Chapter 37

Chapter

Thirty-Seven

H ades

The stirring started in my chest, a building pressure, a threat that never stopped. Never eased. I did what I never do, I called her phone. When the call went straight to voicemail, I called Minthe.

I thought I was being overly cautious; told myself I was paranoid. Anxious. After everything I’d discovered with Hermes, such a thing would make sense. But Minthe told me she wasn’t in her bed. To make matters worse Addison—Adonis reborn—wasn’t in his.

The idea of them together stung like salt in a wound.

My mind toyed with the possibility that history was repeating itself, as it so often does. That they were together, lovers. Jealousy threatened to turn me inside out.

The stirring intensified. A swimming cyclone of worry in my chest. In my soul.

Then her voice sounded in my mind, screaming my name. It stopped me dead in my tracks. At my side where Noc hunted her scent, he stopped.

I know well enough that he disagreed with me allowing Persephone to spend her Sundays at the house with the rest of her team. But I wanted her to come to me willingly. Of her own want.

I don’t want to keep her.

I don’t want to force and manipulate her.

I took that path before and it brought us nothing but destruction. Mutual, agonizing destruction.

When she was taken from me, I’d vowed that I would find her. I vowed that when I found her, I would do things differently. That I would earn her heart and be gifted her body. That she would entrust me her soul to keep, so that I might offer her an eternity of protection.

So that she could never be stolen from me again.

The echo of her screaming my name in my mind was like a beacon guiding me to her. I’d already been searching the city, hellhounds at my side—scenting for her. We ran harder. God and demons side by side, hunting for our Queen.

It doesn’t surprise me when we end up at the dig site, or when the beacon in my mind pulls me toward the ancient temple I’d long since sealed. What surprises me, however, is the winged Goddess who soars from the bowels of the temple, the tatters of her mortal form overtaken by the immortal Goddess she released upon my mate. Again.

Again, I was not there to help her. To save her.

Noc, Jas, and Prim respond to the sight of the Goddess—Demeter—the one responsible for our thousands of years of torment. They conjoin, merging into a beast so vicious and deadly even Tartarus shook with fear at their howl.

I want to stop and capture the Goddess. To destroy her.

But I want her more. To feel her skin. To hear her heart beat.

To know she is alive.

I race down the steps, my soul a storm in my chest.

Cerberus howls and Demeter screams. Black feathers rain down on the temple stairs as a paranormal battle rattles the ground above.

The sky splits, and lightning strikes. It illuminates the walls of the temple, not that my paranormal vision needs aid to see the horror within this dark.

I can smell the death.

My stomach revolts. I’ve seen more death than any other creature. I’ve cared over more souls than any other God. But the scent of death and her .

I will not survive this.

I fall to my knees, a plea heavy on my tongue as I gather her small body against my own. Her eyes flutter and her lips part. She is alive. Alive.

“Hades—” Her throat is raw. She’s been screaming.

The torment I will reap on Demeter…

“Shhh.”

“A—Adis…” She can’t finish his name, but I already know.

The death that clings to the air—it is not hers. It is his.

The golden boy who has only ever loved my Queen. Murdered.

She will grieve, and for that I rage.

Shifting my body so that she will not see his, I turn to face the stairs once again. Another bolt of lightning connects with the ground. Cerberus yelps, but growls follow. Teeth gnash. Snarls tear into the silence between the thunder. Demeter screams a cyclone of wind, the inspiration for the legend of the harpy. Rain pours from the sky as another bolt descends. And then the earth quakes, splitting at the arrival of the God of Sky and Thunder. My brother. My nemesis. Zeus.

Persephone’s head rolls to the side. She’s lost consciousness, her human body not able to withstand the screech of Demeter’s cry for much longer. Like Addison, she is vulnerable to the very organs inside her body bursting under the pressure of the sound waves.

I will not lose her again.

“Cerberus!” I roar, as the earth begins to spill into the temple. My dog bounds down the stairs, chipping stone with taloned claws. Lightning spears like a dagger meant to maim after my companion. Three heads snip and yip, spitting and growling at the beasts above. The Gods I vow to ruin. It is not in their nature to retreat from battle.

Zeus roars , “I will have her, Hades!”

I’d vowed to give her the chance to choose the Underworld. To protect her freedom in the middle realm until she decided she could part with her life above to join me in the realm below. It had been a dangerous game, but a game I’d played all the same.

I knew the stakes, and I took the risk.

But the rules of that game just changed drastically, not only because Demeter knew Persephone was here. But because Zeus wants her for his own.

She has never been safe. But now she is in imminent danger.

This is an ancient war. I lost once. I paid the price.

I won’t lose again.

With one last look at the woman in my arms—my Queen— my mate —I do what I vowed I wouldn’t.

I steal her away to the Underworld.

The End.

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Thank you so much for reading Hades and Persephone - Threads of Fate . I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed writing it, and want to continue on to Book Three, Hades and Persephone - Crown of Souls . Persephone FINALLY gets to experience the Underworld. Psssstttttt it’s friggin COOL AS HECK down there BTW!