by Bella Klaus
The butler inhaled a deep breath, his shoulders rising to his ears, and in a single exhale, he blurted, “The body you’re wearing won’t last.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped.
Hades rose off the throne, his hands balled into fists. “Explain.”
“You’re almost at the end of the useful life of your body, Miss—” Pirithous shook his head. “Your Majesty. These shells that encase your soul never last more than twenty-four years. You may be twenty, but your vessel looks on the verge of shattering.”
Cold spread through my insides, but I held back a reaction.
“Do you believe him?” I asked Hades.
“He’s just reached the depths of Hell, and the woman he held prisoner her entire life now controls his fate.” Hades paused. “That doesn’t mean we can dismiss him as saying anything to survive.”
I leaned back in my seat, staring down at Pirithous through half-lidded eyes, trying to look both skeptical and bored. “Why on earth would I believe the word of a liar?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “You’re aging faster than normal—”
“How?” Hades snapped.
Pirithous flinched and brought his hand up to protect his chest wound, before forcing them back down to his sides. “Each body you inhabit ends up looking exactly the same. I’ve watched over you for multiple lives, tracking your progress, and assisting the coven in their experiments to extend your lifespan.”
My throat thickened. This was consistent with what he had said in the creepy basement, and it also explained some of the mysterious portraits of Mother and me that hung on the wall. I had no recollection of ever having posed for half of them, and Mother had always explained them away as attacks of corporality sickness.
Hades lowered himself into his throne and took my hand. “You don’t have to listen to this,” he said into my head. “My interrogators, mages, and alchemists can question him and verify his claims.”
I met his strained features and paler-than-usual eyes that radiated pain. Hades stared at me without blinking, seeming to drink me in with the intensity of his gaze. My throat dried, and I forced a smile, trying to assure him that I was fine to continue, but his lips pinched, and the muscles in his neck tightened.
“We can do both,” I said. “Let’s hear everything he has to say and then hand him over to someone who can check out his claims.”
Hades nodded and turned back to Pirithous. “If what you’re saying is true, then you should have an estimate of how long Kora’s current body will last.”
“I have no idea,” Pirithous rasped.
Hades’ furious snarl made the air tremble.
My lips formed a tight line. After all this build-up, how could Pirithous not know?
“But you said you tracked my progress,” I said, clipping each syllable.
“I could assess the integrity of your vessels with the magical levels of your combined soul.” His voice broke. “You are so much more powerful now. There’s no telling what that level of magic will do to your shell.”
Bitterness coated the back of my tongue. “Why should I believe you?”
“Check the basement,” he said. “Behind the torture wheel is a safe that contains all the documentation and receipts for the bodies I commissioned on your and your mother’s behalf.”
Hades threw his head back and laughed. “You almost had me going until you tried to lure Kora into another of your traps. I expect the wards have been designed to only let her and Demeter inside.”
“No.” Pirithous shook his head.
“I know this trick too well,” Hades spat. “If I send in a horde of investigators, they’ll report back saying that they need Kora’s magic or Kora herself to enter this secret basement, then Demeter and her new hench-demons of the Third will swoop in and capture my wife.”
“That sounds very similar to how the coven tried to trap me when they abducted Dami,” I muttered.
Pirithous fell to his knees, clasping his hands in prayer. “But I’m telling you the truth.”
“Tell us something else, such as how to defeat Demeter,” Hades snarled.
“Alright.” Pirithous licked his lips. “I was going to save this until after you agreed to house me within the Asphodel Meadows, but if this will save my soul from the pits, I have no choice.”
My pulse quickened. I forced my features into an indifferent mask and drummed my fingers on the throne’s armrest. If there was anything we could glean about Mother, it might help thwart whatever plan she had to recapture me and destroy Hades.
Pirithous cleared his throat. “The Great Divide injured them all—Hera, Hestia, Athena, and Artemis—but Demeter found a way to patch up her magic using the power of Zeus. I helped her, and once she supplied them with his power, she became the most popular among the goddesses.”
