Destroyer of Light by Rachel Alexander Page B

He’d given her time to think it over and consider its meaning.
    “My love?” she said, tentatively breaking the lingering silence. Her voice came out meek and small. “Are you alright?”
    He smiled softly at her. “More than you know. Because now I can finally speak the words I’ve been longing to say since the moment I met you.”
    “What would those be?” she whispered.
    “I love you, too.”
    She felt her cheeks and eyes burning hot. It wasn’t until her vision wavered and she felt teardrops fall onto her peplos that she realized she was crying.
    “Why are you weeping, sweet one?”
    “I don’t know,” she smiled, brushing a hand across her cheek. It was futile. The levee had burst and everything she’d held back for days streamed down her face in a torrent. “I don’t know why I am when what I feel is… relief. I can’t explain it. I haven’t felt this since I— not ever! Not even when I lived in the world above. I’ve never felt so…”
    He reached to her and brushed away another tear.
    “…So free,” she said and reached up to hold his hand. “I love you. I waited to say it, and I’m glad I had time to think on it, but… Aidon…”
    Persephone said nothing more. His lips were already on hers, slowly savoring her. Aidon kissed the corner of her mouth, where one of her tears had trailed, and brushed his lips across hers to peck at the other corner. He drew back and looked at her, his eyes warm, rare flecks of gold appearing in his dark brown irises.
    He looked away from her and smiled broadly. She placed her hands on his chest and he looked back at her, both their eyes swimming. Aidon grasped her at the back of the neck and pulled her lips against his, sampling them before canting his head and feeling her open to him. She tasted like sunlight.
    Persephone hummed softly and Aidon brought her closer, wrapping his arms around her and feeling the room itself tilt, losing himself in her. He wavered between staying here to enjoy this moment or carrying her to their bedroom to celebrate this revelation more fully.
    She decided for them. Persephone grasped at his robes and stood, bringing him with her, then pulled at his himation until it dropped around his feet.
    “What would you have of me, my love?” he whispered against her lips.
    Persephone stopped and flushed pink. “I… want to hold you.”
    “To hold me?” The corner of his mouth twisted up.
    “It’s… such an uncomfortable angle here on the divan. I thought we would… be more comfortable, that is, if—”
    He chortled at her stumbling words. “Are you sure that’s all?”
    “I— Yes,” she said, not meeting his gaze.
    “Why so shy? We’ve lain in that bed many times over.”
    “It’s just very… everything feels heightened right now.” How could she put it into words? When they were, as Aidon had phrased it several days ago, merely friends and lovers, she had no hesitation at all. Half their encounters she had initiated herself, much to their mutual delight. Her chest felt heavy and her throat closed again, tears forming before she could speak. “I don’t know. I feel… exposed.”
    Aidoneus nodded and held her closer. “I understand.”
    “You do?”
    His mouth remained set, but his eyes smiled. She gathered at once that this was how he had felt after his declaration burst out of him the day she arrived. That such a time spanned between their confessions made her heart ache.
    “My sweet Aidoneus, I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t apologize—”
    “I was scared. I thought if you knew you’d won me that you would lose interest and abandon me, the way Zeus did to my mother,” she said warily, and saw an incredulous half smile quirking the corner of his mouth.
    “Can the sun find its match in anything but the moon? Can the heavens lose interest in the earth?” Hades pulled away from her and stroked her cheek. “Can death exist without life?”
    She looked away from him. “But, I waited so long…”
    “No you