Neon Gods (Dark Olympus 1)

Is this what power feels like?

Hades seems to stare down each and every person present. “Be sure, when you go running back to your high-rises and glamorous lives in the upper city, that you’re telling the full truth of what happened here tonight. She’s mine.” His hand tightens ever so briefly around mine. “And I’m hers.”

This wasn’t part of the plan. I’m not exactly sure there was a plan going into tonight, not after I got cold feet. But Hades isn’t declaring me his the same way he has been since the beginning of this, the way designed to provoke Zeus.

He’s declaring it mutual.

It’s something we spoke of privately, but doing it like this is something else altogether. I don’t know what it means. Because I don’t know what it means, I can only fight to keep my expression under control as Hades turns us toward the exit and we leave the room. The door barely closes behind me when I murmur, “Not holding court tonight?”

“Fuck them.” He barely sounds like himself. “They’re only here for the gossip, and I’m not in the mood to play villain.” He moves down the hall toward the stairs, nearly dragging me behind him. “They don’t see me. No one fucking sees me but you.”

My heart lodges itself in my throat. “What?”

But he doesn’t speak again until we enter his bedroom suite and he slams the door behind him. I’ve never seen him like this. Angry, yes. Even a little panicked. But this? I don’t know what this is. “Hades, what’s wrong?”

“I swore I wouldn’t do this.” He drags his hands through his hair. “What we have isn’t simple, but it’s the most honest I’ve been with another person for as long as I can remember. That means something, Persephone. Even if it doesn’t mean something to you, it does to me.”

I still don’t understand, but I at least have an answer to this. “It means something to me, too.”

That calms him a little. He drops onto the couch and exhales roughly. “Give me a minute. This isn’t your fault. It’s shit in my head. I just… I need a minute.”

But I don’t want to give him a minute. I want to understand what’s upset him. I want to fix it. He’s given me so much over the last few weeks, more than I can begin to categorize. I can’t stand by and let him hurt while I twiddle my thumbs. So I do the only thing I can think of.

I walk to him and sink to my knees in front of him. When he just watches me, I wedge myself between his thighs until he’s forced to either push me back or make way. He spreads his legs with another of those heartbreaking sighs. “You already sucked my cock once tonight, little siren.”

“That’s not what this is.” If I thought for a second it would help, I’d have him in my mouth and gladly. Sex won’t fix this, though. Of that I’m sure.

Instead, I press myself to his torso and wrap my arms around him as best I can. He goes so still I might think he was holding his breath if I couldn’t feel his chest rise and fall against my face. Slowly, oh so slowly, he wraps his arms around me, gently at first and then hugging me tightly to him.

“It’s going to hurt when you leave.”

He speaks so softly, I barely register the words. When they hit, it’s with the force of a nuclear explosion.

I had suspected he cared, of course. Hades might be fearsome in so many ways, but he’s too honest to be able to lie with his body. He touches me like I mean something to him. He’s drawn back the curtain on bits of the lower city, showing me things he cares about, letting me in. Even if I haven’t allowed myself to contemplate the implications of that too closely, I’ve noticed. Of course I’ve noticed.

I care too.

“Hades—”

“I meant what I said before. I won’t ask you to stay. I know that’s not possible.” He releases a long breath.

I bite my tongue before I can say anything else. He’s right—it’s not possible for me to stay—but that doesn’t change the fact that I meant what I said earlier tonight. If we were different people, this place would be home and this man would be mine.

“Three months felt like an eternity when I agreed to this.”

A soft laugh slips free, muffled against his shirt. “It doesn’t feel like an eternity now.” Just under two months left and it feels like a blip in time. Look away too long and it will slip past, leaving the distance between us growing.

I’ll never see Hades again.

Somehow, with everything going on, that never occurred to me. That I might miss this man. That it will feel like tearing out a part of myself to walk away. Silly, foolish thoughts. It’s only been a few weeks. Maybe one of my other sisters would fall so hard for a partner in that time, but that’s not me. I understood the boundaries of this when I fought so hard to get Hades to agree to the deal. It was only for show, only because we had no other choice.