Hades
"Ellen—" I started, my voice low and gravelly. The contact burned, not because it was painful, but because it broke through every wall I'd hastily tried to rebuild. Her warmth seeped into my skin, her heartbeat a steady rhythm against my chest. The beast was not appeased; it only sought to escape from its enclosure and claim her.
"Hades," she muttered my name with a softness that made me shudder. My name on her lips was a weapon, disarming and dangerous all at once. It struck deep, brushing against the reinforced cage that the contamination clawed at. "I am sorry," she said, her voice small. "I really am. I might not agree with you on a plethora of things, but this time I wish I had seen it the way you did. But I refused to see outside the boundaries I had set for myself," she continued, her voice trembling but steady. "I didn't want to admit that you might be right because I thought it would mean losing to you."
