A Game of Retribution (Hades Saga #2)(102)

Part III

“What we were once and we are today, we shall not be tomorrow.”

—Ovid, Metamorphoses





Chapter XXVI

Survival of the Fittest

Later, they dressed, and Hades sent Hermes to summon Demeter.

“I think you just want her to disfigure my face,” Hermes said. “She will bite my head off when I tell her you’ve commanded her appearance in the Underworld.”

“Then don’t tell her Hades sent for her,” Persephone replied. “Tell her I command it.”

Hermes smiled at that. “Will do, Sephy,” he said and left the Underworld.

“Are you nervous?” Hades asked as they walked, hands linked, to the throne room, where they would receive her mother. Hades thought it was the second-best option, the first being their bedchamber, though Persephone had shot that idea down. And to be honest, he looked forward to witnessing this—Persephone looking radiant in her Divine form, wrapped in a white peplos, being who she was meant to be, a goddess and queen.

“No,” she said and looked at him, and as their eyes met, a warm smile spread across her face. It felt like a long time since she had looked at him that way, and it made his throat feel tight. “Not with you by my side.”

His lips curled, and he squeezed her hand. It was all he could manage for the moment. Anything else and he would pull her to him, kiss her, and he wouldn’t stop.

“Remember what I taught you in the meadow,” he said.

“With your hands or your mouth?” she countered, breathless.

“Both,” he said. “If it helps you with your magic. Plus, I will take great pleasure in knowing you are thinking of my mouth while you put your mother in her place.”

They entered the throne room, which while dark was not cast in the red light that had made Persephone’s wounds look so much worse. Instead, his halls were brightened by the glow of Hecate’s lampades.

Leuce already waited at the base of the steps to the dais where Hades once sat alone, where two thrones now stood—his a jagged obsidian and Persephone’s a smooth ivory embellished with gold and florals. When Persephone saw it, she looked at him.

“You missed an opportunity, Lord Hades.”

He quirked a brow in question.

“I could have sat on your lap.”

He grinned as he helped her up the steps, and as Persephone turned, he asked, “Is that a suggestion or a request, my queen?”

“Something to consider,” she replied. “For next time, perhaps. I fear we may have pushed my mother too far with our request.”

“She has little power here, my darling.” Hades guided her to sit and did the same.

“Stand beside me, Leuce,” said Persephone, and as she did, the nymph shook.

Persephone frowned. His goddess had far more sympathy for Leuce than he did, though he was not surprised. It was in her nature, but Persephone also knew what it was to live beneath the constant and critical eye of Demeter.

“She will lash out,” Leuce said, her voice trembling. “I am sure of it.”

“Oh, I expect it,” Persephone replied with no hint of dread in her voice.

“She is my mother.”

There was a strange anticipation to this, one that wasn’t unpleasant but almost freeing. Hades wanted this, he realized: to present to Persephone’s

mother united, to show her they were stronger than her ploys and games.

“Hermes has returned,” Hades informed them when he felt the god’s magic erupt. It was like sweet citrus and fresh linen, clean and crisp, and it mingled with Demeter, who should smell like a rotting corpse flower but instead smelled like fragrant wildflowers.

The doors at the end of the room yawned open, and Demeter strolled in ahead of Hermes with a confidence that faltered. The air grew heavy and charged with her anger. It had been a while since Hades had looked upon the goddess, though he noted nothing about her had changed, except that perhaps she appeared far more resentful than before.

Hades wondered if she’d thought she had been summoned to retrieve her daughter, only to find her sitting at his side, a queen to his king. Her stony gaze slid from him to Persephone, bitter with contempt.

“What is this about?” she demanded, and there was a sharpness to her voice that Hades imagined Demeter had often used with Persephone, but if it had frightened her before, it did not now.

“My friend tells me you have threatened her,” Persephone said, and Leuce shook beneath the attention.

“You would believe your lover’s whore over me?”

“That is unkind,” Persephone said with an edge to her voice. “Apologize.”

“I will do no such—”

“I said ‘ apologize.’” Persephone’s voice echoed throughout the chamber, and Demeter hit the ground with a loud crack.

Hades knew Demeter had felt Persephone’s magic rise but had not considered it a threat, which was evident in her stunned expression as she knelt on the floor before them.

Her shock quickly melted into fury, however, and when she spoke, the air vibrated with her animosity.

“So this is how it will be?”

“You could end your humiliation,” Persephone said. “Just…apologize.”