Goddess of Spring (30 page)

Lina glanced down at herself. She had forgotten that she wasn't wearing her forty-three-year-old skin. She was young and lithe and in such amazing shape that she could probably eat Godiva chocolate non-stop for days and not have to worry about zipping her jeans.

“Goddess?”

Lina looked up to see all the maidens watching her with openly curious expressions on their pretty faces. She probably looked like a moron standing there staring down at herself.

Lina smiled, straightened her shoulders, and let her legs begin walking again. “I was just admiring the . . . uh . . .” She looked down again, “clover in this meadow. It's lovely, don't you think?”

All of the heads nodded energetically, reminding Lina of dashboard ornaments.

“It is our special meadow. We like clover and green, growing things, so it has arranged itself to please us,” the first maiden said.

“Well, I like it, too,” Lina said, joining the circle.

You begin in the center.
Her internal voice directed.

Lina took a deep breath and moved to the center of the circle. Then she did the only thing she could think of doing. She closed her eyes and concentrated. The music filled her and automatically her body began to sway. Her arms raised themselves and she spun in a slow, lazy circle. The music was wonderful. It reminded her of something wild and feminine. Her body matched itself to the music as she began to trace intricate steps with her long, supple legs. Her hips turned and swayed. Her arms painted images in the air. She wasn't a forty-three-year-old baker. She wasn't a young goddess. She was the music.

Lina opened her eyes.

Faces glowing with pleasure, the maidens circled around her, trying to match her movements. They were beautiful and many were obviously talented dancers, but the difference between their mortal dance and that of Persephone's was clear, even to Lina. Persephone moved with the inhuman grace of a goddess. Lina's heart swelled with joy at the power she felt within her. This must be how a prima ballerina felt at the peak of her career. She leapt and twirled and shouted with joy.

She could have danced forever, but one of the maidens stumbled and then collapsed into a laughing heap in the middle of a bed of clover. Soon after, several of the other girls were obviously struggling to keep up the dance. Lina quelled her disappointment, and with a glorious final twist and flourish she brought the dance to an end. While the girls cheered and clapped, she sank into the deep curtsy of a prima ballerina. Then the spirits surrounded her, gushing their thanks and asking when she would return to frolic with them again.

As they giggled and talked, Lina tried to unobtrusively search the background for Hades. She found Orion and Dorado first. They were grazing contentedly not far from the pine tree that had served as their finish line. Her eyes traveled back. Hades was standing under the tree. He was leaning against it, his arms crossed nonchalantly and his body relaxed. But his eyes were bright and his hot gaze was locked on her. His lips were tilted up in just the hint of a smile. When he saw that she was watching him, he slowly raised his hand to his lips and then gestured toward her, as if sending her a kiss.

It was the most unabashedly romantic thing that a man had ever done for her.

“Well, ladies, it has been wonderful to dance with all of you. We'll have to do it again very soon, but Hades and I must move on,” Lina said, extricating herself from her circle of admirers.

Several of them shot shy glances at the waiting god, and then there was much whispering, of which Lina could only catch the words
Persephone
and
Hades
linked together. Giggling and waving good-bye, the maidens disappeared into the pines.

Hades walked away from the tree to meet her in the middle of the meadow. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then, he reached out and brushed a damp strand of hair from her face.

“I have never watched anything as graceful as your dance,” Hades said.

Lina suddenly felt more breathless than she had been while she was twirling and leaping to the music.

“You must be thirsty,” he said.

Until then Lina hadn't realized that she had been thirsty or sweaty, but in actuality she was both.

“Very.”

“There should be a spring near here.” He took her hand and started toward the opposite side of the meadow. “Things never stay completely the same in Elysia, but they do tend to reflect the same elements.”

“So it's kind of like a changeable fantasy?” Lina asked, letting her hand trail over the clover that was knee-deep at that end of the meadow. Instantly, tufts of white flowers sprang from between the shamrock-shaped leaves, emitting a perfume that smelled of summer and freshly mowed lawns.

“Yes, a little.” Hades smiled at her. “Elysia is divided into different parts, but those parts can mingle and change, according to the desires of the spirits.”

“Different parts? You mean like there's one place for people who have been really, really good, another for people who have been mostly good, and another for people who were just ordinarily nice?”

Hades' laughter filled the meadow. “You say the most unexpected things, Persephone. No, Elysia is divided into different realms. One is for warriors. One is here”—he gestured around them—“for maidens to come and frolic. And there are several others. Royalty exists in one. Another is for shepherds.” His smile turned lopsided and Lina thought he looked twelve years old. “Oddly enough, shepherds do not like to mingle with others.”

“Who would have guessed?”

“Exactly.”

“So they can't mix? What if a warrior wants to court a maiden? I'd think even the most dedicated warrior would get tired of only doing manly things after awhile.”

“They may mix, but it is rather difficult.” Hades paused, considering. “But perhaps it should not be difficult. Perhaps they do not realize what they are missing because they have been so long without.” The god stared off into the distance, deep in thought.

“Can you make Elysia rearrange itself according to your will?” Lina asked.

Hades' gaze returned to her. “Yes.”

“Then have the meadow of the dancing maidens placed next to the warriors' practice field. The rest should work itself out.”

Hades barked a laugh. “I think you are correct.”

They entered the forest of pines and after some searching, Hades found a small path. They followed it until it crossed a stream that bubbled and tumbled over smooth rocks. Hades left the path and led Lina downstream and around a bend where the water pooled into a little sandy-bottomed basin before continuing its trek by splashing noisily over one side of the rocky ledge.

“For you, Goddess, only the best in drink and dining,” Hades said with a rakish smile.

