The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus) - By Kaitlin Bevis Page 0,35

make a way to kill him. Then I’d drag him down to hell and spend the rest of eternity making him suffer.

It wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. Zeus looked like me. The bastard had looked like me when he’d hurt her. “It’s me.”

She didn’t look convinced, and I didn’t blame her. I didn’t sound like myself. There was no getting past this. Even if I found a way to get her back, even if everything worked out, she would look at me now and see him.

“Everyone is ‘me.’” Persephone put the word in air quotes. “Be more specific.”

The hardness in her voice was so foreign to me that I hesitated. Her eyes narrowed, and she shot out her hands, shoving me backward. “Get the fuck out of my head, you sick bastard.”

That snapped me out of my reverie. I grabbed her hands. “I’m not in your dream. You’re in mine. I promise, I’m Hades. You?” I didn’t know. She was acting so different.

“I’m Persephone. Oh gods, Hades!” She half-fell, half-threw herself into my arms. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t tell. I thought it was you, but I couldn’t tell.”

I shushed her, savoring the feel of her warm body pressed against mine. “It’s fine.” Gods, it felt good to hold her. “Are you okay?” I’d been knocked out by the force of whatever happened to her. And I was a lot stronger than she was.

She shook her head. “I’m not okay, Hades.”

My arms tightened around her. “I know. But you will be, when this is all over you’re going to be fine. You have to hang on to that, hear me?” I stared into her eyes. “You’re not okay, but you will be. We will fix this, I promise. Now, where are you?”

“I escaped Zeus, I think.” Her voice was muffled from talking into my shoulder. “I jumped out of his weird cloud castle thing. It’s in this hemisphere. It was still daylight when I jumped.”

My mouth dropped open. “You jumped?” Zeus’ fortress wouldn’t be close to the ground. The pain I’d felt had been her shattering upon impact.

She sniffled. “I couldn’t…” Her breath hitched. “I thought if I jumped I could teleport, but even if I couldn’t, anything would be better than what he was doing to me.”

Her shoulders shook, and I tightened my embrace. Zeus wasn’t dumb enough to leave his offspring with teleportation rights. I had my doubts she’d actually managed to escape him, but we’d cross that bridge when she woke up. “Do you know where you landed?”

The look on her face told me this wasn’t going to be good news. “The middle of the ocean.”

Poseidon’s realm. Shit. I took a deep breath. “Did you swear fealty to Zeus?”

She shook her head. “I tried. Hades, I’m so sorry, I tried, but I made this promise I wouldn’t hurt you. So I couldn’t do it.”

Relief rushed through me, and I immediately felt guilty for it. She couldn’t swear fealty. My realm was safe. But what had that cost her?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

My voice hardened when I asked the next question. “What did he do to you?”

“What did he do to us?” she asked, ducking my question. “I can’t feel you anymore. I don’t know what you’re thinking. Did the lightning sever our connection somehow?”

“Impossible.” I tilted her head up, lips brushing against hers with tentative patience. I’d let her set the pace. She surged forward, pushing up on her tiptoes and looping an arm around my neck to yank me to her level as her lips crushed against mine with a desperate urgency. Power surged between us, ripping through our connection. It felt like something broken within me had been restored. We were whole again.

Gods! Her whispered thought echoed in my mind. I was so afraid I’d never feel this again. Persephone’s fingers dug into my back as she clung to me with all her strength and joy, and unbelievably enough, love. She loved me. How could she possibly have it in her to feel happiness after what she’d been through, much less joy? She was so strong.

No, I’m not, she objected. I would have sworn to him if I could have, I wanted to give in.

Anyone would have. There’s more to it than that. You didn’t break.

Persephone didn’t get it, but that wasn’t surprising. She was young. I’d been around long enough to see the way pain could twist and bend people. How they could buckle under the misery until they had nothing left