DIVINE - A Persephone and Hades Retelling

Streams of light seemed to dance through the open window, just beginning their descent to earth with the early dawn. And there they laid, wrapped together in the early morning light. There was nowhere else they would dream of being. Her fingers lightly traced patterns on his chest, and he reveled in the contact.

“Our story started how every great epic or love story starts; with just a girl and a boy.” She smiled up at him through the darkness, as all pretty girls do. The faintest suggestion of last night’s dream sparkling in her eye.

He knew he would never see anything as beautiful as her. “Just one boy and just one girl,” he whispered kisses across her rosy shoulder, traveling up to her neck. “If only it was that simple.”

“A girl who was nothing more than a fragile little thing who grew into a queen.” Her smile lightly touched her eyes, but her words stung him. He stopped to look at her. Her eyes were closed, giving him a moment to count the freckles dotting her face.

“And a boy who saw that she needed no crown to be powerful.” He corrected her. He watched as her eyes fluttered open, and again she smiled up at him the color of the sun. “So tell me, our great epic, how does it end?” he asked. Her knowing eyes twinkled with the allowance of the morning light.

“How all epics should but never do.” She whispered the truth that they both knew well. “With a girl and a boy, separated by a tragedy only to overcome all else to be together.” There was no humor in her words, yet still, a small laugh made its way to her lips. With it, his heart leapt to its rhythm. “To live out this tragic life, a little less tragically. To love, to live, to laugh, to stumble, but to always do it together. Our story has yet to finish, my king. But oh, am I looking forward to the journey.” He could no longer resist the urge to kiss her beautiful lips.

Attraction was too tame a word.