Persephone Remembers the Pomegranates_A Short Erotic Romance Inspired by Greek Myth Read online

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  PART TWO

  Excerpt from The Wolf’s Lover

  THANK YOU!

  MORE FROM SAMANTHA MACLEOD

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  To Joe and Liz, with love.

  Part One

  I WAS YOUNG WHEN HE found me.

  Young, beautiful, and haughty, in the way only young and beautiful girls can be. I’d played at kissing with the dryads, when they could be persuaded to appear, and I’d learned to flirt with Apollo and Hermes, although they were both far too upstanding to be much fun.

  In fact, I’d spent the previous day kissing one of the dryads, a handsome, robust oak spirit named Elatus. He wore a beard; the stubble rubbed my face and made me giggle. His kisses made me burn. He ran his hand down my waist and lingered on the cleft between my legs until I was wet and gasping, crying out for him.

  “We can do more than kiss,” he growled, as his teeth closed around my lower lip.

  Oh, how I wanted him! My entire body sang for his touch. But at that moment, with his tongue in my mouth and his hand up my chiton, I remembered my mother. How she would rage if she found us, if she realized what I’d allowed to happen.

  She wanted me for Apollo. Being young, I was inclined to agree with her, although Apollo was so perfect, so distant. I could scarcely imagine kissing him, not like I kissed Elatus in the shade beneath his oak tree. Marriage to Apollo was an abstract concept, a contract drawn up by others while I was not present.

  Don’t get me wrong. I loved my mother then. I love her even now, but even now I fear her temper. Even with my body burning under Elatus’s touch, fear of her rage stopped me. I pushed him away, shaking my head. He pulled my hand to the hot bulge between his legs, but he was respectful. That was the end of our kissing.

  Looking back, I suspect he also feared my mother.

  IT WAS A HOT DAY, THE day I first met my husband. I wanted to be alone, along the seashore, so I wandered far from my companions Artemis and Athena. They were my companions in name only; we were hardly friends. I was young, they were ancient. I was burning with life’s fire, driven to explore it all, while they were as remote and isolated, each in their own way, as Mount Olympus.

  Besides, they were sent to watch over me by my mother.

  It wasn’t that I was seeking contemplative solitude, exactly, on that hot and humid morning. My desires were far more carnal. Alone, hidden by the trees, watching the ocean sparkle in the heat, I moved my fingertips down my body, tracing the lines Elatus’s hands ran the previous day until I dipped beneath the hem of my chiton, finding the wet cleft between my legs. I rubbed myself, slowly, tentatively, the way Elatus had done while we kissed, until my breath caught in my throat and I had to close my eyes—

  My secret, hidden grove filled with a gust of cool air. It felt so good against my hot skin that I sighed as I opened my eyes, a shiver running the length of my spine.

  There was a man watching me. He was tall and pale, his dark hair falling to his shoulders. His eyes burned with a strange intensity, and his full lips curled into a smile. I gasped, pulling my hand from between my thighs, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. I’d thought I was hidden, here. I’d thought no one could find me.

  I didn’t recognize him, not then. I later learned he’d gone to great lengths to make himself as attractive as possible. He needn’t have bothered. I always found him attractive. In any state.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he said. His voice was resonant and strangely thick. I did not yet recognize the sound of his arousal, the way it made his strong voice even deeper.

  I smiled. As I said, I was very young.

  “I don’t think I know you,” I said, coming to my feet. He was quite tall; even standing I came only to his chest.

  “Forgive my intrusion, then,” he said. “I am Hades.” He bent and took my hand in his, kissing me gently.

  I shivered as his lips touched my fingertips. Hades. Of course I knew who he was, but he was nothing like I’d expected. The man in front of me did not seem stern or fearsome. And he was not cold, oh no, not at all. His lips against my fingers made my entire body burn.

  “Am I dead?” I whispered, my breath catching in my throat.

