Neon Gods (Dark Olympus 1)

If I don’t seal this bargain, I’ll never see him again.

I take my mother’s hand and we exchange a firm shake. “Deal.”

Chapter 29

Hades

She’s gone.

I sit in my bedroom as dawn first begins to steal across the sky and stare at the empty bed. The room never felt this large before, this deserted. I feel her absence in my home like a missing limb. It hurts, but there’s no source. There’s no fix.

I lean forward and press the heels of my hands to my eyes. I watched the security feeds. I saw her leave with Hermes. If it was only that, I might chalk it up to Persephone changing her mind, to her wanting nothing to do with this war and me after what happened tonight.

But she left her sister here.

And she was wearing a black dress.

I’m not a man to look for signs when there are none, but she wore a black dress earlier, too. Tonight represented a turning point for us, one of the latest in a long line of many. She stood at my side in black and we all but admitted our feelings for each other. If Persephone didn’t care about me, she wouldn’t be dressed as my dark queen when she left. She wouldn’t have left Eurydice here, sending a silent message that she trusts me to ensure her sister’s safety.

She’s making a statement.

I push to my feet and cross to the bed. There will be no time for sleeping, but I need to take a shower and try to clear my head. Things are moving too quickly. I can’t afford to let something slip.

I see the paper the moment I walk into the bathroom. It’s torn on one side and as I pick it up, I recognize the title of the book Persephone was reading when I saw her last. Her scrawl is almost illegible, which makes me smile despite everything. It’s one part of her that isn’t perfectly poised. The note is short, but it steals my breath all the same.

Hades,

I’m sorry. This will look bad, but I promise that I’m doing it for you. It’s unforgivable to say it this way, but I don’t know if I’ll get another chance. I love you. I made this mess, and now I’ll fix it.

Yours,

P

I read it again. And then a third time. “Godsdamn it.” If she’d left me to save herself or her sisters, that would be easier to swallow. I’d suspected, but suspecting and knowing the truth are two very different things.

Something inside me goes cold and barbed as I pull out my phone and check the gossip sites. Persephone’s only been gone a few hours, but her photos are already all over them. Her in that black dress at Zeus’s party. Zeus with his arm possessively around her waist. Her giving him that sunny smile that is fake and sweet enough to make my teeth ache.

She walked back into his waiting arms to save me. I can’t wrap my mind around it. She’s seen my preparations. She knows what I’m capable of. My people and I can weather anything Zeus throws at us. It won’t be pretty, but we can do it.

Persephone just stepped in front of a bullet meant for me.

The thought makes the cold feeling inside me go positively frigid. Zeus will make her pay for leaving, for letting me have my hands all over her in front of his peers. For soiling her, in his mind. He’ll take his rage out on her, and not even Persephone can survive that indefinitely. Maybe her body will, but he’ll fracture her soul, the strength that makes her her. Zeus isn’t the type of man to tolerate any resistance.

I promised I’d protect her.

I fucking love her.

I tuck the note exactly back where I found it and walk out of the bathroom. I’ve ghosted through these hallways often enough that it’s child’s play to avoid my people and the cameras. Charon will lose his shit when he realizes what I’ve done. Andreas will never forgive me. None of it matters. Nothing but doing whatever it takes to ensure Persephone is safe.

Even if it means she runs as far and fast from Olympus as she can. As far and fast from me as she can. Even knowing that her freedom means I lose her forever. Better that she be lost to me in favor of the world and her freedom than submitting to Zeus to pay the price for sins real and imagined.

I’m going to kill him.

I make it a single block from my house when a dark sedan cruises around the corner and slows next to me. The passenger-side window rolls down, and Hermes gives me a shadow of her normal grin. “You’re about to do something stupid.”

Dionysus is in the driver’s seat, and he looks as exhausted as if he’s gone on a weeklong bender. “Hades always did have a noble streak.”