remains of Uranus to give me unprecedented levels of charisma and then abandoned me in the world without the knowledge to control the charm.
Charisma, or charm, is kind of like mind control if you know how to use it. I can smile at pretty much any human and make him do what I want, but uncontrolled it’s dangerous. Like, Trojan War dangerous. Used without direction, it steers humans toward their baser instincts. They become obsessed. Anything could have happened to me, but either way, it served Zeus’ purposes. He had backup plans for his backup plans.
Now he was leaving me with two very pissed off deities who would move heaven and earth to find Persephone. No telling what they’d do to me.
Did Persephone even know how lucky she was? I’d sell my soul for just one of the following she collected anywhere she went. To be someone worthy of worship instead of the obedient abomination Zeus created, stripped of my free will and forced into servitude.
Zeus shifted and grabbed the necklace Persephone wore. “Tell Hades”—he cast a knowing glance at the shield behind me with a smirk—“and Demeter I’ll take their realms in exchange for the girl.” The silver chain snapped, and he tossed the necklace toward me. “Give him that.”
Before I could answer, he vanished.
Plucking the necklace out of a puddle, I shook water off the small green plant that sat anchored in a wire basket and dried the pomegranate charm on my shirt. Oh yeah. Hades was definitely going to kill me when he came to.
I’d run, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. Zeus created me with an extra special tweak. I was loyal to family. Loyal to the point of obedience if they outranked me enough. That was why I was almost glad I was still “useful” to him; I had a feeling the minute he didn’t need me anymore, he’d ask me to swear fealty and give him all my power. Suicide by devotion. And I’d have no choice but to oblige.
If I swore over everything to him, would he release my soul to the Underworld? Would I finally be free? Or would he keep me, my thoughts and memories, and everything about me that was me locked in his head in case he ever found it useful?
I sat beside Hades and pulled my knees to my chest. Hollow. I felt hollow inside, like Zeus had carved out everything that mattered, everything I cared about, and left me empty. Hopeless. The rain dripped down my face, mimicking the tears I didn’t dare cry.
Chapter III
Persephone
Getting struck by lightning hurts. A lot. Most people die long before they fully process the pain of a storm’s worth of voltage passing through their body in the blink of an eye. I don’t have that luxury. Instead, I discovered something that hurt far worse than becoming a sadistic deity’s living electrical conduit. Healing from a lightning strike at godspeed.
When I came to, my body felt like it was pulsing molten lava through my veins with each heartbeat. Gods! An inhuman moan tore from my throat. What happened? It wasn’t until the bed shifted that I realized I wasn’t alone.
Hades. I let myself relax. Relief calmed me enough for unconsciousness to threaten to pull me back under, so I forced myself to take steady breaths. It was too soon to open my eyes. I knew how to stay conscious through horrific pain. Thanatos taught me that.
I breathed in too deeply, and a bolt of pain lanced through me. When I shifted positions to get comfortable, a low moan worked its way up my throat. There was no comfortable. The lightning had seared every single nerve ending in my body. Healing from this didn’t feel good at all.
His hand brushed the hair out of my face.
“Hades?” I croaked, struggling to open my eyes.
He shushed me, stroking my arm. I leaned into his touch as the memories rushed back—Hades finding out about Thanatos and killing him, destroying his soul, planning to trap Zeus, waiting at the park for Aphrodite, and realizing Joel was there. What happened to Joel?
The voice shushed me again, and the hand on my shoulder didn’t feel comforting anymore. His touch felt…wrong. My eyes flew open, and I bolted upright.
With a horrible certainty I turned to see who sat next to me on the bed.
Chapter IV
Hades
The words on the page of the book I read swirled into an indecipherable vortex of black ink. It was obvious I was dreaming