Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXIX

Pirithous

MY JOURNEY TOWARD LOVING THE GOD OF THE DEAD

It was the first article on Persephone’s new website, The Advocate , and while Hades had been prepared for it, she hadn’t let him read it until it was live.

“You’ll have to wait like everyone else!” she had said.

When he’d asked why, she’d blushed.

“Because I don’t want to be here when you do.”

Now that he had read her words, he understood. She had wanted him to read it alone so he could feel the full weight of her confession—and did he ever.

He’d read it over and over again.

Fuck . He loved her, and it took everything in his power to remain focused on his work when all he wanted to do was go to her, but today was a big day for her. She had launched her website, this… love letter to him …and she was quitting her job at New Athens News . She was taking back her power, and he was proud .

In the meantime, he had an errand to run—one that felt even more right on the heels of this article—and he was eager to see it complete, which was how he found himself returning to the island of Lemnos, but this time to visit Hephaestus. He wandered through the god’s lab, a cluttered and cavernous workshop built into a volcanic mountain, filled with his inventions. The God of Fire had created weapons, armor, and even human life for the Olympians and their heroes. His skills, while invaluable, were often overlooked by the other gods, who were content to forget he existed until they needed something, though Hades did not think Hephaestus minded, as it allowed him to pursue his own interests.

As he wandered through the empty lab, he heard a loud clanking coming from below. Hades followed the sound into the darkened corridors of Hephaestus’s lab, down a set of stone steps, to a forge that was bright with fire. Hephaestus stood before it, sweat dripping down his bare chest, his muscles bulging from the work he had already put into shaping the metal he had pressed against his anvil.

A few more hard strikes and Hephaestus dropped his hammer, turning his attention to Hades. Perspiration and black coal stained his face, making his gray eyes somehow look brighter. He wiped a hand across his brow, then used a cloth sticking out of his leather apron to clean his hands.

“Lord Hades,” he greeted. “Come to retrieve your ring?”

Not long ago, Hades had commissioned Hephaestus to craft a ring for Persephone, but shortly before he had gone to retrieve it, Persephone had discovered his bargain with Aphrodite, which had caused her to question everything—even his love for her. He knew how it had looked then, knew how it looked even now, but that had not made letting her go any easier, and it had made seeing the ring he had designed for her even worse.

Hades had expected to never see the ring again, but Hephaestus had known better and promised to hold on to it until he needed it again.

“I didn’t know you were psychic,” Hades said.

“It is not so easy to fall out of love,” Hephaestus said, and there was an uneasy silence that followed those words. Likely Hephaestus feared he had invited Hades to comment on his relationship with Aphrodite, but Hades said nothing, though he knew Hephaestus spoke from experience.

The God of Fire crossed to a workbench and plucked a black box from one of his crowded shelves and handed it to Hades. He was overcome with a comforting energy as the soft velvet touched his palm, and when he opened the lid to gaze upon the ring—a ring of flowers and gems that gleamed in the firelight—he felt nervous.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, closing the box.

Hephaestus nodded.

“What are you working on?” Hades asked. He was always curious about the god’s projects.

“Nothing of worth,” the god replied, but Hades caught sight of it—the metal he was shaping—and he had questions.

“Is that… adamant ?” Hades looked longer. “Is that a trident ?”

Then his gaze leveled with Hephaestus’s.

“Are you trying to re-create Poseidon’s trident?”

The God of Fire was frozen in place, but not out of fear. This was different. He was stiff all over, his muscles rippling, as if he were about to have to defend himself.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, his tone darkening.

“I hope it’s exactly what I think,” Hades replied. “Hephaestus, tell me you’ve chosen a side.”

* * *

Hades returned to Nevernight with the ring safe in his pocket. He kept his hand around the small box, comforted by the weight of it, though that comfort was disrupted by a feeling that something was wrong. There was a discontent that tangled his veins, and it was like the world was too quiet and too still.

Persephone .

Antoni and Zofie burst through the doors of Nevernight. Behind them, a girl followed, the blond from Persephone’s work—Helen—who sat at the front desk. Hades could feel their hysteria, knew they were about to deliver fatal news.

“She’s gone!” Zofie exclaimed. “Persephone! She’s missing!”

Black spots clouded his vision and he growled. “Where was she last?”

“We were about to leave the Acropolis when she went downstairs,” Helen explained, her breathing uneven. “She said she had to say goodbye to someone. When she didn’t come back, I went to look and found…well… this .”

