Neon Gods (Dark Olympus 1)

“Only a little.” He doesn’t smile, holding himself so tense, it’s almost like he expects me to turn away. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” I step back so he can enter the room. The feeling in my throat only gets worse as Hades sets down the mug and pill bottle and steps back. I press my lips together. “Can you hold me? Just for a few minutes?”

Just like that, the cold in his expression thaws. Hades holds out his arms. “As long as you need.”

I step into his embrace and cling to him. I’m shaking and I’m not sure when I started. This night began with the highest of highs and then plummeted into the lowest of lows. If Hades hadn’t broken the treaty, I don’t know if that man would have stopped. I might have lost my sister. I bury my face in his chest and hug him tighter. “I can never thank you enough for what you did tonight. Just…thank you, Hades.”

No matter what else happens, I won’t let him bear the cost of his actions alone.

I’m done running.

Chapter 27

Hades

I expected Persephone to turn away from me. She’s seen what I’m capable of now. There are no illusions that I’m really a good man playing pretend. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes bracing for it while I let her get her sister settled upstairs.

I never expected her to turn to me for comfort.

“I’m sorry.” Persephone releases a long breath, her hands fisting the back of my shirt as if she thinks I’ll move away one second before she tells me to. “It seems like I’ve brought you nothing but problems since I got to the lower city.”

“Come here.” I press a kiss to her temple. “Never apologize for bursting into my life, little siren. I don’t regret a moment of my time with you. I don’t want you to regret it, either.”

“Okay,” she whispers. She clings to me in silence as we listen to Eurydice begin to sob in the bathroom, loud enough to be heard over the shower. Finally, Persephone sighs. “I can’t leave her tonight.”

“I know.” I don’t want to let her go, to walk out of this room. Given enough time and distance, she might reconsider how she feels about what happened tonight. I clear my throat. “Thank you for calling my name. I…I don’t know if I would have stopped.” I tense, waiting for the inevitable rejection that confession will bring.

She nods slowly. “That’s why I did it.” She starts to say something else, but the shower shuts off. We both look at the bathroom. Eurydice needs her more than I do tonight.

I give her one last squeeze and force myself to release her. “You’ll be safe here. No matter what else has changed, that hasn’t.”

“Hades…” Her bottom lip wobbles a little before she seems to make an effort to firm it. “He’s going to use this to force me back and bring you to your knees.”

I can’t lie to her, even if a comforting lie might sound nice right now. “He’s going to try.” I turn toward the door. “I won’t let him take you, Persephone. Even if I have to kill him myself.”

She flinches. “I know.” The words aren’t happy ones. If anything, they sound sad. Almost like she’s saying goodbye.

It’s harder than I anticipate to leave her. I can’t shake the feeling that she won’t be there when I get back. But no matter what else is true, Zeus won’t risk throwing away his advantage by striking tonight. He needs the rest of the Thirteen behind him when he comes for me, and that will take time.

I hope.

I find Charon standing outside my study. He’s glaring at the door, but I know him well enough to know he’s still pissed about how things went down tonight. He gives himself a shake when he sees me. “Andreas is waiting.”

“Let’s not keep him waiting any longer, then.”

The old man is already shaking his head as we enter the room and I shut the door. “I knew it would come to this. He’ll crush you just like he crushed your father.” His words slur slightly, and the tumbler of amber liquid in his hand is the obvious culprit.

I give Charon a look, but he shrugs. There’s nothing to say. Even at his advanced age, Andreas does whatever he wants to. I need my people focused, but I have to deal with this first. I owe it to him, after all. I owe him fucking everything.

“I’m not my father.” There was a time when that truth felt like an itch I could never quite scratch. Andreas loved my father, was loyal right down to his bones. The picture he paints of the man is larger than life, a strange sort of expectation that weighed heavily on me as I was growing up. How could I compare with that?