The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus)

  The humans on the other hand looked ready to crawl out of their skin. With the exception of the new human, Ryan, they sat clustered at the kitchen table as though they were clinging to safety in numbers as a defense against the massive gathering of gods. Ryan was still upstairs with Artemis getting filled in on all things divine. Lucky him. Adonis, Melissa, Orpheus, and Eurydice looked like they’d rather be anywhere else, including Tartarus.

  “Hephaestus?” Apollo hopped off the last step of the staircase, rubbing his wet hair with a towel. He looked almost normal in blue jeans and a white T-shirt with a smiling sun wearing sunglasses.

  Everyone in the room fell silent. At first I thought they were snubbing Apollo, then the name he’d said hit my system.

  The information came so fast, it almost didn’t have time to process. Raised voices, a stack of weapons glittering in the sun, a flash of lightning, and a cry of pain, discord on Olympus followed by averted eyes and buried guilt. Wow! There was some history there.

  “Let’s…not involve him,” Demeter suggested. The tension in the room eased palpably.

  Not involve him? We needed all the help we could get.

  I looked across the room at Melissa, and she inclined her head in a slight nod. Smiling, I found myself glad she was on board with my unspoken plan to recruit Hephaestus. Melissa wasn’t so bad. At least not when she acted more like me and less like an entitled selfish brat. I was pleased to be rubbing off on her. It’s not often one can claim credit for making the world a less irritating place, but I wasn’t going to let the accomplishment go to my head.

  Persephone deserved the best possible chance. The best way of giving her that was to bring as many gods into this as possible. However uncomfortable the rest of the gods were with what had happened, no one could deny Hephaestus was powerful.

  Demeter seemed to notice Adonis for the first time. “Who is that?” She leaned forward, placing her tea on a wicker side table and fixed Adonis with a penetrating glare.

  Melissa smirked. “Aphrodite and I found him. He’s Zeus’. We figured he’d be next on the hit list—

  “And what?” Demeter demanded. “You felt we had the extra resources to protect him right now?”

  Melissa seemed surprised, but I understood what Demeter was getting at. We didn’t have the manpower to keep our eyes on another person. I had pretty much taken up all the leeway left. But I had a solution. “I thought he could stay in the Underworld.”

  “Wait, what?” This was news to Adonis.

  I nodded. The Underworld was safe. Though whether I thought it kept Adonis safe, or us safe from Adonis, I wasn’t sure. Something about him gave me the creeps. “Hades, don’t you need a few extra hands down there anyway? I just thought—”

  “I’m not going to the Underworld!” Adonis objected.

  Orpheus hushed him, and the rest of the gods seemed to decide it was time to explore the house.

  Demeter ignored Adonis, her eyes focused on me, glittering with rage. “We can’t trust you for help or ideas, and you know that. Anything you say is automatically suspect—”

  “Why?” Adonis asked.

  “Shut up!” Orpheus hissed. He grabbed the young demigod’s arm and made as if to lead him from the room, but drew up short when Hades stepped in from of him.

  Hades’ electric-blue eyes swept over Adonis with such intensity that Adonis seemed to shrink in on himself. “There’s something different about this one,” Hades murmured.

  Orpheus gave Adonis an apologetic look, felt backward for Eurydice’s hand, and retreated from the room, pulling her along with him. Smart man.

  “He’s one of Zeus’ eugenics projects.” Demeter waved a dismissive hand. “That’s why I hadn’t bothered with him. Zeus isn’t likely to come after—”

  “Eugenics?” Hades’ eyebrows shot up.

  Demeter either missed or just didn’t care about the warning in his tone. “His mother was a demigod, so was his grandmother, and her mother before that, and her mother before that going back centuries. His father had the same type of—”

  “His father?” I leaned forward. “His father is Zeus. He’s got charm. I can feel it.”

  “No.” Demeter clasped her hands together. “His grandfather is Zeus, on both sides, and his great-grandfather and his great-great grandfather.” The list continued for a few more generations, but we got the gist of it. Adonis was inbred to the extreme.

