My fist hit his face with a satisfying crunch.
“Enjoy that?” Blood and spittle drooled from Zeus’ mouth. Tartaran souls could bleed, otherwise where would the fun be?
“A little.”
He smirked. “I wonder about you sometimes, Hades. You’ve got that hot piece of ass warming your bed, and instead of enjoying it, you’re here beating the daylights out of me. Unless…” He paused dramatically. “You’ve figured it out.”
I didn’t rise to the bait. Instead I laid the knives out on the table.
Zeus waited for me to ask, but when it became clear I wasn’t going to, he continued on as if I’d spoken. “You know she doesn’t love you as much as you love her, right? I’ve been in her head. There’s not much going on up there, but when she thinks of you there’s always a caveat.”
“Where are the demigods?” I examined one of the knives in the light.
“You should have seen her face when she thought I was you. She was so happy, so certain you had come to rescue her.” He smiled. “She pressed that hot little body against me.” He studied my face for a long moment as if calculating how far he could push me before I snapped. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve been kissed like that. She’s got so much…spirit. I took great pleasure in watching that spirit drain out of her while I hacked her to pieces.”
Persephone’s face flashed into my mind, eyes wide with fear. Screw the demigods. I summoned the Olympian Steele. “There’s something I’ve wondered for quite some time.”
Zeus’ grin faltered. “You won’t do anything permanent. You need me. You want to know where I got that Steele, and you want to know about those demigods.”
“What would happen if I used this on a soul?” I approached Zeus.
“You need me.”
“No, I don’t.” Zeus was never going to tell me what I wanted to know. He knew it was the only thing keeping his soul intact. Maybe she would sleep better if I torched his soul. I touched the Steele to his skin.
“I didn’t touch the demigods.” Zeus’ eyes darted from the Steele to me. I applied more pressure.
“Then I really don’t need you.”
“Yes, you do. You need me more than ever. You think you saved the world by killing me, but you’ve doomed it. What’s coming is worse. And Hades—” he inclined his head to the Steele “—they’re armed.”
I considered for a moment.
“You need me,” Zeus insisted. “You want to be prepared for what’s to come.”
If Zeus wasn’t responsible for the demigods, then who was?
Did it matter?
I was probably going to regret this. But I was done. I was done being manipulated by Zeus.
“You need me.” He locked eyes with me. “You know you do.”
“Like hell.”
I wiped the blood from my hands as I exited the torture chamber. In the blink of an eye I was in my restroom in fresh clothes reaching for a washcloth.
“Can’t sleep?”
I turned to find Persephone standing behind me, bathed in light. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I don’t mind.” She reached for the now pristine washcloth I held in my left hand, the movement sending one of the thin straps of her white nightgown slipping down her arm. “Are you okay? I thought I saw—”
“I’m fine.” I dropped the washcloth in the sink.
Persephone’s green eyes searched my face and I smiled at the worry I found there. All she’d been through, and she was worried about me.
“Nothing to worry about.” My fingers trailed over her smooth skin as I pushed the strap of her nightgown back into place. She tilted her head, leaning into my touch. Abandoning the strap I caressed her face, leaning down to touch my lips to hers.
“I love you,” she whispered, arms twining around my neck.
“I love you, too.” I pulled her to me, wrapping my arms around her, then froze.
Small smears of blood traced the paths my hands had taken. Garish against her honey colored skin, vibrant against her white nightgown. My mind flashed back to my nightmare and my throat constricted.
“Hades?” Her green eyes searched my face, wide with confusion. “What’s wrong?”
What wasn’t?
Chapter L
Persephone
Triton’s face was completely blank. He sat on the bed, not seeming to notice when I came in. I took a deep breath. “I am so sorry for what happened to you.”
He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.
I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead, releasing the bond of fealty he’d sworn to Zeus that I’d inherited and giving him back his memories, his thoughts, and his soul. There were parts of him I kept. I didn’t have a choice in the matter; his powers wouldn’t return to him now that he was dead. I’d give them to Poseidon next time I saw him.
The life returned to Triton’s eyes, and I moved away from him and sat on a chair next to his bed.
“I know you,” he said after a moment. He paused as if he were sorting through his memories. “Kind of.”
“Kind of.” I still didn’t fully understand how Triton had been in my dreamscape after his death. Hades had tried to explain that Zeus essentially just held on to Triton’s soul and tossed him into a dreamscape of Poseidon’s realm in case Zeus needed information from Triton later. When I stepped out of my dreamscape, Zeus saw the opportunity to throw me into Triton’s, manipulating me into thinking I was waking up there, when in reality all I was doing was hopping from dreamscape to dreamscape.