“But she was always the leader,” I said to Hades.
“Not true,” he replied. “While we were in Olympus, Hera was the coven’s ruler with Demeter as her right hand. I did wonder what happened to affect the balance of power. This part of his story makes sense.”
Swaying on his feet, Pirithous dabbed at his brow with his gloved hands. “Mistress Demeter holds the secret to distilling Zeus’s power in a way the other goddesses find digestible.” He swallowed. “And you’re the key to her—”
Blood erupted from the hole in his chest, followed by a tulip-shaped flower head that made Pirithous stagger back with a cry. Another emerged from his mouth, blocking his words.
“Fucking hell.” Hades grabbed my hand and transported us into the inner sanctum, where we stood in front of the pool.
The water’s surface displayed Pirithous in the smaller throne room. Monstrous vines and carnivorous flowers sprouted from the butler’s body, filling the wards’ transparent dome.
Hades grabbed both sides of my face with his hands and stared at me, his gaze wild. “Are you alright?”
My breath hitched. “Of course. Those plants didn’t get close.”
With a ragged breath, his eyes fluttered shut, and he pulled me into his chest. “I should never have allowed you two in the same room.”
I leaned against his strong body, savoring his cypress and mint scent. With every near miss, Hades became more and more frantic about my safety. It didn’t seem to matter to him that I had twenty-one centuries of power and could teleport at the first sign of trouble.
Wrapping my arms around his body, I gave him a tight squeeze and tried to reassure him that I was unshaken. Hearing what Pirithous said about my body being on the verge of destruction hadn’t helped the situation. At this rate, Hades really would keep me locked up in a room.
“Hades, stop this,” I murmured. “You can’t treat me like a delicate flower that’s going to wilt at the first sign of a breeze.”
He shook his head and pulled me even closer to my body. “I should know better than to take risks after having lost you for so long.”
I drew back and placed both hands on the sides of his face. “If you’re thinking about keeping me imprisoned my entire life, don’t. I won’t let you become like Pirithous and Mother.”
His eyes snapped open. “Of course not, Demeter’s obsession with you goes beyond the realm of a possessive mother. It makes sense that you’re somehow keeping her supplied with Zeus’s power.”
“It does,” I murmured. “Convenient how the plants attacked the moment he was about to explain how she was using me.”
“Precisely,” Hades said with a nod. “If Demeter requires your body or soul as a source of energy, we need to keep both out of her clutches.”
My gaze drifted to the pool, where there was no sign of Pirithous beneath the mass of plants encased in Hades’ warded bubble. “Do you think those plants are related to the way Mother siphons magic?”
“At least we know how to keep them at bay.” The hand around my waist drifted downward, pulling my body flush with his. “Layers upon layers of wards. Without sustenance, they will die.”<
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Hades’ eyes dropped to my lips, and the heat in his eyes burned away all thoughts of the butler consumed by flesh-eating plants. “I won’t survive the next few seconds if I don’t kiss you this instant.”
My heart thundered, sending tiny bolts of lightning across my chest. “What’s stopping you?”
One corner of his lips turned upward, and the hand around my back held me in place. He leaned in, his lips ghosting against mine with a caress that coated my skin with tiny crackles of electricity.
I shivered, my nipples tightening with anticipation and brushing against my leather shirt. My hands slid around to the back of his head, and I pulled him in to close the distance between our lips.
The second kiss was firmer, fiercer, full-on flirtatious. He threaded one hand between my curls, holding me in place, and the other cupped my ass. His strong lips coaxed mine open with a series of caresses that elicited a soft groan. I moaned into the kiss, and let him in.
Hades’ tongue twisted around mine, lavishing me with strokes that made me breathless with need. His skin burned hot, the heat of his passion seeping through my armor and pooling low in my belly. I clung to his neck, luxuriating in his kiss and never wanting it to end.
