Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

P ersephone

“How are things with the hot billionaire?” Willa drops her kneepad to the ground beside me, lowering to her knees on the cushion. She picks up a brush and begins dusting away centuries of build-up, working behind me as I move slowly chipping away solidified earth and sand that hides an inscription—a carving we found only this week—in the base of a temple.

This new temple base was discovered some time over the weekend, when someone climbing to the main site tripped over the rise of stone, took a moment to uncover some packed ground, and found the engraved rock. It’s removed from the main site in an unexpected location. I’ve been here on my knees for two days now. I am obsessed with uncovering this inscription like I’ve been obsessed with nothing else. Well, nothing but Hades, that is.

But I’ve done my best to put the brakes on all that. At least for the duration of my period, which has not only been terribly heavy, but put me in a terrible mood. It’s put me in such a terrible mood that even last night, I’d shucked my duties at Hades’ house to sleep in the small room I share with Willa at the communal house.

“Hello?” Willa singsongs, bumping her elbow into my side. “Earth to Annie.”

I sigh. “Things are fine.”

“Are they?”

I tear my gaze from my work to frown at my friend. “Why wouldn’t they be fine?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You slept in our room last night rather than in that cushy bed the man-god provides for you.”

“Hades isn’t a god.”

“Are you sure? Because he kinda makes me think of Hades, Hades. Like, the real deal God of the Underworld.”

I scowl at Willa, watching a very small breeze work to sway her mass of dark curls. She’s a nut. “I’m sure.”

She focuses back on dusting away my work. “So, why were you at the house last night?”

“I just needed a night to myself.” I sigh, wondering if I should confide in Willa. She’s been trustworthy so far, but I’ve never had a friend I could share my secrets with. I’m not even sure how to begin.

As though sensing my thoughts, her voice softens. “You know you can share with me, right?”

“Yeah, sure.” I’m not sure. I’m too new to this to be sure.

“I’m just saying, if you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me. About anything.” She promises, “I won’t judge.”

I throw her a raised brow. “You judged an awful lot when I told you I’d be working for Hades.”

“I was jealous.” She waves me off, admitting, “Okay, so I judged a little. You just feel really innocent to me, and he feels like he has an eternity of experience. The balance was off, you know? It felt a little off in the beginning, anyway.”

“And now?”

“Now—” She shrugs. “I don’t know. When he came here to take you to lunch—” She whistles low. “Guuurl, that man looked at you like you were the light of his life.”

“He did not.” Why is my heart slamming in my chest? I hear my pitch rise. “Did he?”

She nods. “Yeah, he really did. Made me think the balance had shifted. Because you look at him like you’re not sure.”

“And he looks at me like he’s sure?”

Willa laughs. “If he really was the God of the Underworld, I’m positive he’d have stolen you away already.”

Her words have an unintended effect on me. Every part of my body responds, my flesh coming alive.

The very idea of being swept to a place of myth and fantasy with Hades— by Hades —has an unquenchable fire igniting in my core. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so consumed by heat. By desire. By a deep, dark need that was sewed into the very fabric of my soul before it was ever given to this body.

Feeling suddenly unsteady, as though the world beneath me is shifting, the foundation of my reality cracking, I drop my tool to steady myself against the scribed stone.

The earth trembles beneath me, sand and debris falling away to reveal a sea of steps so deep and long, it fades into the shadows of the black deep below. It’s so dark, I imagine this dark will gobble even the light of flame. Suffocating it.

I grip the engraved stone, which we’d thought was the base of a temple. It’s not the base, I realize in horror. It’s a header—an entrance into something else .

I cling to it as the sand beneath my body falls, the hole in the earth yawning. I think a whimper spills from the depths of me. Maybe it’s a scream. I can’t be sure because I can’t hear much beyond the earth that shakes and crumbles beneath me. Maybe it’s an earthquake, I think, as my fingertips slip from where they cling to the header of this deep shaft, and I fall into darkness.

The white overhead is painfully bright. I realize, after a few blinks and the telling slope of the tightly pulled fabric, that I am in a tent. The medic’s tent. And I’m on a bed.

Memories assault me then. One after another. The ground shaking, crumbling, falling away to reveal a terrifying pit of steep stairs into a depthless sea of darkness.