  He smiled and moved his lips to the inside of my wrist, covering my skin with his soft, warm kisses. My pulse hammered against his mouth. His lips traced the length of my arm, making my skin flush and my nipples harden under my chiton. He felt so good I was half convinced I’d imagined him, that by bringing my hands to my sex I’d somehow summoned this gorgeous man to satisfy me.

  He stopped once his chest was next to mine, and he turned to smile at me. “No,” he whispered. “You are not dead.”

  My body curved to fit against his, and I met his dark eyes. My hand traced the length of his arms, feeling the strength of his muscles beneath his cloak. His body trembled slightly under my touch, and he sighed softly, almost imperceptibly.

  “May I kiss you?” he asked.

  I nodded. My heart hammered against the cage of my chest and heat poured off my body, slicking the space between my thighs. Without speaking, I leaned into him, tilting my head to meet his. His lips were cool against mine, his body stiff as I wrapped my arms around his waist. He yielded as I embraced him, moving his hands up my back, opening his mouth to welcome my tongue.

  I’d thought I had kissed before. I’d thought Elatus had given me all he had, had kissed me in all the ways a man could kiss a woman.

  I was wrong.

  Hades’ kiss was gentle at first, soft and sweet, opening to me with shy hesitation as I explored him. I rubbed my hips against his, enjoying the feeling of his body against mine. He moaned inside my mouth, his kiss changed, became wild, became hungry. He pressed into me as though he wanted us to fill the same space, to share the same skin, as though he’d die if he couldn’t taste me. His tongue filled me, sending shivers down my spine, and his fingers gripped my hips, clinging to my body.

  He stopped suddenly, pulling back as though I’d hurt him. He stumbled backward and I reached for him, grabbing his wrist.

  “Don’t go,” I said, breathless.

  He took a deep, jagged breath. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Of course not,” I said, tilting my head to meet his lips again.

  This time he ran his fingers through my hair as we kissed, and his hand trembled. It was the tremble that convinced me, I think. That, or the way he gasped into my neck when we pulled apart. Yes, I thought. Yes, this is what I want.

  I pulled away from his hungry mouth, panting. He watched me, those bright eyes burning in his pale face.

  “I want to do more than kiss,” I whispered, my body trembling under his hands.

  He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me. He rested his head against my neck, and his warm breath on my skin made me flush with heat. But he said nothing, and my heart trembled. Had I been too forward? Mother always called me wild...

  “Would you..?” I asked, turning to face him. “Would you like that?”

  He smiled at me. His smile was like the sun cresting over the sea, and I thought I could stare at it forever. I wondered, for a heartbeat, if I’d been enchanted. I’d never before found a man so irresistible. There was a hunger about him that drew me in like a bee to
a pollen-laden flower.

  “Nothing would bring me greater pleasure,” he said as he bent to kiss me again, his soft lips light and delicate against mine.

  But my heart sank as I remembered the reason I’d stopped Elatus. Nature is my mother’s realm; anywhere we went, she could find us.

  His kisses traced the sensitive skin along my neck, and I moaned, a strange, low, animal noise I’d never made before. My stomach tightened; a flood of heat rushed between my legs. Yes, I thought again. Yes, him.

  “I have somewhere we can go,” he whispered, his lips almost caressing my ear. “Somewhere your mother can’t see.”

  I moaned again as his fingers tightened around my waist. I could feel the hard heat of his manhood through our clothes, pressing against my body, and I wanted it. I wanted him, all of him. Now!

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes!”

  HE HAD A CHARIOT, A great black chariot leaping and dancing with blue flames. It might have terrified me once, but his hands held my arm as I climbed to the seat, and I was not afraid. I suppose we must have vanished through a cleft in the earth, descending to the underworld. We must have crossed the River Styx, gone past the great three-headed Cerberus.

