Chapter 33

H er hands wrapped around the bulbous flower heads, their petals silky against her skin. She was careful not to squeeze too hard, knowing that, although they were strong enough to withstand a significant amount of pressure, too much of it would destroy the beautiful flowers. Not too different from herself, she thought bitterly, her eyes unfocused as she gazed across the field of roses.

It appeared to be another beautiful day in paradise, but that too was deceptive. Her home—an idyllic jewel box of a garden—was a stunning cage, one in which she was trapped as much as the flowers that surrounded her. She had no visitors, no friends, except for the goddess of the harvest’s acolytes. Though they weren’t friends so much as rats who gleefully reported her every move back to their deity, hoping that disclosing her actions would earn them favor with the stern goddess. Not just a stern goddess, though. Her mother. A strict disciplinarian who locked Kore away from the world, held her captive with spellwork so complex that Kore herself couldn’t undo the boundaries.

All she wanted was somebody to spend time with. A person who wanted to be with her because of her, not because of who she was to her mother. It was painful to be this lonely. No. Not just lonely. Utterly alone.

From behind her, she heard footsteps. Her mother’s acolytes were silent, always trying to catch her in some sort of mischief, so it was probably her nursemaid, Kalligeneia. More a mother than Demeter herself, Kalligeneia practically raised Kore, and it had been too long since her last visit. A smile bloomed on Kore’s face, and she whirled around in excitement, the nymph’s name on her lips.

But the person behind her was not Kalligeneia.

Behind her stood a tall, dark-haired man with vibrant green eyes settled like jewels into an angular face that was too stark for beauty but somehow still captivating. His head was canted to the side, an amused smirk tilting up the corners of his lips. “Hello, little flower,” he said in a deep voice.

“Hello.” She couldn’t look away from him. She had never seen a man before outside of the Galli, the castrated priests who served her mother; none of them looked like the man in front of her. Her stomach clenched as she took in his form. None of them made her feel like this man, either. “Who are you?”

The man took a step forward, his long legs closing the distance between them. “I’m Aidoneus.” The name was exotic on his thin lips when said in his remarkable voice. “And you are?”

“I’m… " she trailed off, realizing that she might be about to reveal too much to a stranger. Even though the stranger was overwhelmingly beautiful. “I’m not sure I should tell you who I am. I don’t know you.”

Those lips, too thin for beauty, almost a cruel slash in his face, curled into a true smile, and Kore lost her breath as surely as if she had been punched in the stomach. This Aidoneus smiling was stunning.

“No,” he murmured. “No, you don’t, but I would very much like to know you.”

Unfamiliar warmth settled in her chest. Something that made her feel at peace and at ease. Was this what happiness felt like? She had never experienced that particular feeling, despite reading tales of it often.

“What if I were to guess it?” Aidoneus raised a hand, curling a strand of her hair around his finger gently.

“Guess what?” she asked dumbly, too distracted by his touch—a touch she couldn’t even feel, no less—to follow. Later, after Aidoneus had gone and she was alone like she always was, she would probably be ashamed at her dim-wittedness. Now, though, she was too stunned by his mere presence to care.

“Your name, little flower. If I were to guess it, would you tell me?”

A giggle bubbled out of her throat, and her fingers reached to her throat, astonished at the sound. She had never made that happy, lilting noise before.

His eyes were on her, too intense and far too observant. “Is that a yes, petal?”

“Yes.” She nodded emphatically. “But shall we put some rules around this game? We wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you.”

“Of course.” Aidoneus tilted his head back and laughed, a rich sound that reminded her of the noise the wind made as it whipped through her trees. “I want it to be a fair contest. I can never have my future wife accuse me of cheating to gain her affections.”

Kore’s head jerked up, alarm coursing through her. She had heard too many stories from the acolytes about men taking whatever they wanted from the women surrounding them, including a horrific tale about Poseidon forcing himself upon a virginal priestess of Athena, who was then punished for the god’s crimes.

“Don’t you worry, flower,” Aidoneus said, unfurling his finger from her hair then tracing it along her cheek. Sparks followed the small touch, and her skin tingled under his fingertip.. “That’s a discussion for another day. Now—” His eyes burned with excitement. “Shall we play a game?”

Evie

Garden District, New Orleans, Louisiana

Evie jerked awake, her heart pounding. Her eyes darted blindly in the darkness for whatever had woken her from Kore’s memory, but the room was still and quiet, save for Cole’s deep breathing beside her.

She didn’t really remember getting home or getting into bed, after all but passing out from exhaustion in the car. Raising the comforter, she glanced down at herself, finding that she was draped in a shirt—one of Cole’s if the size was any indication. Guess he meant what he said about not touching her until she had made a decision. A small groan emerged from her lips, and she sat up, Cole’s arm falling away from her waist as she did so.

The room was still lit by the moon, the sky outside dark even through the curtains. It was either extremely late or far too early, but these moments, when the moon was high in the sky, were her time. She slipped out from under the covers, careful not to wake Cole, whose response to her absence was a strange snuffle of disappointment. With quiet steps, she crossed the room and stole out into the hallway, closing the door behind her gently.

