A Touch of Ruin (Hades & Persephone 2)

“You don’t have to convince me, Persephone. You have to convince the world.”

She shouldn’t have to convince anyone, but instead of a world recognizing a psychopathic god, they saw one that had just fallen deeply in love. They equated his relentless pursuit of men and women as romantic, and those who rejected him as unworthy.

It was fucked up.

“Look, if you want my advice—”

“I don’t,” she snapped.

“Persephone,” Demetri seemed desperate. “Look, I know…things haven’t been good between us this week, but I don’t want to watch you get bashed on national television for the next year.”

“Is that because of all the money you’ll lose when people stop buying the paper to read my work?”

He glared at her.

“It’s not about money,” he said. “You want respect in this industry and the reality is that you just lost a huge chunk of it. You want to climb that ladder? You can do one of two things—apologize….” She glared at him so hard, she thought she might melt him with her eyes. “Or write another article about Apollo. Find someone he’s hurt recently. Tell their story.”

Persephone frowned. “I…can’t.”

Demetri didn’t respond immediately. “Maybe you can’t,” he said. “And if not, you know what you have to do.”

“Your advice is shit,” she told him.

Her boss seemed genuinely hurt by her response, nearly flinching when the words left her mouth, but she didn’t really care. He had gone from advocating and defending her to opposing and discouraging her.

She thought he was a fighter, but when the going got tough, he rolled over.

There was no way she was going to apologize to Apollo when he’d hurt one of her closest friends. There was also no way she would ask Sybil for an interview. That would mean exposing her to the scrutiny Persephone was now experiencing.

She couldn’t do that to the oracle. She was rebuilding her life.

Gods this was such a mess.

At lunch, Persephone broke one of her rules and chanced teleportation to the rooftop of the Acropolis for some much-needed air.

She manifested herself on the edge of the roof, her heartbeat pounded in her chest as she stumbled away. Once she recovered from almost falling off the side of the high-rise, she stared down at the vast city of New Athens. It was beautiful and terrifying up here. She could see the darkness of Hades’ tower, a shadow that split the city in half. The glimmering glass of Aphrodite’s La Rose, the beautiful and unique facade of Hera’s many hotels, the Olympian, the Pegasus, the Emerald Peacock. There were other monuments, too—marble statues of gods all over the city, and beautiful temples arranged on hilltops and mountainside cliffs.

She’d been so enchanted with the city when she’d first moved here. She’d fallen in love with everything it promised—endless possibilities, adventure, and freedom. It’s what kept her going when things got difficult, when she felt confused and lost and unwelcomed—all the things she felt now.

She searched for those promises amid the sprawling landscape, beyond the Acropolis and the angry crowd far below.

“Persephone?” a voice asked.

She whirled to find Pirithous standing behind her. “How did you get up here?”

She opened her mouth to answer but realized she didn’t even know how this roof was accessed from the inside.

“Carefully,” she managed to answer with a small smile, which Pirithous matched.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked.

“Sometimes I like to eat lunch up here.”

It was then she noticed he was holding a lunch box. “Wanna share?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m not all that hungry, but I’ll sit with you.”

His smile widened. “I’d like that. Come on. I know of a better place to sit away from the wind.”