  Adonis sat down in the chair fast. He looked ill.

  “Zeus isn’t going to kill him,” Demeter continued. “I’m sure there’s a female version of him out there somewhere he’ll be compelled to breed with. Zeus will be curious to see what happens with their child.”

  “He has charm,” I repeated, unable to believe anyone not directly descended from a god could have powers. Demigods didn’t pass on powers to their children. They didn’t even pass on ichor, the golden blood of the gods that gave them their physical characteristics. “He’s immune to it, too.”

  Hades and Demeter both looked shocked at this development. Gods weren’t even immune to charm. Not really. With enough power we could shield ourselves against it, but any one of us could be taken off guard.

  “How many of these ‘projects’ does Zeus have going?” Hades demanded, his tone making it clear he didn’t agree with Demeter’s word choice.

  Demeter shrugged. “Plenty, I’m sure. He wanted to see how long it would take to create new gods through the humans. Looks like he’s only a few generations away.”

  “That’s sick!” Melissa exploded. “How can you talk about this like it’s some casual thing?”

  Demeter drew back in surprise. “I didn’t intend—”

  “We’re people!” Melissa snapped, brown eyes blazing. “You don’t get to breed us like lab rats, or control us, or make assumptions. What if you’re wrong and Zeus wants him dead? That risk is fine with you? I guess he’s just human after all. We don’t matter much compared to your divine egos.”

  “Melissa, that’s enough!” Demeter snapped.

  I raised my eyebrows. I’d never heard Demeter use her mom voice. It was pretty scary.

  Melissa knew Demeter better than I did, and she didn’t seem nervous, but still, it might be the better call to get her out of here. I looked to Hades for a clue. He seemed distracted. Touching his temples, he looked like his head could be bugging him, but he wasn’t quite sure.

  Wait. I’d looked away but some detail drew my head back to Hades with a snap. A smear of bright red blood collected under his nose. Hades stared at his bloodied fingers like they belonged to someone else.

  “Demeter,” I gasped. But her focus was on Melissa.

  Melissa narrowed her eyes at Demeter. “I don’t answer to you. As far as I’m concerned, the only member of this entire pathetic pantheon who matters is Persephone. The human race is better without the rest of your meddling and manipulations and disguises!”

  The whole Zeus was Joel revelation hadn’t gone over well with her. Adonis touched Melissa’s arm and stage whispered, “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

  Melissa shook him off. “I’m not afraid of them. I’m not the one who needs worship to live.”

  “Demeter!” Tearing my gaze from Hades wasn’t easy. Something was wrong, very, very wrong. Gods didn’t bleed. They just didn’t. But I’d sworn to protect Melissa, so Hades would just have to wait. If Demeter tried to hurt Melissa there wasn’t a whole lot I could do but get in the way. I gulped. I really didn’t want to do that.

  But Demeter didn’t seem bothered by Melissa’s outburst at all. She regarded Melissa with a look of exasperated patience. Melissa stared at her for a moment, waiting for some reaction, then she gave a dramatic sigh, flipped her hair, and stormed out of the room. Adonis took a quick look around and followed her.

  “Not a word.” Demeter held up one finger and regarded me with icy cold eyes. “I’m not interested in your opinion. But you—” she turned to Hades “—I’m surp
rised you could resist commenting on that little displa—”

  She broke off with a surprised gasp. I followed her gaze and felt my stomach twist in fear. This didn’t happen. It just didn’t happen. Hades lay unconscious in a crumpled heap on the wooden floor in a pool of blood.

  Chapter XXIV

  Hades

  Persephone’s breath was hot in my ear. Her nails dug into my back. My hands ran down her body…

  “Oh, Hades,” she moaned.

  “Um… Wow.” The voice came from across the room.

  I pivoted, changing the dreamscape around me. By the time I faced the door, I was standing in my library fully clothed, facing Persephone, the real non-dream version. She stood in the doorway, slack jawed.

