He kept saying those words repeatedly until he pressed my face to his chest, his hand once more at the back of my head, holding me close to him.
“You’re here with me. You’re mine, and that’s all I care about anymore. You’re all I fucking care about.”
“I killed him.” Although I’d been shocked that I’d done what I’d done, I felt nothing but this deep, satisfied sensation. It was like turning that last page and finishing a book. “All these years you had to hang on to all of it. I’m so damn sorry that it made you hate yourself, to seek pain, to think you only had one option.”
I pulled back and he let me, but had his hands on my waist, his fingers digging into my hips. “I killed him and I’m not even sorry I did it. I wish I could do it again.”
“Baby. God, my sweet girl.”
“I wish I could’ve been there. I would’ve protected you, Hades.” He exhaled so sharply it was as if I’d knocked the breath right out of him. And then he leaned down, resting his forehead against mine.
“I love you. I love you so fucking much. I’m not worthy of having you, and I know you deserve so much better, but I’m too fucking selfish to ever let you leave me. I’drip my heart out for you. I’d fucking serve it on a platter and let you see me take my last breath if it made you smile.”
He cupped my cheeks and looked into my eyes.
“And I’ll prove to you for the rest of my worthless fucking life that one day Iwillbe worth your love. It might not be until I’m on my deathbed, but one day I’ll prove it to you.”
Although he wasn’t crying, which was something I didn’t even think he was capable of, he sounded choked up, and the anguish on his face was tangible. “Don’t you see?” I rose on my toes and was the one to kiss him now.
We were both breathing so hard, the pressure in the room heightening to where I felt the hair on my arms stand on end. He held me tightly, closely, and I knew he’d keep his promise to never let me go.
“I’m yours,” I whispered. “I’d much rather be in hell with you than in heaven with anyone else.”
Epilogue
Persephone
Iwas pretty sure I was good in the smiling department for the next year, but I pasted on another one as I stood in front of the backdrop they had set up for the graduating class, while Sophia’s parents took pictures of us together.
Over the last year, my life had been turned upside down, and I didn’t know how things would work out. I’d been afraid, heartbroken, and drowning in grief.
I’d had to become someone new, had to grow up even though I was already an adult. I never thought I’d be a person who would ever take matters into my own hands. I’d been sheltered my whole life, and I had been okay with that.
Until I wasn’t.
Until I had to change in order to survive.
I didn’t ask what Hades and Bruno had done with Michael after we’d left the room. He’d brought me to the room I’d been sleeping in, sat me on the bed, and kissed the top of my head. Then he said to stay there and he would handle it.
I’d been there for an hour before he returned. I didn’t want to know how they disposed of the body, and felt panic rush through me, not because I ended a horrible man’s life, but because I didn’t want the legal repercussions that came along with such a dark act.
But nothing had happened. The days blurred by, and things felt… normal. Well, as normal as they could, given the situation and all the things that had transpired.
I saw the news reports, headliner stories about how Michael Cronus had passed away peacefully in his sleep after a battle with a long illness.
My gaze sought the one man who’d shown me that sometimes you had to become someone else in order to make things better.
Hades stood off to the side, his three-piece suit making this air of power surround him. He was an intimidating force, a head taller than even the biggest man here.
People stayed away from him, as if he were a droplet of oil and they were water. They could sense the danger in him.
But when I looked at him? I saw the man I was in love with, the one whom I shared a bed with, whom I gave my body to.
He was a person who covered himself in dark, angry shapes and lines to take back control after the abuse he had experienced.
And I traced every single one of those scars with my fingers, kissed them so he knew that they didn’t matter, that I didn’t think he was any less because of them.
That I knew he wasn’t ruined or broken.