Oh, my God, Willa. Willa had been beside me. Had she been hurt?

I struggle to sit, whimpering, “Willa?”

A hand connects with my chest and I’m pushed gently back into the bed. “Rest. You need rest and fluids.”

“Where is Willa? Is she hurt?”

The medic tips his head to the side. His frown is so deep it’s almost clownlike. He assures, “No one is hurt, Annie.”

No one is hurt? But the ground—the earthquake…?

The medic reaches for my head and plucks a cloth from where it rested on my forehead. He dips it into water, twists, and replaces it. It feels delightfully cool on my fevered flesh.

My mouth opens to assault the poor man with a series of questions when the flap to the tent opens and Hades appears. He is massive under the white fabric. And he looks darkly dangerous. Even in my state, I’m ashamed to admit, my silly body responds.

“What happened?” he demands on a low and precarious growl that has pebbles of awareness rising on my flesh.

“It’s nothing serious.” The medic adjusts the fan on the table beside me, the cool breeze raising the hairs on my already pebbled skin. “The sun caught up to her. Heatstroke. She lost consciousness for a short while.” His eyes slide to mine before cutting back to Hades. “I’ll send her with a few pills to help settle any stomach upset, but fluids are especially important. Electrolytes as well. I’ve recommended she take the rest of the week off, but I expect she’ll be feeling better by tomorrow, if not this evening.”

“I lost consciousness?” I frown, my head shaking. “But the earthquake?”

The medic blinks at me like I have two heads. Hades’ concern level ratchets up a notch.

“There was no earthquake.” Hades is the first to speak, his voice rough and firm and dark.

I shake my head. I insist, “There was.”

I make to sit again. This time when the medic attempts to shove me back into the bed, I slap his hands away. Sliding from the bed, I hurry past both men into the high, hot sun. I’ve never had heatstroke in my life. I’m confident I don’t have it now. I don’t feel ill, just unsettled.

I can feel both Hades and the medic at my back as I race across the site to where I’d been working alongside Willa—who is still working where I’d left her.

How? My thoughts shatter to merge with an impossible memory.

“The ground—” I stammer, pointing down at the ground that had fallen away beneath me not long ago. The ground that is now solid and undisturbed. Ground that has clearly never been disturbed in the last few hundred years, at least. Maybe longer.

Willa rises, hurrying to my side. “Girl, are you okay?”

“What?” I’m beginning to feel dizzy, and I’m calling a crowd to my scene. Still, I can’t help myself as I point to where I’d been working. “That’s not a temple base.”

Willa glances over her shoulder and back to me. “Sure, it is, hon.”

“No,” I say with vehemence. I pull my hand into my chest when it starts shaking. “It’s a door—an entrance. There are stairs under there. A lot of stairs. Steep ones.”

“Hon, you’ve got heatstroke,” Willa says softly, gently. My eyes shift frantically around the crowd that has gathered, but I don’t miss the look Hades shares with Minthe. It’s not a look I can decipher, but I’m not sold that it’s a look that says they think I’m crazy .

I’m not sold, because that’s the look everyone else is giving me. Barring Hades and Minthe, they all think I’m losing it.

I’m not sure that I’m not.

I feel myself shut down even as I stare at the ground where I’d been working. It all felt so real, but I can’t ignore the reality before me now. The ground is undisturbed. There’s no tunnel of stairs dropping into a hollow hole of black shadows.

Taking a step back on shaky knees, I feel tears prick my eyes as I mumble quietly, “I don’t know what happened. I’m so—sorry.”

Compassion and worry line Willa’s features. “It’s okay, girl. You passed out and obviously had a wild dream. You were whimpering, too. Addison carried you to the medic tent when I called for help.” I feel Hades tense behind me when Addison is mentioned, but I don’t have the headspace for more than this right now. “I think you just need some rest.”

I bob my head. “Yeah. Rest.”

A big, firm hand touches the small of my back. Hades’ hand. He dips his head low and rumbles, “Come. I’m taking you home.”

When I stumble on shaky knees, Hades sweeps me up in strong arms. Through my protests, he carries me as though I weigh nothing at all.