  “Persephone!” Crossing the room in an instant, I gathered her in my arms, joy and relief rushing through me in equal parts. “Gods!” Her body, whole and solid, fit against mine in a way dreams could never get right. I’d been so worried I’d never hold her again, never see her again. “Are you okay? Where are you?” When I pulled away, I kept my arms wrapped around her waist because I couldn’t bring myself to let go. “Physically, I mean,” I added, when she looked confused. Dreamwalking got complex whenever a distinction had to be made between the mind and the body.

  She didn’t answer. I looked her up and down, gaze snagging on her necklace.

  A small green spiky plant hung in a metal basket, the red bud of a flower just beginning to blossom. The glass-blown pomegranate seed that hung from the basket was a token of my realm. It was a perfect conduit, representative of her lineage and marriage with a piece of each realm in one neat package. But that wasn’t why she wore it here.

  It meant something to her because I gave it to her. I meant something to her.

  Even after everything that had happened to her because of me, she still went through the trouble of replicating that necklace in her dreams. Clearing my throat, I jerked my gaze away from the necklace. No apparent injuries, but there was no telling if that was reflective of reality or how she saw herself at the moment.

  Something was wrong. In my relief I hadn’t noticed she failed to return my embrace, but now I saw how rigid she held herself in my arms. There was a look I didn’t recognize in her eyes.

  Persephone was an open book. I never had to guess how she felt or what she was thinking. It was all right there. But now her expression was guarded. And there was something else in it. Fear.

  Of me?

  Was I really dreaming again? Would she fall to pieces like in that horrible nightmare? No. She was real, she was here, I could feel it. “Persephone?” I reached out to caress her cheek.

  She flinched. “Don’t.” Her green eyes searched my face. “I should be able to tell.” Her voice broke. Persephone tried to pull back, but I held her fast.

  My arms dropped, and I stepped away for good measure. There was no telling what she had gone through, so if she needed space, I was happy to oblige. “Tell what?” I wanted to reach out to her, to demand to know what Zeus had done and how I could fix it, but I didn’t dare. “Persephone.” It was a fight to keep my voice calm. “Tell me where to find you.”

  She looked away and I jerked toward her, almost unable to restrain myself from reaching for her. Persephone flinched.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Wherever you are, I’m going to find you and bring you home, okay? But I need you to point me in the right direction.”

  “Stop.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, sliding her air plant pendant back and forth on the chain of her necklace. “I should be able to tell him from you. If you’re not him, if you’ve taken that from me, if you’ve broken us that badly…” Iron glinted in her eyes, hard and unfeeling. “Then you won’t have to find me. I haven’t come into my powers yet, but I will. I’d be afraid of that day if I were you.”

  Comprehension bubbled up within me like bile. I was going to make a way to kill him. Then I’d drag him down to hell and spend the rest of eternity making him suffer.

  It wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. Zeus looked like me. The bastard had looked like me when he’d hurt her. “It’s me.”

  She didn’t look convinced, and I didn’t blame her. I didn’t sound like myself. There was no getting past this. Even if I found a way to get her back, even if everything worked out, she would look at me now and see him.

  “Everyone is ‘me.’” Persephone put the word in air quotes. “Be more specific.”

  The hardness in her voice was so foreign to me that I hesitated. Her eyes narrowed, and she shot out her hands, shoving me backward. “Get the fuck out of my head, you sick bastard.”

  That snapped me out of my reverie. I grabbed her hands. “I’m not in your dream. You’re in mine. I promise, I’m Hades. You?” I didn’t know. She was acting so different.

  “I’m Persephone. Oh gods, Hades!” She half-fell, half-threw herself into my arms. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t tell. I thought it was you, but I couldn’t tell.”

  I shushed her, savoring the feel of her warm body pressed against mine. “It’s fine.” Gods, it felt good to hold her. “Are you okay?” I’d been knocked out by the force of whatever happened to her. And I was a lot stronger than she was.

  She shook her head. “I’m not okay, Hades.”

  My arms tightened around her. “I know. But you will be, when this is all over you’re going to be fine. You have to hang on to that, hear me?” I stared into her eyes. “You’re not okay, but you will be. We will fix this, I promise. Now, where are you?”

