Daughter of the Earth and Sky (9 page)

He didn’t ask for my keys, so I gathered he was too upset to drive as well. When I turned into a dirt lot behind an abandoned diner, he asked, “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”

“Beyond the weirdness of you hooking up with my best friend’s mom?” I laughed.

Hades winced. “I—”

I shook my head. “Way before my time, I know. This isn’t you. It’s me. I may need a day or two to get the idea of you two out of my head—” I shuddered. “Gods, Hades. She’s so old!”

“She was thirty!”

“Yeah. That’s old. I know it’s stupid, but I always pictured the people you were with as my age, physically anyway.”

Hades snorted. “No. You’re absolutely the youngest person I’ve ever…” He trailed off, as if he wasn’t certain what we’d done. What we were.

And wasn’t that the problem?

“There!” He pointed at me. “That! Right there. You only get that look when something’s bothering you.”

“What look?”

Hades narrowed his eyes and scrunched up his nose. I stared at him, horrified.

“I’m not getting it right.” He shrugged. “Just trust me. You have a look. So what’s wrong?”

I opened the door and stepped into the parking lot, dust rising with my footsteps as I made my way to the front of the car. His door creaked open. I leaned on the hood, staring at the burnt-out shell of the old diner. “I’m so mad at Mom that anything I say to you right now is going to sound angry. And I’m not angry with you. I’m not…I don’t know how I feel about…ugh.” I shuddered again, thinking of him and Minthe. “There’s just too much going on. I can’t sort out anything that’s going on in my head.”

The car dipped down when he sat beside me on the hood. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

A solitary car drove by, the headlights illuminating the scrawling weeds that had taken over the foundation of the old diner. I bit my lip. “Do you really want to do this right now? Let’s take a night. You’ve been through a lot. I’m all upset. Let’s decompress—”

“That’s exactly what I don’t want to do!” Hades pushed off the car. “I don’t want this to build up and become something bigger than it has to be. I’d rather clear the air, right here, right now. Get everything out in the open so I never have to think about her again.”

I blinked, unsure of how to respond to that. There was a whoosh as another car drove by. Hades waited until the sound faded before continuing. “I’ve spent so long feeling guilty about what happened to her. But she’s okay. Now I can put her behind me.” His hands fell down by his sides. “So please, tell me what’s bothering you.”

I closed my eyes. “This is going to sound so petty.”

“What?”

“You…and her…I mean you guys…” Gods, I didn’t want to say it. I kicked at the dust, forcing the words from the throat. “Did you…?”

“Does it matter?”

I gave him a look. “You’re the one who wanted to go down this road. I was willing to drop it.”

He grimaced. “You know the answer to that. I’ve always been upfront with you. I’m not going to spout some B.S. about how I’ve waited millennia for you. You weren’t on my radar. I never knew…” He paused. “I didn’t know I could feel like this about another person.”

“And not just her,” I whispered. “There were others. Hera?”

He didn’t respond.

“Laurel?”

“Laurel…Is she one of your mom’s priestesses as well?”

My eyes closed as I pictured Laurel, the tall, slender brunette that sometimes filled in at the shop. She looked a lot like Minthe. Is that what Hera looked like?

I toyed with my necklace. “Yeah. She is.”

His shoulders sagged. “Thank the gods,” he whispered. He looked up at me. “We could do this all night, Persephone.” I winced. “But does it matter? Yes. There have been other women, but that doesn’t matter to me because they aren’t you.”

“Why her? Why them?” My cheeks were so heated I thought they might burst into flame. “What’s so different about them that you’re not afraid to…You’re barely willing to hold my hand, but with her—”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Hades laughed then stopped when he saw my expression. “Persephone, there is no comparison.” He reached out and grabbed my hand. “You’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you’re so
good
. You see things in a way that—”

“Then why don’t you want to kiss me?” I stared down at the ground, hair falling in front of my face.

“It’s not a good idea.”

“But kissing them was?”

“Did you miss the part where they got turned into plants?” He tucked my hair behind my ears, and his fingers traced my jawline, guiding my face up to his. “I always want to kiss you.”

My breathing went shallow, and my pulse pounded in my throat. I stood on my tiptoes, lips brushing against his.

