Page 103 of Hades

Hades growled and drove the bident deep into her chest.

She choked as blood filled her mouth and streamed from the corners of her lips, and then grinned to bear crimson-stained teeth at him.

“You cannot kill me.” She weakly lifted her left hand but his shadows snapped around it to pin it to the earth before she could touch his bident. Her silver gaze mocked him as she laughed. “I will escape one day… and I will slaughter you all.”

He glared down at her as the others gathered around him, impotent rage burning up his blood at the threat she had issued, and the truth she had spoken. He couldn’t kill her. As a titan, she was too powerful. She was already healing the wounds he had dealt her. Even if he severed her head, it wouldn’t be enough to stop her. He could cut her into a thousand pieces, and so long as one piece survived, she could regrow her body, just as the other titans he held in Tartarus had.

“You will never escape the cell I have built for you,” Hades said, his tone flat and emotionless, betraying none of his anger or how weak he felt because he couldn’t kill her.

The only way he could kill her would be to end her soul, destroying it before she could be reborn, but to do that he would have to send her into the veil. Even if he cut her to pieces, she wouldn’t enter the veil. There was no way for him to send her there.

He frowned, his head lifting.

No way forhimto send her there.

His gaze locked with Calindria’s. “The veil.”

Calindria’s touchwasdeath. If she placed her bare hands on Mnemosyne, there was a chance it would actually kill the titaness and send her into the veil, a place where Thanatos could take him.

Mnemosyne’s eyes widened and she shook her head, beginning to struggle now.

Calindria’s blue eyes filled with cold purpose as they lowered to the titaness.

“Cass,” she said as she peeled her leather gloves off, exposing her hands, and the witch moved through the crowd to her. “A cage. One nothing can escape.”

“Luckily for you, I have been working on such a spell,” Cassandra’s Russian accent had a hint of warmth and amusement as she looked down at Mnemosyne. “Was meant for rock and metal, but could work here too.”

“Rock and metal,” Persephone said as she stepped forwards. “I can do that.”

She held her hands out and the earth trembled, and then vines burst from the ground, twisting together into bars. Marek helped her, threading bars of rock between the vines. When they were done, Ares pressed his hands to it and the rock glowed orange, heat rolling off it. He nodded as he stepped back and Esher doused it with water. The superheated rock hissed and steam billowed around them.

When it parted, Mnemosyne was held in a metal cage, pinned down by Hades’s shadows in the centre of it.

“Not gonna lie, kinda feel left out,” Valen muttered and jammed his hands into the pockets of the tight black trousers he wore beneath his crimson-edged black plate armour. He shrugged when everyone looked at him.

“Don’t see me bitching,” Calistos said as Cassandra worked her magic on the cage.

“Or me,” Daimon put in.

Keras didn’t bother to say anything. He continued to glare at Nikos.

“It is done.” Cassandra moved away from the cage and Mnemosyne’s struggles increased, her silver gaze desperate as it leaped between the witch and Hades.

She opened her mouth and Hades felt sure she might beg for mercy now, but Calindria didn’t give her a chance to speak.

“Everyone move back.” Calindria cast a nervous look at Thanatos. “Except you. You stay with me.”

He nodded and moved closer to her. She held her hand out to him and he took it, threading their fingers together as everyone moved back, forming a large circle around the cage.

They were over one hundred feet away from Calindria when she angrily waved her hand.

“Further,” she bit out.

They all did as she wanted, not stopping until she nodded and looked satisfied. Hades could understand her fear. If the spell Cassandra had woven into the cage failed and Calindria’s touch worked, it would only take some ash to blow towards someone and touch them for them to succumb to her dark power too. As far as they knew, the only one who was immune to it was Thanatos.

Hades clutched Persephone’s hand, ready to teleport her away from the area if it all went wrong. He wasn’t the only one with a tight hold on their love either, or on another. Even Zeus gripped Poseidon’s arm at his wrist, and Demetrius fiercely held Nikos around his left biceps, although Hades wasn’t sure whether that was so he could teleport him if necessary or to hold him up. Nikos had paled again. Whatever ailed the male, it was strong and came in waves.

Poseidon slid his son a concerned look.

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