“You may be kidding,” she said, hurrying to crouch at the edge of the pool, “but all that dancing has made me incredibly thirsty, and right now water looks better to me than ambrosia.”

She cupped her hand and drank of the clear liquid. It was so cold that it made her teeth hurt. She sighed happily and slurped another handful. After she drank her fill, Lina kicked off her soft leather slippers and let her legs dangle into the icy pool. Hades reclined next to her, leaning against a fallen log. The wind sloughed in the trees above them, surrounding them in the scent of pine and sap. The mystical Underworld sky cast an opaque glow over everything. Rose-colored glasses, Lina thought dreamily, so this is what the old cliché meant.

“Demeter told me that the Underworld was a magical place, but I would never have believed that it held so much beauty,” Lina said softly. “If the gods really knew how wonderful it was down here, you'd have a constant stream of visitors.”

Hades shrugged his shoulders and looked uncomfortable.

Lina studied him, and almost didn't press him further. Then she remembered his words from the night before. He wanted more than simple sex from her. She knew that, and in order for there to be more between them, they would have to be able to talk. About everything and anything. And, quite frankly, she was too old to play college dating games with all the silences and misunderstandings that went with them. She was a grown woman, and she needed to be able to say what was on her mind.

“If you didn't want visitors, why did you build such a huge palace with all those empty rooms just waiting to be filled?”

He considered the question. How much should he admit to her? He certainly didn't want to tell her that he had never before been involved with a goddess, sexual or otherwise, that he had spent an eternity longing for something more than the frivolity that satisfied the rest of the immortals. He remembered the last time he had visited Mount Olympus. Aphrodite had teased him with an open sexual invitation, and he had not responded to her offer. Later he had heard her smirking with Athena as the two goddesses discussed what part of his body must be dead—along with his realm. Thinking about their cutting words he felt a rush of anger. His body was not dead. It was simply attached to his soul, and his soul required more than the insincere attentions of a self-serving goddess.

What could he say that wouldn't make her bolt away from him? He glanced at her. She appeared to be waiting attentively for his answer. He had to be as honest with her as possible. He couldn't lie or dissemble. A lasting relationship could not be based on falsehoods. He released a long sigh.

“Sometimes I have wondered myself why I built it. Perhaps I was hoping that some day I would learn to overcome my”—he struggled, trying to find the right word—“my difference.”

“Difference? What do you mean?”

“I have always found it difficult to interact with other immortals,” Hades said slowly. “You must know that I am shunned because I am Lord of the Dead.”

Lina began to deny it. Then she remembered the look on Demeter's face when she spoke of Hades, and the offhanded way she discarded him as unimportant . . . uninteresting. The memory made her suddenly very angry.

“They just don't know what you're really like.”

“And what is it that I'm really like, Persephone?”

Lina smiled at him and said exactly what was on her mind. “You're interesting and funny, sexy and powerful.”

Hades shook his head, staring at her. “You are a constant surprise.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“It is a miraculously good thing.”

She was a goner. She couldn't resist him, and she didn't want to. “I'm glad.”

“You are not like any of the other immortals. You know how they are . . . so filled with their own importance, constantly striving to outdo one another, never satisfied with what they have.” He shook his head and leaned forward so that he could brush her cheek with his fingertips. “You are honest and real—what a goddess truly should be.”

Honest and real? A true goddess? Lina wanted to crawl under a rock. She wasn't even who she was.

“I . . . you . . . I . . .” Lina babbled, not sure what she should say.

Hades didn't give her a chance to collect her thoughts. He slid forward and pulled her into his arms. Her mouth was still cold from the spring water. He wanted to drown in her. He plunged into the softness of her lips. If only he had known about her earlier. How could he have spent so much time without her? The goddess wrapped her arms around him and pressed her breasts against his chest. Hades moaned. His desire for her was a molten, throbbing need.

Lina jerked and screamed. Flailing water everywhere she scrambled to pull her long, bare legs from the little pool. Leaping up Lina rushed around behind the god so that he was between her and the water's edge.

“Something rubbed against me.” Her voice shook as Oklahoma experience flashed visions of water moccasins and snapping turtles through her mind.

Hades patted one of her hands that clutched his shoulder, trying to pull his thoughts together. He could still feel the imprint of her breasts against the supple leather that covered his chest and his body still surged with hard longing.

“Persephone, nothing in Elysia would harm you.”

“There!” Lina was ashamed that the word came out as a squeal. She pointed to a dark shape that flitted under the water. “There's something in the pool.”

With a sigh Hades stood and walked the few feet to the bank. He crouched down and peered into the clear water.

All of Lina's senses were on high alert. “Be careful,” she said. “It might be a snake.”

Hades shot her a bemused look over his shoulder. “Why would you fear a snake?”

Lina twisted a thick strand of hair around her finger.
Snakes are closely allied with Demeter. They are nothing to fear.
Her internal voice chastised her.

“I know it's silly, but I've never liked them,” she said miserably.

The god's wide brow wrinkled in confusion, but a splash from the pool called his attention. Lina cringed back, not wanting to see the slithering reptilian body.

When Hades looked at her again a small smile played around his lips. “You cannot possibly fear this creature.”

“I don't really like turtles, either,” Lina said quickly, keeping her eyes averted from the dark shape that had just surfaced in the pool. “Especially snapping turtles.”

Hades chuckled and motioned for her to join him. “Come. You like animals.”

Lina didn't bulge. “I do. I like mammals. I like birds. I don't even mind fish. I do not like reptiles. I know it sounds narrow-minded, but—”

An odd barking noise came from the water. Lina peered past Hades to see a little creature floating on its back.