A Touch of Darkness (Hades x Persephone #1)(90)

The god wasn’t fazed by Demeter’s growing anger. “The contract must be fulfilled, Demeter. The Fates command it.”

The Goddess of Harvest paled and when she looked at Persephone, she asked, “How could you?”

“How could I?” Persephone echoed, angrily. “It's not like I wanted this to happen, mother!”

From the corner of her eye, she noted that Hades flinched.

“Didn’t you? I warned you about him!” She pointed to Hades. “I warned you to stay away from the Gods!”

“And in doing so you left me to this fate.”

Demeter lifted her chin. “So you blame me? When all I did was try to protect you? Well, you will see the truth very soon, daughter.”

The goddess extended her hand and stripped Persephone of her magic. It felt like a thousand tiny needles were pricking her skin at once as the glamour she had crafted to hide her Divine appearance was stripped away. The pain knocked the breath out of her, and she fell to the floor, gasping.

“When the contract is fulfilled, you will come home with me,” Demeter said, and Persephone glared up at her. “You will never return to this mortal life and you will never see Hades again.”

Then Demeter was gone.

Hades approached and picked her up from the floor. He held her close, and she burst into tears. All she could manage to say was, “I don’t regret you. I didn’t mean that I regretted you.”

“I know,” Hades kissed her tears away.

There was a knock on the door and they both looked up to find Lexa standing just inside the room, eyes wide.

“What the fuck?”

Persephone pulled away from Hades.

“Lexa,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”





CHAPTER XXIV – A TOUCH OF TRICKERY



Lexa took the news that she’d been living with a goddess the last four years in strides. Her emotions ranged from feelings of betrayal to disbelief. Persephone understood. Lexa valued truth, and she had just discovered that the person she called her best friend her whole life had been lying about a huge chunk of her identity.

Persephone explained why—and Lexa started to understand more.

“Man, your mother is a bitch,” she said, and then hunkered down as if she expected lightening to strike her. “Will she kill me for saying that?”

“She’s too angry with me and full of hatred for Hades to even thinking about you,” Persephone replied.

Lexa shook her head and just stared at her best friend. She’d called up a human glamour with the help of Hades’ magic and they now sat in the living room together.

“I can’t believe you’re the Goddess of Spring. What can you do?”

Persephone flushed. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m just now learning my powers.”

She explained that up until recently, she hadn’t even been able to feel her magic and that she was working on learning how to harness it.

“I used to want to be like the other gods,” she said. “But when my powers never developed, I just wanted to be somewhere where I was good at something.”

Lexa placed her hand on Persephone’s. “You are good at so many things, Persephone. Especially at being a goddess.”

She scoffed. “How would you know? You just found out what I was.”

“I know because you are kind and compassionate and you fight for your beliefs, but mostly, you fight for people. That is what gods are supposed to do and someone should remind them because a lot of them have forgotten,” she paused. “Maybe that’s why you were born.”

Persephone wiped tears from her eyes.

“I love you, Lex.”

“I love you, too, Persephone.”

***

Persephone had a hard time sleeping in the weeks following Demeter’s threats. Her anxiety had skyrocketed, and she felt even more trapped than ever before. If she didn’t fulfill the terms of her contract with Hades, she would be stuck in the Underworld forever. If she managed to create life, then she would become a prisoner in her mother’s greenhouse.

It was true she loved Hades, but she preferred to come and go from the Underworld as she pleased. She wanted to continue living her mortal life, graduate, and start her career in journalism. When she’d said as much to Lexa, her best friend had responded, “Just talk to him. He is the God of the Dead, can’t he help?”

But Persephone knew talking would do no good. Hades had said over and over that the terms of the contract were not negotiable, even when facing Demeter. It was fulfill the contract or not—freedom or not.

And that reality was breaking her apart.

Worse, she was using Hades magic and while there were a few advantages, it was like having him around all the time. He was a constant presence, a reminder of her predicament, of how she’d spiraled out of control and found herself in love with him.

It was two weeks from graduation—and from the end of her contract with Hades, when Persephone arrived at the Acropolis for work.

Valerie stopped her as she stepped off the elevator, coming around her desk to whisper.

“Persephone, there’s a woman here to see you. She says she has a story on Hades.”

She almost groaned out loud.

“Did you vet her?” Persephone had given Valarie a list of questions to ask anyone who called claiming they had a story about Hades. Some of the people who’d made calls or came in person to interview had only been curious mortals or undercover journalists trying to get a story.