He stepped away from me. “That doesn’t mean I should.”

“You said you loved me.”

“I do, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”

My jaw dropped.

“That came out wrong.” Hades said quickly. “Look, I’ve been around for a long time. I never bought into the whole love at first sight thing, but when I saw you, that changed. It didn’t matter that being with you was going to make my life ridiculously complicated. It didn’t matter that scum like Poseidon would see our age difference and do a double take, or that your mother was Demeter, of all people. I saw you, I wanted you, and nothing was going to stand in my way. I dragged you down there and bound you to me.”

“We’ve been over this. It was either take me to the Underworld or leave me for Boreas.”

“Probably, but I didn’t even try to think of another way.”

“Good! How many times do I have to tell you that I’m happy to be with you?”

“You don’t know that!” He threw up his hands in frustration. “We talk a lot about how marriage is meaningless to the gods, how it’s all political, but have you noticed how few of us are actually married? It might not be all about love, but being bound to someone, being a part of them, it changes you. It can mess with your perception, and I keep making it worse.” He grabbed my shoulders and spun me to face him. “I saved your life, so now you feel indebted to me. I told you the truth when your mother wouldn’t. So now you’re mad at her and you trust me. She doesn’t want you to be with me, and you want to get back at her—”

“You think I’m using you to rebel against my mom?” I stared at him, incredulous. “I could just get a tattoo.”

“I’m in your head every night—”

“Which keeps me alive!”

“Exactly! I’ll never know if you would have chosen me. Everything I do, every move I make manipulates your feelings about me. It’s not intentional, it just keeps happening. I don’t want to take advantage of you. That’s not me. I would never do that. But I think I have, and that’s—” His jaw tightened. “When I kiss you, I feel…guilty, and I don’t enjoy feeling like the kind of slime that gets tossed into Tartarus.”

“You think I don’t know how I feel about you?”

“I think you’re very young. This is your first serious relationship, and I’m not going to take advantage of you. I hated Zeus for what he did to Hera, but what I did to you is worse.”

I rolled my eyes. Hera had given Zeus all of her power. She hadn’t even left herself enough to stay alive. “Yeah, well sometimes I think you’re stupid. Do you really think that I’m so weak that I’d let anything you’ve done define me? I am not Hera.”

“She was not weak!” His eyes blazed with anger.

“Obviously, she was. Just not with you.”

Fury overwrote his features. He took a deep, controlled breath. “I think maybe you were right.”

I gave him a confused look.

“We shouldn’t have tried to talk about this tonight. We’ve been through a lot today. We’re tired.” He took another breath, unclenching his fists, forcing himself to relax. “I’m going to stay tonight, maybe a few days. However long it takes us to sort this out.”

Hades on the surface for a while? That would be fantastic. “But…what about the Underworld? Can Cassandra handle it by herself?”

“She’s not alone. Thanatos is back. Between the two of them—Persephone, what’s wrong?”

The world reeled around me. Thanatos was back in the Underworld, unsupervised. And I couldn’t even say anything. I was a thousand times worse than my mother for keeping Thanatos’ betrayal from Hades.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Hades’ eyebrows shot up in surprise.

I closed my eyes, holding back the tears. I didn’t want to do this. I thought of all the souls in the Underworld I’d come to count as friends. Who knew what Thanatos was capable of? Hades had to be there, to protect his realm, to protect his people. I had to convince him to go back but I couldn’t tell him why.

I’d have to think of another reason. I closed my eyes and dug deep. When it hit me I almost winced against the pain. If I said it, it meant I felt it was true, and I didn’t want
this
to be true. “I’ve viewed every kiss as a victory while you see it as a defeat, and that’s wrong for both of us. Don’t you get it, Hades? This, us, it shouldn’t feel like a battle.”

“Persephone…” He moved towards me, and I stepped away.

“Do you hear the way you’re talking about me? I’m not supposed to be your responsibility. I’m supposed to be your equal, and you barely see me as capable of intelligent thought.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“No, I get it. You’re older, you know more, you’re more powerful, and I’ve needed you for that. So until I don’t…Until you can view me as more and trust my feelings…” I stammered trying desperately to find something that wasn’t a lie. My heart thudded in my chest. I clutched at my necklace like it was a lifeline. Thanatos was in the Underworld, and it was completely defenseless. Hades had to get down there. If he didn’t…

“I don’t think we can work.” I blurted it out before the thought had fully formed and immediately felt nauseated. I couldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true. Did I really not think we would work?

