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 chains will keep her here. My power will keep her here. Her submission will keep her here and yet offer her everything else. Power, the entirety of the Underworld with every pleasure. No longer asking anyone, not even myself, for permission. My cock twitches with the excitement of unleashing her. Of watching what she will do and what will become of those who dare defy her.
I swallow thickly and again a near growl vibrates up my chest. Persephone stirs at the sound and I find myself in a new form of torture. One that offers both delight and despair that I must wait for such things.
I pace around the room, my body demanding movement.
When I arrive at the side of the bed again, Persephone begins to stir in earnest. Her long eyelashes flutter on her cheeks. They are fragile, those thick dark lashes, but they are relentless, wanting to let in the light. She makes a small sound deep in her throat. It sounds like an unconscious protest against waking.
Fuck, every little detail of her is divine. Her gorgeousness lost on all the worlds. I give gratitude that she is mine.
Grateful that she will rise.
In my kingdom.
Here, with me, where she will stay forever. Possessiveness lights my blood aflame and the embers of fire dance in the ashes of the fireplace on the far end of the room. Quickly I extinguish them with a wave of my hand. My magic and powers barely contained.
The room itself lacks warmth from the action and I watch as the chill greets her fair skin and she shivers, pulling the sheets up higher as if they can protect her.
My heart has barely settled from the satisfaction of Persephone’s arrival, but now it races faster.
Open your eyes, I order her silently. Open your eyes and let me see into the darkest parts of you…and the brightest. Let me see all of you.
I nearly raise my hand, I nearly make it a command. But I resist. I mustn’t control her. The Fates have warned and being so close to having what has plagued me in loss for centuries, the warning hisses in the back of my mind.
There is so much more to see. I am sure that beneath her smooth, creamy skin, a heart like none other beats. The thin gown she wears tumbles over her thighs, pushed up in her sleep. I do not touch the fabric, though I want to.
She will never know of this torture, none can conceive what stirs within me.
With a steadying deep inhale, I attempt to control the desire. It is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. In fact, it is beyond desire—it’s lust. A deep, unquenchable lust that renews itself like the souls in my kingdom. There are always more souls, and I will always want her more and more and more until I cannot want her any more.
I have not approached that limit. I haven’t even come close. There is only my self-control left, and once I let go of that—
There will be nothing to hold me back.
Because she’s here.
In my possession.
She’s mine.
At that thought, Persephone’s eyelids flutter open, wide and full of shock.
Thump. Her heart beats with mine, both heavy, both of us still apart from the strain of blood rushing through our veins.
And so it begins.
I’m desperate to touch her, and I do not feel desperation often. I wrap the helm of darkness around me, and it covers me in a void that swallows all the light, rendering me invisible. It is almost a living thing, an extension of myself. More an echo of my power than a tool. Within the darkness, I have control.
I command everything about her life now.
Can she feel it, even as she wakes? Can she feel the depth of my control?
Wrapped in darkness, I approach the side of the bed.
Her pale blue eyes are wide and steadily watch me, although her body remains still. Panic drifts from her frail body. Fuck, the power she gives me in this moment is heady.
If not fueled by fear, I would drink it in.
“Persephone,” I murmur, tasting her name. Uttering it out loud for her to hear what it means to me. Her mouth rounds into a shocked o. She gasps, then bites down on her lip, attempting to control herself. The sheets rustle as her fist tightens around the cloth.
Her self-control is nonexistent in comparison to mine. Persephone is a lovely thing. Young in the world of the Gods. Pure. Untouched. No matter how much she wants to rein herself in, she will not be able to do it for long.
I relish the idea of breaking her. Of teaching her the art of control.
I relish it even more against this display—against her attempt to have some power, even as she lies in chains forged from my power.