Neon Gods (Dark Olympus #1)(23)

As if I’m not taking advantage.

The thought slams me out of my haze, and I force myself to take a step back and then another. There have always been lines I refused to cross, boundaries sketched out that are just as flimsy as the ones keeping Zeus from the lower city. That doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never crossed them before.

Persephone blinks up at me, and for the first time since I met her last night, she looks completely real. Not the personification of a sunbeam. Not the scarily calm woman in over her head. Not even the perfect daughter of Demeter she plays for the public. Just a woman who enjoyed that kiss as much as I did.

Or I’m projecting and this is just another one of her many masks. I can’t be sure, and because I can’t be sure, I take a third step back. No matter what the rest of Olympus thinks of me—of the boogeyman—I can’t allow myself to prove them right. “We begin today.”

She blinks again, her impossibly long eyelashes fanning against her cheek in a motion I can almost hear. “I need to contact my sisters.”

“You did that last night.”

It’s fascinating to watch her gather her armor around herself. First comes the straightening of her spine, just the tiniest bit. Then the smile, cheerful and deceptively genuine. Finally the guileless look in those hazel eyes. Persephone clasps her hands in front of her. “You have the phones tapped. I suspected as much.”

“I’m a paranoid man.” It’s the truth, but not the full truth. My father wasn’t able to protect his people, protect his family, because he took things at face value. Or that’s what I’ve always been told. Even without Andreas coloring the events with his own perception, the facts remain. My father trusted Zeus, and he and my mother died as a result. I would have died, too, if not for sheer dumb luck.

Persephone shrugs that off as if it’s nothing more than she expected. “Then you’ll know that my sisters are more than capable of showing up on your doorstep if properly motivated, crossing the River Styx or no. They’re difficult like that.”

The last thing I need is more women like Persephone in my household. “Call them. I’ll have someone find clothing for you and bring it up.” I turn for the door.

“Wait!” A tiny fracture in her perfect calm. “That’s it?”

I glance back, expecting fear or maybe anger. But no, if I’m reading her expression right, there’s disappointment lurking in her eyes. I can’t trust it. I want her more than I have a right to, and she’s only here because she has nowhere else to go.

If I were a better man, I’d smuggle her out of the city myself and give her enough money to survive until her birthday. She’s right; if she has the strength to cross the river, she likely has the strength to leave the city with the proper help. But I’m not a better man. No matter how conflicted this deal makes me, I want this woman. Now that she’s offered herself to me in a devil’s bargain, I mean to have her.

Just not yet.

Not until it serves our mutual purpose.

“We’ll talk more tonight.” I enjoy her huff of irritation as I walk out the door and head down to my study.

There are consequences for my actions last night, consequences for the bargain I just made with Persephone. I have to prepare my people for them.

I’m not the least bit surprised to find Andreas waiting in my study. He’s nursing a mug that might be coffee or might be whiskey—or both—and wearing his customary slacks and wool sweater like the strangest cross between a fisherman and a CEO anyone’s ever met. The tattoos peppering his weathered hands and climbing his neck only add to the disconnect. What’s left of his hair has long since gone white, leaving him looking every minute of his seventy years.

He glances up as I walk in and close the door. “I hear you stole Zeus’s woman.”

“She crossed the border on her own.”

He shakes his head. “Thirty years and change of avoiding trouble and then you throw it all away for a pretty thing in a short skirt.”

I give him the look that statement deserves. “I bend too much when it comes to that asshole. It was necessary before, but I’m not a child any longer. It’s time to put him in his place.” It’s what I’ve wanted since I was old enough to understand the sheer scope of what he took from me. It’s why I’ve spent years compiling information on him. An opportunity that I can’t pass up.

Andreas exhales, long and slow, some remembered fear lingering in his watery blue eyes. “He’ll crush you.”

“Maybe ten years ago he was capable of it. He isn’t now.” I’ve been too careful, have built my power base too intentionally. Zeus killed my father when he was still new to the title, too inexperienced to know friend from foe. I’ve had my entire life to train to take that monster on. Though I was little more than a figurehead Hades before I turned seventeen, I’ve had sixteen years actually at the helm. If ever there was a time to do this, to draw my line in the sand and dare Zeus to cross it, it’s now. There’s no telling if I’ll get another opportunity like Persephone, a chance to humiliate Zeus and step into the light once and for all. The thought of all the eyes in Olympus on me is enough to open up a pit in my stomach, but it’s been far too long that Zeus overlooks the lower city and pretends he’s the ruler here. “It’s time, Andreas. It’s long since time.”