Endangered

by Dani Hoots

  “About how you disobeyed me?”

  I didn’t like how he said the word ‘disobeyed’. I was in enough agony, I didn’t need to be reminded. “I didn’t think— “

  “That’s right, you didn’t think. Why did you even leave? You knew the risk.”

  “I didn’t think that just a few days would be a problem,” I whispered.

  Father rubbed his temples. He was beyond stress now. I had never seen him like this before. I wanted to help, but I knew there was nothing I could do at this point. I had really screwed things up.

  He looked out at the Underworld. “Yeah, well, you were wrong weren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry, I really am…”

  “Now Zeus will have you and I am alone again. All of what I have done since you have been born has been for your safety. And now he has you.”

  “But I will be here when Mother is away, I made sure that was part of the agreement for you.“

  He turned to face me. “You don’t understand, Chrys, I can’t stand thinking of what he will do to you. The three months that you are with him, how you are my daughter, the brother he likes to hurt, the brother he likes to cause pain. Now he has you and I can’t even comprehend what…” Hades closed his eyes. “You have any idea how many women he has been with? He tricked your mother long ago, as you probably know since I saw Melinoe with you. He has destroyed countless lives, and above everything he has always wanted to push me down. I have let him all this time, knowing he could never touch what was important to me. He couldn’t touch you. Now he can, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Father I’m so sorry. I just wanted to know what it was like out there. I’m sorry, I really am.”

  “It’s too late for sorries, my flower. Now you will belong to him and everything will have been for nothing. All because you wanted to see the world.” He placed his hand on my shoulder and stared in my eyes. Great sadness filled them, sadness that had taken root even before I was born. “Just tell me, was it worth it?”

  With that he turned back to the palace and went inside. Tears streamed down my face. I had lost everything because of one choice. A choice I should have never made.

  “We have to do something. We have to stop this.” I paced back and forth in Pothos’ house, trying to comprehend still all that had happened. Chrys had been taken to the Underworld, getting ready to marry Zeus. It had happened so fast, I just wanted it all go back to how it was.

  Melinoe and Pothos sat together on the couch, watching as I walked all around. Melinoe kept shaking her head. “There isn’t anything we can do. It’s Zeus, it isn’t like we can go against him, stop him, or even kill him. There is nothing we can do.”

  I hated hearing that, that there was nothing we could do. Of course there had to be something we could do, and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. This was Chrys, I owed everything to her. She had fished me out of the rivers of the Underworld, gave me compassion and love. And now, here I was, stuck on Earth unable to console her. I thought about jumping off a bridge, or in front of a bus, but the fact that could just leave me floating in a river, never to be found, it didn’t seem like it could help. By the time someone found me, centuries could have passed and Chrys will have suffered so much.

  So I had to figure out how to stop the wedding without going to the Underworld. And that’s what led me to be at Pothos’ house.

  I found them after the others left for their respected domains. I was just standing there, alone, like a sad little puppy. They dragged me, kicking and screaming, as I tried to jump in the River Thames. They are the ones who pointed out that if I drowned then I couldn’t help Chrys. Stupid people and their well thought out ideas. So now we sat here, trying to figure out a plan we could instigate to stop this wedding that would happen in ten months.

  “But there has to be a way to get her out of this marriage,” I said as I looked down at my friendship bracelet. Every moment it reminded me of her. “A way to get Zeus to call it off.”

  Pothos stood up., bitting his lip, a finger extended as if he had an idea. “There’s only one person who would be able to help us, one of the few people who has gone up against him and survived. We would have to find him, get him to help us. It won’t be easy, though, as he has great reason to fear Zeus.”

  I shook my head. “Who then?”

  “That…” A voice started and as I turned I found Prometheus standing there. He looked nervous, just as before. He held his hat in his hands, squeezing it. “Would be me.”

  I want to think everyone who made this novel possible. A big thank you to my editor Justin Boyer who hopefully hasn’t gotten sick of reading my stories yet. Thank you to Desiree DeOrto for working with me on the cover and helping edit as well. Another thank you to Marcy Rachel for formatting my books. A special thank you to Dr. Almira Poudrier at ASU for answering my questions about Greek Mythology as things get weird and confusing and even more weird. And lastly, thank you to my husband and parents who are always supporting me.

  Dani Hoots is a science fiction, fantasy, romance, and young adult author who loves anything with a story. She has a B.S. in Anthropology, a Masters of Urban and Environmental Planning, and is currently in the Your Novel Year Program through Arizona State University.

  Currently she is working on a YA urban fantasy series called Daughter of Hades, a historic fantasy vampire series called A World of Vampires, and a YA sci-fi series called Sanshlian Series.

  Her hobbies include reading, watching anime, cooking, studying different languages, wire walking, tinkering with her violin and concertina, and volunteering at the library. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two cats.

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