Page 126 of Hell On Earth
With my hips pressed against the tile, he reached between us. He took what I offered, but it wasn’t the paradise I’d been led to believe. I cried out in pain as he groaned in pleasure.
My nails bit into his skin as I struggled to breathe.
“Yes. You are mine,” he said, moving.
A whimper escaped me. He howled and changed, growing larger. The view of his wet red skin as I tore in a million ways burned into my mind.
I gasped in gulps of cold air at the remembered pain and Hades' anguish when he’d realized I hadn’t been making happy sounds as he’d thought. And I remembered everything after. His care as he’d healed me. His desperate pleas to allow him to make it up to me. I’d believed him.
He tried a thousand times to show me the beauty of loving another, but there was never any joy in it for me. Only pain. So much pain.
I stared at the god who’d promised to give me the world but had given me nothing but misery and darkness.
“No, never again,” I said. “Take me home.”
“I vow I can bring you joy. One more chance, I beg of you.”
“Have I not bled for you enough? Return me to where I belong.”
He silently snarled in frustration and ran his hands through his hair.
“You are where you belong,” he said.
“No. I belong in the light I love with my gentle mother, who I haven’t seen in months. Return me, Hades. Now.”
“You are mine,” he bellowed, making the ground shake.
“Yours?” I said with a scoff. “I belong to no one.”
“By Zeus’ decree, you belong to me,” he said angrily. “You are mine.”
“You lie.”
I cried into the snow as the memories came rushing back. Hades hadn’t lied. Zeus had sold me, ripped me from the world I’d loved, and condemned me to Hell so he could retain the power he had.
With each blinding flash of pain, more memories were unlocked of a life I never knew I’d lived. And with each one, the hate for Hades grew. He was relentless in his pursuit of me and bargained at every opportunity to win another chance to bring me pleasure. All I ever found was pain, though…until I started giving it.
Oh, the joy I felt seeing Hades in anguish.
I laughed against the snow and slowly righted myself, once again in the mortal world I loved. A fury, one of Hades’ favored daughters, fought with Thanatos nearby.
My hate and anger swelled. I would make the god of the Underworld suffer formypleasure through her.
She jolted hard and looked away from Thanatos. Our gazes met across the clearing. I saw the surprise in her eyes, followed by the rage, and smiled.
“Eliana!” she yelled. “Stop me.”
Eliana…the name struck a chord, sending a shard of pain through my right eye and into my head. I whimpered, and the ground shook violently beneath me.
Aphrodite, a goddess who’d never given me any consideration, stepped in front of me to block the fury. The goddess wrapped her arms around the detestable creature as if hugging her.
“Confess,” the fury demanded.
I laughed.
“To what, abomination? To taking the joy from your life as it was taken from mine? If you have issue with your fate, speak to your father.”
“Breathe, Megan,” Aphrodite said.