She handed a notebook to Hades, and he snatched it from her hands.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“It’s not good,” Antoni said. “Someone was stalking her.”

Hades opened the book and read one of the entries—they were all dated and handwritten.

Date: 6/27

Persephone had lunch with me today. She told me that her god was angry with her. If she were with me, I’d never be angry with her. I’d make her feel real good.

Date: 7/1

Today Persephone wore pink. Her dress was so tight, I could see each time her nipples hardened. She had to be thinking of me.

Hades felt bile rise in the back of his throat as he read entry after entry. They were all like this: short, dated paragraphs that detailed what Persephone was wearing, conversations the man had had with her, and gifts he’d left her. Whoever this was had planned this abduction. He’d wanted to hurt her, torture her, rape her.

Hades’s body shook with a fury he could not contain as his glamour melted away.

What if he was too late?

“Who is this man?” he demanded through his teeth.

“They call him Pirithous,” said Helen.

Pirithous .

“He was a janitor,” she added. “No one ever took notice of him…except…Persephone.”

And it was likely her kindness he had abused.

Hades’s magic welled, and in the next second, a familiar screech broke the air as the Furies—Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone—erupted from the floor around him. They hovered in a circle, their pale bodies adorned with black snakes that hissed as they slithered around their arms and their stomachs and their legs.

“Lord Hades,” they said, their voices a horrible, strange echo.

“Find Persephone,” he said. “Do what you must to keep her safe.”

The Furies screamed as they accepted their orders, and their black wings beat, whipping the air as they rocketed toward the ceiling, breeching the pinnacle of Nevernight, sending chunks of obsidian flying across New Athens.

“What can we do?” Helen asked.

“There is nothing you can do,” he snarled, and she stumbled back at his rage. He did not care that he had startled her, because he had silenced her, and that was what he needed right now—the quiet, so he could follow the Furies’ magic. While he held on to them, a finger twined around thread, his mind felt like a battlefield, erupting with nothing but thoughts of the consequences of finding her too late, and that only fueled his agony.

He knew when the Furies had located her because the tension between his magic and theirs lessened, and while he felt the smallest sense of relief, he would not be okay until he laid eyes on her, until he was certain she was unharmed.

He teleported, manifesting in the shadows of his own magic to find Persephone bound to a wooden chair. Her face was stained with tears—eyes red, lashes wet—and all around the room was what looked like wood debris. Then his eyes fell to the man who had abducted her.

Pirithous.

He was unassuming—thin and willowy with dark hair and high cheekbones. There was something to his features that made Hades think he had Divine blood. He was crumpled against the wall, a massive stake protruding from his chest.

He was dead, but not for long.

Hades called on his magic, and Pirithous gasped, then moaned, the pain of his wound shuddering through him. When he saw Hades, he began to whimper.

“I brought you back to life so I can tell you that I will enjoy torturing you for the rest of your eternal life. In fact, I think I will keep you alive so you can ruminate in your pain.”

Hades snapped his fingers, and a chasm opened beneath Pirithous’s body. As the Earth fell away, he took pleasure in the sound of the man’s screams echoing as he fell to Tartarus.

“Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, see to Pirithous,” Hades ordered. The three would guard him until he could take over. They bowed and vanished, and Hades was left to care for Persephone.

He released her from the coarse bindings Pirithous had used to restrain her, noting the redness on her wrists. As he knelt before her, she fell into his arms, and he gathered her to him, teleporting to the Underworld. Once in their bedroom, she burst into tears, and he felt helpless to do anything but sit with her and hold her and let her expend every ounce of her fear.

“I’m so sorry,” Hades said as he rocked her. “I did not know. I’m so sorry.”

While he held her, he felt like breaking too. He could not control the beat of his own heart, could not stop his stomach from twisting or the nausea from climbing up this throat. He was angry for so many reasons, but at the end of the day, he was devastated that she had not been safe, that there was a possibility she would never feel safe again.

He did not know how long Persephone cried, but there came a time when she quieted, and when she pulled away, she took his heart with her.

“I need to scrub him from my skin.”

Hades said nothing because he feared what he would say and instead took her to the baths. Once there, he sat apart from her while she undressed and entered the hot pool. He watched as she washed every part of her skin until she was red from head to toe, and all he could think was that he had touched her there—everywhere. By the time she finished, his hands were fisted so tightly, his nails had cut into his palms.

He only healed them when she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He was grateful for her closeness and held her tight.

