sand to their side, breathing hard and waving his arms dramatically. “I need him!”
Hades hesitated. He held Theseus up in the air like a rag doll and asked, “This one? He’s just as pathetic as his friend.”
“And yet his life will change history,” Heracles gasped. He paused before them, sides heaving for each breath. “He needs his memories. The Fates require him to live out his life as it’s already planned, not ended as you wish to see it.”
Hades shook Theseus hard. “The fabric of time will reweave itself.”
“Not this time.” Heracles fell to his knees before Hades, not too proud to beg. “They sent me back to save him. I don’t care what you do with the other, but Theseus must remember this exchange. He must remember the will of the gods.”
Persephone couldn’t let this happen. If Heracles said Theseus was important, then he was important and needed to be around. She trusted her half brother, for better or for worse.
“Hades,” she said, her voice a quiet whisper through the air. “Let him go.”
He looked over at her, his gaze on fire and the anger radiating off him like waves of heat. “Give me one good reason.”
“Because he wasn’t the one who touched me.”
Hades thought about her words and finally relented. He released Theseus by throwing him at Heracles. The demi-god caught Theseus before he hit the sands, and together, they bolted out of sight.
Silence rang between them, louder than thunder from Olympus.
She pointed at Pirithous. “What are you going to do with him? Send him home?”
He shook his head. “He stays put. Any man who dares to touch my wife will not leave the Underworld.”
Perhaps Heracles would be interested in returning to save his friend. She’d have to reach out eventually, or send someone to provide that message. Until then, Pirithous would remain where he was. Stuck to the throne as though Hades had placed a rock on his shoulders.
She held her arms out wide at her sides. “Have at it then, Hades. I know you have words for me.”
“I have more than a few words, wife,” he snarled. Hades took an ominous step forward. “But I think I’d first like to understand why the Queen of the Underworld would ever let a mortal soil her skin with his touch.”
Chapter 31
A smarter goddess might have been frightened. A woman who feared for her life might have admitted that she had been foolish and didn’t know why she’d done it.
Persephone was neither of those things. She was just angry. He was the one who had kept an ex-lover far too close for comfort. He was the one who spoke to Minthe, allowed her to talk about Persephone behind her back, and even encouraged said behavior with his silence.
She refused to allow it to continue any longer. She couldn’t survive it, no matter how strongly he argued. If he was mad at her for entertaining the touch of a mortal, so be it. Now he knew what it felt like.
Persephone jabbed the air with a finger, pointing at him with severity. “You were the one who caused this, Hades. Don’t blame me for it.”
“I caused it?” He pointed back at her. “You were the one wandering the sands. You were the one speaking with the mortals, and I didn’t stand there asking him to touch you. Did I? How is any of this my fault?”
“He’s just a mortal! Why does it matter to you at all what I do?”
His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. Hades choked out a ragged sound. “Gods have been tempted by lesser men. You’re my wife. What were you thinking?”
“Exactly,” she replied. “Lesser men. I know exactly what the Olympians do. My mother told me stories about you and your people, and I know the idea of having a wife isn’t normal. Nor is fidelity something any of you believe in. So where is the skeleton in your closet, Hades? What are you going to show me that proves you really are an Olympian?”
He stared at her like she’d grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen you with her!” Persephone decided blurting it all out would be easiest. “I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. I know how tempting nymphs are to the gods. Don’t you remember? I grew up with them. And when she said I was nothing more than a plaything to you, a replacement, I chose not to believe it. But now I’ve seen with my