  I noticed none of it. Once we mounted the chariot, he pulled me onto his lap and pressed his lips to mine, and all I remember of the journey was the way he made my body burn. My legs wrapped around his waist, my chest pressed to his, and I could feel his arousal throbbing against the loose weave of my chiton. His breath caught in his throat as I moved my hips against his. As I ran my fingers down his back, his body responded to my touch, my lips, my fingers, as though I were the driver and he the chariot.

  I didn’t even notice when the chariot stopped. I was kissing his wrist, feeling his pulse hammer jaggedly beneath his pale skin, listening to his gasping breath. And then he caught my chin in his hand and turned my head to face his. He kissed me and, as he kissed me, he stood, lifting me. I let him carry me, feeling his strong body move beneath me.

  He walked with me until we were in a great, dark room, a room filled with burning candles and the heavy scent of flowers, lilies and roses. It was a room, I would slowly realize, that had been prepared just for me. A room filled with things he imagined I would enjoy, with flowers I loved, with fabrics that would feel good against my naked skin.

  But at the moment all I cared about was him, his lips and fingers and hands, his hard body against mine. He lay me on the enormous bed in the center of the room, and then he followed me down, his hand traveling up my robes for the first time.

  I gasped as his fingers danced over my inner thighs. But he hesitated before my sex, running his fingers lightly over the curls of my hair without pressing, without entering. His hands pulled back my chiton, slipping the fabric over my hips and off my shoulders until I lay before him naked and trembling. Only then did he remove the himation from his own chest, revealing the pale lines of his muscular abdomen and strong arms.

  I knew what men and women did when they were naked. I’d seen it often enough, with the animals. Athena and my mother explained it in cold, clinical detail. Both of them emphasized the pain I’d experience my first time, and the drudgery I could expect after that. So I hesitated, my breath catching in my throat when I saw his hungry eyes.

  His brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “What happens now?” I said, and then I cringed at the sound of my own voice. I sounded like such a child.

  He smiled. “Now, I kiss you,” he said.

  I sighed, relieved. I thought I knew kissing.

  Once again, I was wrong.

  His lips started on my neck, caressing the sensitive skin beneath my ear, and his breath on my collarbone made my entire body shiver. Then he traced my shoulders with his lips, his tongue dipping to the hollow in my clavicle. His lips moved to the swell of my breasts, taking one nipple gently into his mouth, cupping the other in his strong hand. I moaned again, that strange, animal noise, and his teeth closed gently around my hardened nipple. My hips began to rock of their own accord; I was losing control of my own body, first my voice and now my pelvis.

  His lips traced a line of kisses between the swell of my breasts and down my navel, down to the delicate mound of hair between my legs. I gasped as his head dipped between my wet thighs. I’d never known you could be kissed there.

  And, oh, when he kissed me—

  My eyes closed as heat and pleasure rocked through my body. His lips and tongue moved inside me, and my hips swayed under his touch, rising and falling, coming to meet him. I didn’t know my body could burn like this, could feel so good. I lost the ability to speak, my voice a rough stream of moans and cries and then near-soundless whispers of, “Yes, yes, yes...” Don’t stop, I thought. Don’t ever stop. The room spun as he brought his hand to the crest of my sex, pressing gently.

  And my body exploded.

  I shook under his touch and flooded with heat, my breath pressed out of my lungs, my mind a blank red emptiness. I thought for a moment that I had died. Then I took a deep, jagged breath and opened my eyes to see him next to me. Yes, I thought. Yes, him.

  I reached for his neck and pulled his face to mine, kissing him deeply. I tasted myself on his lips, salt and a touch of distant sweetness. I kissed him until my body began to burn again, and I felt his lips curl into a smile.

  “Persephone,” he said, his voice rough. “I would make you my queen.”

  It would be easy to say I was not thinking clearly. I’d just traveled to the underworld; I’d experienced my first orgasm, and already my body was again curling around his, crying out for more of him. His lips were warm against my neck, his hands on my waist. It would be easy to say I was blinded by lust and the warm, spicy scent of his body, by his smile and his dark eyes.

  But that would not be the truth.