Hades stared at me, looking as confused as I felt. “So what are you saying?”

I closed my eyes. “I think you should go back to the Underworld and stay there. At least until all this stuff with Zeus is over. I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who thinks they need to protect me from myself.”

“Persephone—”

“It’s insulting and condescending, and it’s not…” I struggled for words. “It’s not healthy. Best case scenario, I change your mind, which I shouldn’t have to do, but worst I start to believe you. I don’t want that. We need to take a break, as much as we can anyway.” I would still need him to channel my powers.

Hades studied me for a long moment then nodded his head. “All right.”

I forced myself to move my head in a way that could be taken for a nod and made myself a silent promise. I may not be able to tell Hades about Thanatos, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stop Thanatos on my own.

It was no use. I clutched Eurydice’s hand in mine, pouring all my energy into healing her, but I could tell it wasn’t enough.

I tried to swing by the hospital every morning since my return from the Underworld to try to heal Orpheus’ wife. After all, it was kind of my fault she was like this. I’d convinced Hades to allow Orpheus to bring her back from the Underworld.

It hadn’t gone well.

“Don’t overdo it.” Mom’s hand touched my back, and I stiffened. She made an offended sound but dropped her hand and moved it away from me.

The last few weeks had gone from bad to worse with us. Any time we talked, we argued. So now we didn’t talk much at all. Which I wouldn’t have minded one bit if it wasn’t for the fact that she still wanted me to stick to the same training schedule she’d set up upon my return from the Underworld. Plant lessons all morning and then healing lessons on Eurydice. It was beyond awkward.

I let go of Eurydice’s hand. “I’ve got to go,” I said to Mom.

She nodded. I reached the door just as it opened and revealed Orpheus, balancing three paper cups from the hospital coffee shop. He started in surprise then grinned at me when I held the door open.

“Did it work?” Hope shone in his metallic gold eyes. I shook my head, and his shoulders slumped, dejected. “Thanks for trying again.” He handed my mom a cup and held out the other for me.

I took a sip and smiled. It was my favorite. Blackberry pomegranate green tea. Long name, awesome taste. Had anyone told me a year ago that the famous rock icon Orpheus would bring me tea, I would have thought they were crazy. I had posters of him in my room, drawn to the features that marked him as a demigod, not that I knew that at the time. Demigods are gold. Literally. Their hair, eyes, skin, every feature that could be gold-toned, was gold. It had something to do with the ichor running through their blood. At least that’s what Hades said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promised.

I swung by Melissa’s for Aphrodite’s goddess lessons then went to the park for a run. My feet hit the ground at a furious pace, the cross-country trail above Memorial Park passing beneath me in a blur. The Nike trainer app on my phone reported my progress as my playlist blared through my headphones.

I felt exposed in my short black exercise shorts and sports shirt. I didn’t normally wear tops that showed my stomach, but I’d never run in hundred degree heat before this summer either. It was a far cry from the perfect weather of the Underworld, but Mom didn’t like me spending all my time there. Running on the surface was a bitter compromise in our ongoing fight.

My thoughts kept pace with my feet. School started next week. I’d have to become “Kora” again. I’d gone by my middle name by choice my entire scholastic career, but now that people knew the name Persephone belonged to a goddess, Mom said it was too risky to even have my first name on paper. We’d charmed the school officials into forgetting my name was ever anything else…And suddenly, I didn’t like going by Kora anymore.

She was someone else. A girl who had no reason to suspect she wasn’t human. She had one best friend, a thousand frenemies, and a hopeless crush on the unobtainable cool senior transfer student, Joel. She’d never killed anyone.

My time in the Underworld had changed me. I knew what I was capable of, and I didn’t tolerate backhanded compliments from petty girls anymore. I wasn’t afraid to talk to Joel, who’d turned out to be a pretty nice guy and a good friend, but would never measure up to Hades. None of that mattered anyway because Persephone had bigger fish to fry than high school.