“How did you know I was missing?” she asked.

“Your coworker, Helen, got worried when you didn’t come back from the basement. She went to search for you and found the journals.”

When he thought of them, he wanted to kill Pirithous a thousand times over—and he would. He had no tolerance for abusers of women and children, and the fact that Persephone was involved made it even worse.

“She didn’t know who to tell. For better or worse, she told a security guard. Zofie had been patrolling outside when she was notified, and she realized she’d watched Pirithous leave with you—in a tilt truck. When she told me, I sent the Furies. You had already been gone so long…I wasn’t sure what I would find.”

“He was a demigod,” she said, her voice quiet. “He had power.”

Hades’s earlier observation had been right, then. He grimaced.

“Demigods are dangerous, mostly because we do not know what power they will inherit from their Divine parent.” Not to mention many demigods did not know their parentage, and it was not always apparent even after their powers developed. Hades could not help thinking about Ariadne’s comment, that Theseus had gathered an army of demigods—soldiers, she had called them.

Pirithous was just one example of how little they actually knew about demigods—including their numbers, their powers, their capabilities.

“What was Pirithous able to use against you?”

“He put me to sleep, and when I woke, I couldn’t use my magic. I couldn’t focus. My head…my mind was in turmoil.”

Hades’s brows lowered. “Compulsion. It can have that affect.”

It took a lot of training to keep from being compelled too. Persephone would have had no chance to fight it.

After a moment, he asked in a quiet, rough voice, “Tell me what happened?”

She studied him for a moment, looking very troubled. Perhaps she worried over what he would do once he knew the full truth, and she had every reason to, because he was not stable at the moment.

“I will tell you if you will promise me one thing.”

Hades studied her face, waiting.

“When you torture him, I get to join you.”

He hugged her tight as he swore, “That is a promise I can keep.”

* * *

It might have been a promise Hades kept eventually, but it was not one he would keep tonight. Once Persephone was sleep, he teleported to Tartarus. Pirithous had been taken to his office and tied to the same chair he’d used to restrain Persephone. The stake that had left him lifeless on the floor in the Upperworld was still embedded in his chest, and with each breath the demigod took, he whined.

When Hades finally came face-to-face with him, he lashed out, kicking the stake farther into the man’s chest. Pirithous gave a pathetic cry and began to wheeze as blood spattered across the floor and dripped from his mouth.

“You touched my lover, my fiancée, my future,” Hades bellowed. “An unforgivable crime.”

“It’s not my fault!” Pirithous gave a gargled howl.

“Not your fault?” Hades repeated, the fury burning his blood. “Go ahead and tell me how it wasn’t your fault. You stalked her. You wrote horrible things about her. You abducted her. You. Touched. Her .”

He was raging, and once more, he kicked the man in the chest. This time, Persephone’s stake went right through him and fell to the floor, though Hades managed to hold on to the man’s life thread. He would not die yet. He would face immeasurable pain, and despite the pleasure Hades would take from inflicting it, he knew it would not atone for what this man had done to Persephone.

“No,” Pirithous moaned, his words barely intelligible. “Th-Theseus said…we… Theseus said…”

“Theseus?” Hades repeated, his body stiffening at the sound of the demigod’s name. “Did you say Theseus?”

Pirithous nodded.

“ He…was…friend .”

Hades took a moment to collect himself, then used his magic to heal the demigod. It would be hard for him to explain himself with a mouth and throat full of blood.

“What about Theseus?” he demanded.

“We made a bet,” Pirithous explained, his voice high-pitched and keening. “To carry off goddesses. He said…he said we couldn’t get in trouble because of Hera.”

“You made a bet to carry off goddesses, and you chose my goddess?” Hades asked.

“It was Theseus who suggested it,” said Pirithous. It was as if he thought he shouldn’t be punished because it was not his idea, though Hades wondered why Theseus had put Pirithous up to this. Had he merely wished to see what happened when someone fucked with him? Or had he done this as a type of revenge?

Either way, Pirithous would not be the one to suffer for what happened tonight, though he would be the first.

Hades used his magic to summon Persephone’s stake from the ground, and as he hovered over the demigod, Pirithous began to wail.

“She was not yours to take,” Hades said, and he jammed the stake into the man’s neck. As he jerked it free, he seethed. “She was not yours to touch! She was not yours! She was not yours!”

As he raged, he shoved Persephone’s stake into the demigod’s body, bathing in his blood, and he only stopped when he had lost his voice.