The Passion of Hades - Eliza Raine Page 0,8
destined to be with him? Or did that just apply to the old Persephone, the one who had apparently killed another man's wife? A shudder rolled over me. This was all madness. I needed to stick to my plan. Lose the Trials, stay alive, and get back to New York.
Four
Hades
I paced up and down the breakfast room, flexing my fists and breathing hard.
Gods, I wanted her. And I knew how stupid it was to play with her, teasing and flirting and getting close. She would just be ripped away again.
But I couldn't stop myself. Even now, all the way in my rooms, I could feel her magic, a shining green light in the squalid sea of gloom I called home. I looked over at the platform where her tree had once stood, the branches blossoming over the table that was always set for two. For years it had been painful for me to come into this room. It had been our room. The place where we drank and ate and talked. And laughed. Her tree had softened the rocky room, bringing life and color and scent to the stillness. It had died the day she left, turning instantly to ash.
When Hecate had sent her here for lunch, and I'd seen her examining the rose and skull chairs, I'd wanted to seal the doors and never let her leave. She was back. The one woman I had ever loved, and had thought I would never see again.
A moan of frustration left me, and I pushed my hand through my hair yet again, wishing my arousal would lessen so that I could concentrate. But her body, responding to me like she had...
She may not be the bold, confident Persephone I had married, but the kindness, the sense of right, the fire in her belly was all still there. As was Hera's bond. My destiny was as written in stone as hers was, but I had the advantage of knowledge. She had nothing but a load of gods telling her what to do, in a world she didn't recognize. I hated the idea of her anger and frustration, but how could I tell her what had happened? It had broken her once, and even if I hadn't made my promise to her, there was no way I would cause her pain like that again. And it wouldn't help her anyway.
There was a sudden urgent humming in the back of my mind, and I sighed.
'What is it?' I snapped. A voice in my head responded quickly.
'We have information on the man with the phoenix.'
Rage flamed inside me at the mere mention of the man who had tried to kill my soulmate, and I flashed myself out of the breakfast room. That was not a place for anger. It was our place.
I took my position on my throne, then summoned the speaker to me. He was the captain of my guard, a severe and enormous minotaur called Kerato. In fact, most of my staff were severe, and I often thanked the gods for Hecate and her much needed sense of humor.
'Tell me,' I said.
'He was named Calix, my Lord. He lost his wife in the incident and had begun a faction of sorts. He and an indeterminate number of others who lost loved ones call themselves the Spring Undead and it seems they spend their time looking for ways to avenge their fallen.'
Anger made my form swell automatically, fury edging the colossal power that burned permanently hot inside me.
'How the fuck do they even remember her? She was wiped from Olympian history!' Just saying those words was painful. I wiped my own wife from history. But I kept my face stoic in front of Kerato.
'We have been unable to find that out. It shouldn't be possible.'
'Unless they have access to the river Lethe.' Which would mean it was someone who was allowed to enter Virgo; one of the four forbidden realms and the most secretive place in all Olympus. That should narrow the pool of suspects down.
'We have only captured one more conspirator so far, and he died before we could get much out of him. We will keep searching for answers, my Lord.'
'Search faster, and next time you capture someone involved, I want to meet them personally.' Visions of tearing that man apart filled my head, and the heavy melancholy I normally felt when considering the dead was replaced with a gleeful wave of retribution. This was the part of myself I disliked most,