Hades thought Zeus had a prophet telling him his plans, or at the very least a mole. He hadn’t realized until the very end it was him. I’d surrendered my mind to Zeus, and Hades kept me informed of every step of the god’s plans through our link. The only time I’d been out of Zeus’ “earshot” was when I was in Hades’ dreamscape, but that privacy only lasted until I was back in Triton’s dreamscape, allowing Zeus to sit in on all our meetings right after they happened.
I’d stopped trying to wrap my head around the whole thing about ten minutes into Hades’ lengthy explanation. All I needed to know was that Triton was down here without a part of his soul. That I could fix.
He glanced around the room. “So this is the Underworld?”
I nodded, not sure how he was going to take the news.
He raised his eyebrows. “Weird. I would have thought it was all underground and cave-like. Hey, can I meet Hades? Is he blue? You know, like that movie? Is his hair on fire? Can I meet Cerberus? Dad said he was the best dog. Oh, are there nymphs here…?”
I smiled despite myself as Triton continued chattering. Yeah. He was going to be fine.
Later, in the living realm, I swung by my mom’s flower shop to make sure Laurel, one of Mom’s higher-ranking priestesses, had everything she needed.
“Are you sure you want me to run it?” she asked for what felt like the thousandth time.
“For now.” Looking around the shop, I could almost see my mom at every corner. A smudge of dirt on her cheek from working on the nursery out back, talking on the phone with that unflappable patience. My eyes filled as I realized we’d never get back to that. Everything had been so normal before Pirithous had walked through these doors. I hadn’t known what I had.
And now it was gone.
“You’re going to be every bit as amazing as she was, I know it.” Laurel smiled at me through a sheen of tears.
“She’s going to be better.” Melissa came down the stairs from where she’d been packing up the last of Aphrodite’s things. “Hey, this came today.” She picked up a stack of mail from the counter top. “I figured I’d bring it, and then we could go celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” What could I possibly have to celebrate?
“Um, yeah, it’s our birthday. Yay eighteen.”
I blinked. I’d forgotten.
“And you sort of saved the day. And of course—” Melissa took one of the letters and handed it to me. It was from UGA. Confetti decorated
the envelope, and written in the corner in big red letters was “Your official acceptance letter.”
“Kind of takes all the mystery out of opening it.” I took the letter from her, and she held up another envelope, its twin.
“I know, right? But good news. Apparently we both got in.”
The phone rang and Laurel answered it, disappearing into the back of the shop.
“What happened to Iowa?” I looked at Melissa. I knew she’d been accepted into the creative writing program there.
She waved a dismissive hand. “After everything you went through, please. My place is here. You need me now more than ever.”
I looked at the envelope. It wasn’t addressed to me, it was addressed to Kora. I’d gone by Kora my whole life, especially after Orpheus told the whole planet that Persephone was a goddess. This letter, the apartment above the shop, Melissa and I going to college together—it was all I’d wanted for so long. A return to normal life.
I dropped the envelope in the shredder.
Melissa yelped in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not Kora anymore.” There was no going back to normal, and for the first time, I was okay with that. I wasn’t human, but that didn’t mean I had to be some evil, crazy goddess either. There was blood on my hands, but I hadn’t enjoyed it. If after everything I’d gone through I was still connected enough to give a damn, then I was going to be just fine. “And you’re not giving up your dreams for my sake.”
“Don’t you need me here?”
I shook my head. “Not as a priestess. You’re my best friend. I can teleport, remember? I’ll swing by to hang out, maybe cry on your shoulder a bit.”
She gave me a hug. “Anytime.” She pulled away from me and looked into my eyes. “Are you okay?”
“No.” I shook my head, thinking of Hades, how he was willing to break the world for me. The way he’d held me together when my whole life seemed to shatter. The strength he saw in me I hadn’t even known was there. I’d survived Pirithous. I’d survived Boreas. And I destroyed Zeus. I could handle grief. “But I will be.”
About the Author
Kaitlin Bevis spent her childhood curled up with a book and a pen. If the ending didn’t agree with her, she rewrote it. She’s always wanted to be a writer and spent high school and college learning everything she could so that one day she could achieve that goal. She graduated college with a BFA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and has a masters from the University of Georgia in English: Secondary Education. Follow her on twitter @kaitlinbevis or check out her website at www.kaitlinbevis.com.
Other books by Kaitlin Bevis…
Persephone
Daughter of the Earth and Sky
Siren Song
Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus)
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