The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus) - By Kaitlin Bevis Page 0,11
in thought.
“They’ll get over it!” I snapped.
She flinched, moving away from me with a small, almost imperceptible motion. “Of course. It’s temporary, and there’s enough that we can ask for volunteers.”
It took a while, but eventually we got all the details hammered out. One by one I sent them away to complete their tasks until it was just me and Cassandra left in the throne room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” There was no chance Cassandra hadn’t seen this coming with so many living deities involved.
She looked at the floor. “This has to happen, Hades.”
For a moment, I was furious. How dare some human tell me what had to happen? Persephone was suffering, and Cassandra could have prevented all her pain with a single warning.
But the irony was too great for even me to ignore. I was a god. I’d allowed humans to suffer since their creation, sat by and watched while the rest of the pantheon used them as pawns in their petty games, and done nothing when my clairvoyants reported catastrophes that would happen on the surface. There was so much I could have stopped. Instead, I’d felt good about myself for treating the souls in my realm well, like I was some sort of Prometheus figure. No wonder I struggled to sleep at night. But what else could I have done? Every hard decision I’d ever made, no matter how difficult, served the greater good.
I was intimately familiar with the greater good. It was cold and heartless and didn’t give a damn about any of us. But we were all bound to it, because the only thing worse than being its agent was being its opposition.
Cassandra put a hand on mine, and I looked up, startled at the pain in her eyes. “I need you to trust me, Hades, without knowing why.”
I nodded. “I do.” I’d known Cassandra for lifetimes. She didn’t have an ill-intentioned bone in her body. If she said this needed to happen, however hard that was to accept, it needed to happen.
Of course, I’d trusted Thanatos too. Right up to the moment I’d discovered he’d been torturing my wife and trying to turn my realm over to Zeus. Maybe I wasn’t such a good judge of character after all.
“We’re going to recruit as many of Zeus’ offspring as we can,” I told Cassandra, watching her face for a reaction.
She gave an impassive nod. “Who’s left?”
“Ares, Apollo, Artemis,” I listed off the names of Zeus’ known children, frowning as I noticed a pattern. “A” names. No one expected Zeus to be an attentive parent, most gods weren’t. But even in naming his children, he’d put as much distance between himself and them as possible. It was an unnatural indifference.
“That many?” Cassandra sounded surprised. “I knew about Apollo, but I assumed the rest had died.”
“They all have charm, so it’s not like they were going to run out of worshipers.” I spoke without thought, my mind still distracted by the A to Z thing. Zeus tried to prevent Athena from being born, Cronus style. She’d popped out of his head fully grown in the world’s worst migraine, and he’d never again tried to prevent his children from being born. Instead he’d brought them into the center of power on Olympus. Not power, I realized, the center of attention. His demigods received a never-ending supply of quests or became key figures in epic wars. They all became heroes who died young.
“He’s afraid of them,” I said, realizing. Zeus had kept them busy in the spotlight so he could always keep an eye on them without getting too close.
Cassandra gave me an odd look. “Of course he is. The Titans killed your parents, and then you all killed the Titans with him leading the way. History repeats itself. He’s next.”
Chapter IX
Persephone
“You know what I like about you?” Zeus’ breath was hot in my ear as he stroked my scorched jawline. I’d lost count of how many times he’d dragged me to my feet and propped me against this wall. He seemed to enjoy watching me fall into a crumpled heap of agony. “You never stop fighting. Even now you’re scanning the room looking for something, a way out, a weapon, even though you know the truth. There is nothing here but me, you, and that.” His eyes scanned my face for a reaction as he motioned over his shoulder at the bed.
I shuddered. He hadn’t gone there, yet. Though what was stopping him I couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t