He kissed a trail of sparks along my jawline, down my neck, and toward my collarbones. “Words can’t express how much I love you.”
My throat thickened, and the backs of my eyes prickled with tears. The way he looked at me, as though I was his only reason for existing, filled my heart. Wasn’t this what I had wanted, a chance to find love? I gulped. It was hard to picture Hades as how others had described him—a fickle womanizer who discarded women once they had served their purpose.
Shallow breaths swirled over the tops of my lungs. Hades had gone as far as to marry me—I was the wife he had pined for over the centuries. Of course I could trust him with my heart. Butterflies rioted in my chest, some urging me to proclaim my feelings, others warning me to wait.
“I love you, too,” I blurted.
His eyes bulged, and his sculpted features turned slack. “Kora?”
I dipped my head and stared at him from under my lashes. “I said—
“Hades,” a woman’s voice screamed.
She sounded like Captain Caria, but the voice wasn’t coming from inside our heads. Neither did it emanate from somewhere within the room. We both turned toward the pool, to find Aello, the gray-skinned demoness with the beak on the back of her head.
Aello stood within a devastated village of straw houses, her white hair glowing in the gloom. She raised four arms ending in claws twice as long as her fingers and screeched. A leathery membrane stretched between each limb, forming a set of wings that resembled the leaves on a paper fan.
Five other creatures similar to her swooped down, landing on avian legs. They huddled close, circling something buried in the ground.
The pulse in my throat thudded, and my breath came in shallow pants. “Why did the screen switch to this?”
“The pool is enchanted to play the biggest threat to me and the Fifth Faction,” Hades replied, his voice stiff. “Aello and her harpies have found something.”
I turned to examine his hard expression and stilled at the fire blazing in his eyes. “Then Aello called out to you?”
A muscle in his jaw flexed, but his eyes remained fixed on the pool. Vines slithered from between the harpies’ clawed feet, wrapping around their thin legs. Tight bands of alarm squeezed my chest. Were we about to see those wretched plants consume another set of people?
“Hades?” I murmured.
He didn’t reply.
Persephone’s plants lengthened, thickened, and sprouted branches that wrapped around the harpies’ upper bodies. I placed a hand over my mouth and leaned against Hades’ unmoving body. In moments, if any of those seeds made their way into those bird women, there would be six more of those monstrous beanstalks.
Another scream pierced the air, sounding more like a war cry than a cry of alarm. A trio of women swooped down on dragon wings, each of them holding flaming spears. They were statuesque, raven-haired, clad in black armor that accentuated their every curve.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The Furies,” Hades snarled.
I stared down at the mass of plants that used to be the harpies. “You did say they were a last resort.”
My gaze darted from Hades, whose chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, to the battle playing out in the pool. The newcomers pointed streams of fire at the plants, searing them faster than they reformed. Eventually, they burned through the tangle of weeds, and the harpies rose to the skies.
“Do you think she’s escaped?” I whispered.
Hades swallowed. “There’s no predicting what she’ll do next.”
Flames consumed the plants. While the Furies fed the fire with their spears, the harpies hurled rocks that sank into the ground before bubbling up with pools of lava. I shot another glance at Hades, whose features remained grim. It looked like they might succeed in trapping Persephone.
“There she is,” shouted one of the women.
A blast of wind knocked the warriors off-court, and extinguished some of the flames. Crouching in the center of the bonfire was Persephone, her knees bent to her chest, and her tangled red hair trailing over her limbs. She stared up at the women swooping above her with her features slack.
The glow in her green eyes was gone, replaced with a look of terror.
My mouth dropped open. Was she gaining awareness?
Persephone rose from her crouch, and stumbled through the flames, her head moving from side to side. “Hades?”
A shudder ran down my spine. This was the same voice who had called out for him earlier.
“What’s happening?” I whispered.