  I closed my eyes, and I took in his words. I weighed the life he promised me against the life my mother offered, the life my mother created for me. Wife of the sun god Apollo. Resplendent in royal garb, sitting regally in Olympus. Turning a blind eye to my husband’s dalliances in the white columned hallways of the gods, my body and smile as cold and distant as the snow-capped summit of Olympus.

  I brought my fingers to Hades’ neck and twined them through his black hair. Yes, I thought. Yes. Him.

  “I would be your queen,” I whispered.

  His fingers traced my cheek as his body shifted, moving to cover mine. I could feel the hot throb of his sex along my thighs, and I trembled, half from desire and half from fear of what was to come.

  “Open your eyes,” he whispered, and I did.

  He smiled at me as he bent to kiss my neck, his fingers sliding along my thighs. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t scared, but there was something beyond the fear, some deep and nameless urge that made my hips toward him, that made me spread my legs to accept the weight of his body on mine. I knew it would hurt, but I was hurting already, I was aching with an emptiness I knew he could fill.

  He moved his fingers inside me first, pressing his thumb against the apex of my sex, my body rocking with his hands. He rubbed his hand against my sex until I was ready to beg him for more, and then he moved above me, pressing the head of his cock to my slick opening.

  “Are you—” he began, panting.

  “Yes,” I moaned, spreading my legs beneath him. “Oh, yes!”

  We both held our breath as he entered me. My back arched beneath him, my head braced against the bed, my body opened like a flower, waiting for him. Waiting for my husband.

  Of course there was pain. For a moment I almost cried out, afraid it was impossible, that he could never fit inside me. It felt like I was being torn apart. Above me, Hades hesitated and began to pull back. I grabbed his hips, his absence almost as painful as his first entry.

  “No,” I growled. “No, don’t stop.”

  Above me, the God of the Underworld bit his lip. His body trembled, and his breath came in uneven, shallow gasps. I could sense his hesitation
as he pushed his body to mine. And then he was inside me, fully inside me, and the pain subsided in a wash of red pleasure. He moved slowly, carefully, his hips as gentle as his lips had been.

  “You fit,” I gasped. “You—ohhhh...”

  He smiled, circling his hips against mine, and I lost the ability to speak. I could feel him, could feel all of him, rocking inside me. The pleasure built again, and I wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him into me. I crested the waves of red heat and sensation again and again, hardly aware of anything more than his hands around my body, his cock buried deep within me. The entire world narrowed to our bodies, burning together, to his eyes locked on mine, to the place where we became one. Until the entire world dissolved again, my body spasming around his hard manhood, my mind completely erased by the force of my orgasm.

  He cried out above me, surprising me, his face a wide O of shock. His body shuddered against mine and then fell still. He collapsed on my chest, panting, his face hidden between my breasts, and his shoulders began to tremble. I heard the first choked sob as he tried to turn away.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, my own voice catching in my throat, afraid I’d somehow hurt him.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice thick, tears tracing glittering tracks down his cheeks. “I hurt you.”

  I smiled at him. “Husband, I knew what to expect.”

  It was the first time I used that word, and it seemed to unleash the flood of his tears, an outpouring of sorrow and loneliness and rage pent up for centuries. I held him as he sobbed, rocking him like a child, kissing the tangle of his dark hair, running my fingers along his strong shoulders.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered to the God of the Dead. “I’m here. I’m yours.”

  It was the moment I became his wife.

  It was the moment I became his Queen.

  I WOULD NOT LET HIM leave the room for three full days. We lay together in the bed, sleeping, talking, devouring each other’s bodies. I learned much about my husband during those first days of lovemaking. I learned how to make him tremble and gasp. I learned his taste and smell, the curve of his neck, how to kiss the hollow of his collarbone. I learned I could stop him in mid-sentence with one look, with a hand placed on the inside of his thigh. And I learned to love every part of him, from the muscles across his back, to his strong calves and thighs, to his hands that could be so gentle against my skin.