only: to ask you to be my queen."
       He runs a broad hand down my back, and when it's at the base of my spine, he pulls me even closer. He chuckles softly in my ear. "Do you know how hard it was for me to wait? I wanted to toss you in that chariot the moment I saw you and finish convincing you later."
       Yes, I think. Kiss me now; convince me later.
       He tilts his head so he can look in my eyes. "But I couldn't. You had to know me first as a man, not a god. Because you have to choose to come with me. Otherwise your power might not survive the crossing, and I'd be a fool to risk losing that. I want all of you."
       "My power?"
       I must look confused. He gently loosens his hold.
       "Let me show you something."
       He raises a hand and points at a tree by the meadow's edge. In front of my eyes, the tree turns brown: leaves shrivel and flutter and fall in piles, branches crack and shatter on the ground, the trunk collapses into fragments and dissolves into swirling motes of dust. A few seconds, and it's gone.
       Two brown leaves settle near my feet.
    Hades looks at me carefully. "That's my realm. Death."
       I pick up one of the shriveled leaves and rub it between my fingers.
       "But you!" he says eagerly. "You have the opposite power, a bursting green energy, the power in the fresh shoot just starting to uncurl."
       I shake my head, but he keeps going.
       "Together, we make the cycle complete. And that means more power than either of us has alone. No, I don't need a sophisticated goddess, and neither does my realm. I need you."
       He lifts my hand and unfolds my fingers. The edge of the leaf is tinted with the slightest shimmer of green.
       "But that happens all the time," I protest. "It's just the vale! The power you want, the energy—that's my mother, not me."
       "Does your mother have these eyes?" he asks, his hand near my temple. I shake my head. "This lithe body?" The hand runs down my side. "This mouth?" His finger traces my lips. Again I shake my head.
       "Then I'll take my chances," he says. "Because you're the one I want."
       The next kiss sweeps the world clean away—his arms enveloping me, his breath filling me, the feel of his skin and his mouth and his beard and his hands. . . .
       "Come with me now," he murmurs in my ear. "Be my queen. I'll set a golden crown on your raven hair."
    A crown? Me?
       He sees my expression and laughs. "Don't worry. Ruling is easy. I'll teach you." He pauses, then adds, "But there is one more thing I should tell you. When you come, there's no returning to Earth. It's forever."
       Forever. I don't like that word.
       "I don't see why," I say. "Hermes crosses back and forth when he wants."
       "Not when he wants; when he has souls to guide."
       Abastor snorts impatiently. Hades glances up. He puts his arm behind me and turns me firmly in the horse's direction.
       "Some things I can't control," he continues. "I can't come to Earth whenever I want, either. The rules stretched so I could fetch you home; they won't bend