Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
The woman wrenches free, and the first man—the one who was there in the beginning—catches her in his arms. Comforts her.
None of it seems to be a comfort. There is blood on her lips, and she lets out another shrill scream. The other two men have not stopped touching her. They’re cutting her. Hurting her.
“They wanted to play and scared you?” the first man murmurs. I do not know how I can hear him so clearly when he’s speaking into her ear.
“No,” she sobs. “I said no. He covered my mouth when I tried to scream again.”
In an instant, he viciously murders the two who harmed her. Ruthlessly, with a heavy stone in his hand, the crunch of their skulls and the screams almost muffled.
Shock keeps me still, but so does Hades grasp. Vengeance. Is this a room of vengeance?
Every time I blink, the image before me changes. It looks real, and close, as if I could reach out and touch her skin, just as she touched me. The first man leans down between the woman’s legs and pleasures her, sucking at her clit until she cries out from pleasure. Her lover. Unlike the other two.
She is comforted and loved by him so. Is this a room of heaven or hell?
The man between her legs lifts his head and gives her clit a final lave of his tongue. The woman throws her head back, sobbing, or coming. Maybe she is doing both.
He gets to his feet. “Kiss her for me, will you?” he tells another.
A fourth man materializes out of the shadows. He takes his place between the woman’s legs and continues licking her, but she doesn’t look at him.
She watches the first man, who walks calmly to the two men who had drawn so much blood.
He slaughters them. As if they were not already dead. Chokes the life out of them. One by one, they fall to the floor and lay still. My pulse is a hammer in my ears. I can hardly catch my breath. He brings them back to life, only to kill them once more.
My breathing picks up at the realization. All the while the woman is pleasured by another, watching her lover commit murder.
I notice, as if I’m coming awake for the first time, that Hades’s hand is on my shoulder.
“Is this heaven or hell?” I breathe the question and he laughs, low and pleased. “I love that you have to ask. I suppose it depends on who you are and what your soul is made of.”
I tip my face to his, lost for words and lost for thoughts. What has come over me? Something I’ve never felt before seems to rise in this room. Like magic of fate… like a piece of my soul has found something it was long searching for.
Something it didn’t know existed and yet it knew it was missing.
Hades does not push me away as I gasp. As I stare into his eyes wondering if he knows this feeling that’s come over me. Slowly, ever so slowly, he kisses me, and his mouth is the only thing that feels real. His lips hot and soft. His touch even hotter. My head goes light and my legs weak as I stand in his embrace.
It’s over too soon and I didn’t have a moment to even realize what was happening. When he releases his touch, I blame the halls. There are too many rooms, too many visions, and I cannot make sense of them.
It takes a moment for my vision to clear and for me to realize what happened.
The feelings evoked in me are visceral. They’re overwhelming and electric. I do everything I can to ignore them.
The lights flicker beyond my vision as he puts his hand to my face and kisses me deeper.
When I pull, we’re back in the hallway outside his rooms. I glance up, and one of his guards is looking at me. He meets my eyes boldly for a second or two, then looks away.
I have the sense that I’ve travelled a long way. A vast, unthinkable distance. I wobble a bit on my feet, and Hades steadies me.
“This way,” Hades says simply, leaving behind what happened as if it didn’t. My body trembles as I close my eyes and steady myself. What have I done?
I think he will leave me in his rooms, but instead he leads me down another corridor, the guards following closely, too close for my liking.
We pass through an archway that reminds me of the many caverns of heaven and hell, and I shiver as we go across the threshold. Some of the things I have seen remain vivid in my mind. Others feel more like dreams, as if there’s not enough space for my memory to hold them. There’s not enough in me to hold onto everything I’ve seen today. How does Hades do it? Lord over all of this? I watch him as we walk and wonder what occupies his mind as he ventures the halls and creates their reality.