Chapter 95

95

Persephone had taken about ten years off Hades’s life when she collapsed in the hospital hallway.

But then she was blinking up at him, awake, only ten minutes later. And if she had to pass out, she couldn’t have picked a better place to do it.

Nurses and doctors had immediately rushed to their aid and gotten her on a gurney and into a room.

She was dehydrated, something Hades would never forgive himself for—he should have been making sure she’d drank more fluids while they watched over Charon, especially after the traumatic events of the days beforehand.

The doctors had taken some blood and they were waiting on the results. Hades had never been a praying man but he prayed now, to every god he knew and even those he didn’t, that the bloodwork would come back fine and nothing was wrong with her.

They’d been waiting for what felt like hours even though he’d threatened the doctor to prioritize Persephone’s bloodwork with his most menacing face. In reality, it was only a little over 45 minutes before the doctor came pushing through the door.

Hades leapt to his feet. The doctor was carrying a folder and he was smiling. Smiling had to mean good news, right? If it didn’t, Hades would do more than smash this guy’s face in.

“What is it?” Hades demanded. “Tell us.”

“Hades.” Persephone squeezed his hand gently. “Give the man a chance to take a breath.”

Hades looked down at his wife in the hospital bed. She was too pale for his liking. And ever since she woke up, she kept asking him if he was real and clutching his hand like he would disappear if she let go even for a second.

“Other than the slight dehydration issue, you are in wonderful health,” the doctor said to Persephone, avoiding Hades’s gaze and walking to the other side of her bed.

“And I have good news.” Persephone frowned up at him but then he continued, “You’re pregnant!”

“What?” both Persephone and Hades said at the same time.

Persephone gasped and stared at the doctor in shock. Then she looked up at Hades with a tremulous smile on her face. She clasped his hand even tighter as she blinked rapidly. “I guess, I mean— I forgot to re-up my birth control shot because?—”

Because they’d been separated.

Persephone shook her head and let out a little laugh. “And then I didn’t even think about it but I should have gotten my period three weeks ago. Everything has just been so nuts preparing for the fundraiser and everything else.” She broke off with another laugh.

But Hades wasn’t laughing. He looked at the doctor. “So how far along is she?”

“When was the date of your last period?” the doctor asked Persephone.

She was still shaking her head in wonder, and then her eyes went to the ceiling as she calculated. “Um, about six weeks ago? Maybe seven? The second week of last month, I think.”

Hades did the math in his head. He wasn’t that well-versed in women’s reproductive health but he’d had a woman once try to falsely claim he’d fathered her child and had learned a little about it. If her last period was seven weeks ago, that meant the baby had been conceived five weeks ago…right around the time they’d first gotten back together and first had sex.

But if she was off, even by a little bit… They’d been separated for months. She’d left him and he never asked if there was any one else during that time.

Frankly, he hadn’t wanted to know. Okay, that was a lie. He had wanted to know, with a vengeance, but he also knew himself too well. If any other man had touched Persephone, whether she welcomed it or not, that man would not remain breathing for long after Hades discovered his name.

But now there was a child…

His jaw locked and he could hear his heartbeat racing in his ears. There was a child. No matter what, the child was half Persephone’s. And anything that was half of her, he would love until his dying breath.

He reached down and retook her hand. “I will love this child as my own, no matter what.”

Persephone blinked up at him in confusion. “What do you mean? It is your child.” Then understanding seemed to dawn on her. And she threw his hand away. “I didn’t sleep with anyone else while we were separated. Did you?” Her eyes spit fire and color flushed back into her previously pale cheeks. “So help me, if you so much as?—”

Hades roared with laughter and then sat down on the bed, pulling her into his arms. “No. Never. Never anyone but you.”

He kissed her hard. At first she was unresponsive but then her lips softened and she gave in to him. His sweet Persephone. His powerful, ball-busting Queen.

He pulled back from her and pressed his forehead to hers. “We’re going to have a baby,” he whispered.

Her big blue eyes blinked up at him, wide with astonishment. Her hand slid between them to her stomach. “A baby,” she said in awe. “Your baby.”

“You’ve made me the happiest man alive. I love you. Forever.” The words were an understatement. They always would be.

But he would spend the rest of his life proving them to his wife. His beloved. His Queen.