As she slipped down the staircase, she took in the stillness around her. The house felt different at night, large pieces of furniture casting long shadows in the moon’s dim light. The gas lamps outside the front door lent little illumination to the front entryway, their small and yellow flames barely breaking the darkness. The overall effect would be eerie if Evie hadn’t spent so much of her life frolicking under the moon in the forest, surrounded by more ominous shadows than this.

The wards around the front door pulsed as she walked past them, but, unlike before, they didn’t glow and repel her. She traced a finger through a door, sending a small pulse of magic at the spells so that she could read what they protected against. As they came into view, her face broke into a smile. Cole had built in an exception for her lunar magic in addition to the one already existing for death. She could come and go as she please. It seemed he meant it when he said he wanted her to choose him, even going so far as to make sure that the house was no longer a prison for her.

She padded away from the front door and crossed the sitting room into the kitchen, passing the island and strolling out through the glass doors into the backyard. The minute she stepped foot outside, her body flooded with power in response to the full moon above her, raising goosebumps along her skin and sending the glimmers of sorcery across her skin. In addition to the usual cool gold of her lunar magic, though, she noticed a vibrant cobalt too. She had assumed that her ability to source power from death was temporary, but it had been days, and she could still feel the grave around her: the corpses across the street, some odd sense of death that she didn’t understand emanating from the house next door, both of them almost as potent a pull as the moon above her.

Her feet carried her past the crepe myrtles to one of the live oaks at the back of the yard. Its limbs reached out to her, the leaves passing over her face in greeting. “Hi, beautiful,” she cooed, running her fingertips along the branches. Through the rough bark, she could feel the tree’s health like a heartbeat in her head, vibrant and pulsing against her skin. “Cole’s taken good care of you, hasn’t he?” The branches shimmied happily against her fingertips in answer.

“Would you mind giving me a lift?” she requested.

The live oak was only too happy to oblige, a limb lowering delicately in front of her feet in seconds. She stepped onto it and was suddenly rising high into the air, finding herself among the canopy of the same copse of trees in the backyard. Once there, she arranged herself until she was seated comfortably, her legs crossed in front of her. At this height, she had a direct view into Cole’s study where the book he had pulled off the shelf yesterday still sat on the couch.

Evie tilted her head back, eyes on the night sky above her. Cole had begged her—all but ordered her, actually—to think her way through this choice. And he was right to do so. It had been a traumatic few days.

Leaving him was never an option. She knew that deep in her heart. While she wasn’t willing to call it love—yet—he held a piece of her heart she knew instinctively that she would never get back. She was his in a way that felt bigger than anything she had ever experienced, and he was hers. There was no going back to the way it was before.

If she was being really honest with herself, she didn’t want to go back to the way it was before. Even before she knew his name, before she was ever aware of his very real existence, Cole had crawled under her skin and made a home there. His eyes a constant companion, his voice the consistent refrain of her life. He was as much a part of her as her magic. She refused to let him go. That was all there was to say on that matter. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not that he would let me. She snickered at the thought, knowing that wherever she went, Cole would follow.

Which brought her to the second decision. The bigger one with life-changing implications. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, considering. Did she legitimately believe that they were reincarnated gods? As the chill wind passed through her hair, the heavy strands lifting in the breeze, she could finally admit that she did. If their complementary magic wasn’t enough, if the dreams and visions they both had had of each other since childhood weren’t sufficient, Kore’s memories slowly coming to her through dreams were.

With each choice she had made since that night at the construction site, she felt herself drawing further and further away from the life she knew. She loved her coven, no matter how betrayed she felt by the elder’s lies. She loved Sandrine more than life itself. Her home—her sisters—were an essential part of her. Was she ready to leave that behind?

Yes, she was ready to start something new. Start a life with Cole. And when they left, he made it clear that she wasn’t leaving behind her sisters if she didn’t want to. All she had to let go of was the life she knew in the forest, one she had felt increasingly trapped by. With Cole, though, she didn’t feel caged, except for that first day. She felt free. Supported. All things that had been missing during her life with her coven, who loved her, certainly, but didn’t understand her. So was she willing to give her up her home in the forest? Yes. Could she accept a life in the Underworld? Unknown.

A sneaky voice in the back of her head whispered: Are you ready to make Cole give up his prophesied destiny, though ? That was the truth of it, wasn’t it, if she wasn’t willing to accept an immortal life tied to the Underworld. There was so much depending upon Cole, them, technically, fulfilling their shared destiny. The implications of not accepting their role as the formally titled Hades and Persephone, Lord and Lady of the Underworld, and putting the shades back into the Underworld were apocalyptic. Could she live with herself if the entirety of humanity was devastated by escaped souls?

No. No, she couldn’t.

The sky was lightening around her, murky yellows, oranges, and blues fighting for dominance in the sky. And as she caught a glimpse of the sun emerging over the horizon, her choice became clear.

She wouldn't ignore the prophecy that bound her life to Cole’s as rulers of an Underworld.

With a whisper to the tree, the branches lowered her back to the ground. Steps purposeful, she strode into the house and back up the stairs, down the hallway to Cole’s study. He had told her the story, not read it to her. It was still early, and Cole would probably sleep for a while longer. It was time for her to learn his past and understand their future.

This was her choice.