Neon Gods (Dark Olympus 1)

Hades seems determined to take me through portal after portal. First the room behind the black door. Now this little slice of floral heaven. What other treasures does the lower city hold? I want to experience them all.

I feel Hades at my back, though he keeps a careful distance between us. “It’s easy to forget you’re in Olympus when you’re up here.”

An asset when someone carries the burdens Hades does. Even if he’s not a publicly active member of the Thirteen, it’s becoming clear that he holds plenty of responsibility behind the scenes. With the entire lower city resting on his shoulders, it’s no wonder he craves escape from time to time.

I turn and look at him. He’s so out of place here in his black suit and broody good looks, like a hellhound that wandered into a garden party. “Why here?”

“I like the flowers.” His lips curve a little. “And the view is outstanding.”

For a breathless second, I think he’s talking about me. It’s there in the way he looks at me as if the room ceases to exist around us. I can’t help holding my breath, waiting for what he’ll do next, but Hades just takes my hand again and tugs me down the aisle and through a set of glass doors I hadn’t noticed before. They lead into a second, smaller room that’s been set up almost like a sitting room. There are still flowers around the walls but the center of the room holds a number of chairs and a couch, all perched atop a thick rug. There’s a low coffee table with a stack of books, and the entire scene just invites a person to curl up and lose themselves for a few hours.

Hades bypasses the furniture and stops in front of the glass wall that edges up to the perimeter of the roof. “Look.”

“Oh,” I breathe.

He’s right. The view is outstanding. The greenhouse overlooks the River Styx’s curving journey, carving a swath between upper and lower city. This section of the river curves into a deep reversed C shape, creating a little peninsula on the upper-city side, bringing the water closer to us. The divide between the two parts of the city is barely noticeable from this position. We’re nowhere near the city center; the buildings on the upper-city side are older and more varied than I’m used to seeing. I wonder if they have the same type of columns that I’ve seen in the lower city, if the artist who created them crossed the river to leave their imprint.

“The shop is owned by an old family friend. At one point, I got into some trouble as a kid, and my punishment was tending the greenhouse for a few weeks.”

I manage to tear my gaze away from the view to shoot him a look. “What kind of trouble?”

He grimaces. “It doesn’t matter.”

Oh, now I have to know. I edge closer to him and grin. “Come on, Hades. Tell me. What kind of trouble could you possibly have gotten up to?”

He hesitates, and disappointment threatens to sour the mood, but finally he grudgingly grinds out, “I took the owner’s car for a joyride. I was fourteen. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“How scandalous of you.”

He looks out over the river. “I wanted to get the hell out of Olympus and never look back. Some days, it’s just all too much, you know?”

“I know,” I whisper. The desire to touch him rises, but I’m not sure he’ll accept comfort from me. “You got caught?”

“No.” He glares at the glass. “I got to the city limits and I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even try to cross the boundary out of the city. I just sat there in that idling car for a couple hours, cursing myself, my parents, Andreas.” At my questioning look, he clarifies. “He was my father’s right-hand man. After my parents died, he took care of me.” He drags a hand through his hair. “I drove back, returned the car, and told Andreas what I’d tried to do. I’m still not sure if the greenhouse was a punishment or his way of giving me a break for a little bit.”

My heart aches for the fourteen-year-old version of this man, who must have hurt so much. “It sounds like working here helped.”

“Yeah.” He shrugs as if it doesn’t mean anything, when it couldn’t be more obvious that it means everything. “I still come around and help sometimes, though since Matthew took over for his father, he’s as jumpy as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs every time I show up.”

I laugh a little. “He’s got some serious hero worship going on.”

“That’s not it. He’s afraid of me.”

I blink. “Hades, if he had a tail, it would have been wagging the second you walked through the door. That’s not what fear looks like. Trust me, I know.” He doesn’t look convinced. But then, it’s becoming startling clear that Hades holds himself apart from everyone else. It’s no wonder he doesn’t recognize the truth of how people look at him when he’s only searching for fear in their eyes.