  “I escaped Zeus, I think.” Her voice was muffled from talking into my shoulder. “I jumped out of his weird cloud castle thing. It’s in this hemisphere. It was still daylight when I jumped.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You jumped?” Zeus’ fortress wouldn’t be close to the ground. The pain I’d felt had been her shattering upon impact.

  She sniffled. “I couldn’t…” Her breath hitched. “I thought if I jumped I could teleport, but even if I couldn’t, anything would be better than what he was doing to me.”

  Her shoulders shook, and I tightened my embrace. Zeus wasn’t dumb enough to leave his offspring with teleportation rights. I had my doubts she’d actually managed to escape him, but we’d cross that bridge when she woke up. “Do you know where you landed?”

  The look on her face told me this wasn’t going to be good news. “The middle of the ocean.”

  Poseidon’s realm. Shit. I took a deep breath. “Did you swear fealty to Zeus?”

  She shook her head. “I tried. Hades, I’m so sorry, I tried, but I made this promise I wouldn’t hurt you. So I couldn’t do it.”

  Relief rushed through me, and I immediately felt guilty for it. She couldn’t swear fealty. My realm was safe. But what had that cost her?

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  My voice hardened when I asked the next question. “What did he do to you?”

  “What did he do to us?” she asked, ducking my question. “I can’t feel you anymore. I don’t know what you’re thinking. Did the lightning sever our connection somehow?”

  “Impossible.” I tilted her head up, lips brushing against hers with tentative patience. I’d let her set the pace. She surged forward, pushing up on her tiptoes and looping an arm around my neck to yank me to her level as her lips crushed against mine with a desperate urgency. Power surged between us, ripping through our connection. It felt like something broken within me had been restored. We were whole again.

  Gods! Her whispered thought echoed in my mind. I was so afraid I’d never feel this again. Persephone’s fingers dug into my back as she clung to me with all her strength and joy, and unbelievably enough, love. She loved me. How could she possibly have it in her to feel happiness after what she’d been through, much less joy? She was so strong.

  No, I’m not, she objected. I would have sworn to him if I could have, I wanted to give in.

  Anyone would have. There’s more to it than that. You didn’t break.

 
Persephone didn’t get it, but that wasn’t surprising. She was young. I’d been around long enough to see the way pain could twist and bend people. How they could buckle under the misery until they had nothing left to them but the horror of what they’d gone through.

  I wanted to follow her example. Escape the horror of the situation though a kiss. But I had to know.

  May I?

  She hesitated, then I felt her tentative agreement. Her thoughts flooded mine, and I saw all the things Zeus had put her through. The memory of his voice slithered into my thoughts.

  “Maybe I should tell you about some of the things he’s done. Better yet—” a curved blade appeared in Zeus’ hand “—how about I just show you?”

  The images of what came next, the shallow slashes separating each layer of skin as she cried out for the torment to end, for me to help her, assaulted my mind like blows. My hands tightened around her, and I broke off our kiss. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  “It wasn’t you.” Her soft lips whispered against mine. Teasing me with their proximity.

  I took the bait. I’m only a god after all. Even guilt couldn’t stop me from enjoying the way the kiss deepened, or the feel of her body tight against mine. No. I’d sooner slit my throat than hurt her. But I’d given Zeus ideas, methods to use to torture her. That was almost as bad.

  Teeth grazing my bottom lip, Persephone teased images of her mom, Melissa, and the other priestesses from my mind. Her relief coursed through me with the realization that her people were safe.

  When Persephone came up for air, she tilted her head. “Where is everything?”

  The dreamscape had gone blank. My face heated. I’d been so wrapped up in her, so focused, that for a moment nothing else existed. Drawing on a modicum of power, I formed an image of our library in my mind. Just a general impression of warm colors, rich browns, and earthy reds with bookshelves and big comfortable furniture. I never put much detail into my dreamscapes. Why waste the power? Still, I was careful not to leave out the touches of her influence that were scattered throughout the library. Bright splashes of colors, flowers in vases on the wooden tables.