Sweat beaded on Hades’ brow, and his chest heaved up and down with rapid breaths. He stared into the pool, looking just as confused as me. Empty shells couldn’t talk, could they?
Persephone fell onto her hands and knees, panting hard. “Please, stop. My husband rules the Underworld. Leave, or he will kill you all.”
I reeled on my feet and had to brace my hands on my thighs to stop myself from toppling into the pool. Before I could ask Hades again what on earth was happening to his wife’s shell, he disappeared from my side and reappeared in the vision playing out in the pool.
He stood behind Persephone’s crouched body with his arms outstretched, his power shoving all nine of the flying women to the ground.
“Your Majesty.” Aello placed her forehead on the floor. “We were carrying out orders to apprehend—”
“Hades?” Persephone turned around, meeting Hades’ gaze. “I knew you would come.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and cupped her cheek. “Is it really you?”
“I’ve been so afraid.” She lowered her head and burst into noisy sobs.
Hades stared down at her tangled mass of hair and pulled Persephone into his chest, cradling her like she was the only woman in the world.
Chapter Twenty
Every instinct in my body screamed at me to leave, but my feet remained rooted to the marble floor. I had to stay. Stay and find out for myself if the shell in Hades’ arms really contained Persephone. Stay and work out what it meant for me.
A draft blew across the circular room, making me wrap my arms around my middle. Hades held Persephone for several moments, his eyes squeezed shut, his breaths slow and deep.
The look of bliss on his features made my heart ache. He truly believed this was his Persephone.
“What happened to you?” he murmured into her tangled hair.
“Why did you abandon me?” she wailed.
Hades reeled back, his hands dropping to his sides. “I didn’t.” His voice was hoarse. “All these centuries, I kept your memory alive, sent witches and healers and alchemists to awaken you. I forsook all others—”
“Liar.” Persephone hit his chest with her balled fist. “You slept with other women. I felt it all t
hrough our bond. And then you married her.”
A gasp caught in my throat. This couldn’t be an empty shell animated by a magical plant. Nothing but a living soul could express so much anguish. This had to be Persephone herself.
Hades raised his hand to touch her face, but she slapped it away. My fingers rose to my pounding temple. This could only be the woman I had seen in that erotic vision. The one who had ground herself against Hades to a climax while spewing words of hatred.
Taking in a deep breath, Hades said, “I was true to you for two thousand years.” His voice was heavy with regret. “When I married Kora it was because—”
“Kora?” she shrieked. “That’s my nickname.”
Hades placed his hands on her shoulders. “She’s you. Your soul in another body.”
Persephone shook her head. “I saw her use lightning. Have you ever seen me wield my father’s power?” She took his hand and pressed it to her bare chest. “Feel it. Can’t you sense my soul?”
Hades paused, his gaze falling to her collarbones, before he snatched his hand away. “It’s there.” His breath became ragged. “If your soul is intact, then what is Kora?”
I stepped back from the pool with both hands over my mouth. This couldn’t be happening. I was supposed to be an incarnation of Persephone. How could she be back?
Persephone bared her teeth. “It’s probably one of Mother’s schemes to keep us apart. The woman you married might contain a scrap of my soul, but she’s likely here at Mother’s behest.”
“That’s not true,” I whispered.
Hades shook his head. “That’s impossible. Kora is—”
“A flesh-and-blood Trojan horse,” she shrieked. “Don’t you remember the time Mother disguised Pandora’s box as a jar of wine and tried to trick us into releasing misery and evil into the Underworld?”
I swallowed hard. Persephone didn’t know what she was talking about. Mother hadn’t sent me here. In fact, she wanted me in the mansion for her own nefarious reasons.
“Hades,” I said into the bond. “Don’t believe her.”
Hades didn’t so much as flinch. It was impossible to tell if he couldn’t hear me or if Persephone was blocking our connection. Closing my eyes, I imagined myself standing at their location, but my magic didn’t so much as budge.