Page 34 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

“I know how she was taken from me, Minthe,” I growl low and dangerously. “I am the one who found her.”

Minthe severs eye contact, submitting to the beast that crawls under the surface of my skin. An ancient and unforgiving God. A thing of nightmares and curses. I can feel him hovering below the surface of my flesh, my gaze burning with the urge to let him break free.

Minthe pulls in a deep breath, careful not to challenge the monster by raising herhead and daring eye contact again, lest he slip free from the prison of my flesh to destroy all that she is. Her voice trembles. “Persephone is different, as we suspected. The Lethe took her memories, stripped her bare of them all—but she is a Goddess. Her core soul, even stripped, is eternal. There are pieces of her, shards of recognition, I think. Her soul has no real memory, but there is something there. I see it in the way she pauses sometimes, the way she struggles to process. I think—I think it might be like déjà-vu for her. She knows, but she doesn’t.”

“Explain.”

“She was born as the daughter of a farmer in a small Alberta town, in a country far from our own. She has never travelled to Greece, and yet she yearned to be here so deeply, driven by a soul-deep need to travel here, to you. Only a God or Goddess would be able to retain something like that after being drowned in the Lethe.” Quieter, her eyes still trained to the floor between us, she adds, “It only goes to show how powerful she really is.”

Something hums in my blood. “Look at me, Minthe.” She obeys instantly, without hesitation. “Explain.”

“Drinking from the Lethe is not something a soul does lightly. For the souls who do dare to drink, it is never more than a taste. That’s all it takes to strip a soul of its most core memories. The memories that shape it for the next life, the memories that give the soul an elevated edge to the playingfield in a world that grows more and more complex with every lifetime. The consequences are so massive, Hades, the souls who drink loseintuition. They lose the ability to read between the lines, to decipher the meaning of a hunch. They must relearn instinct in a world filled with souls whodoremember. Whose souls have tiny recognitions fromallthe lives they’ve lived before. Souls who know places and people and the smell of danger or the taste of love.”

She pulls in a breath. “Persephone did not simply drink from the Lethe, Hades. She was drowned in it. The water did not simply trickle down her throat into her belly, it filled her belly and burst her lungs.” Emotion shimmers in Minthe’s eyes. Her lips tremble with feeling as she whispers her next words, “It raped her soul. Yet her soul is so powerful, so prevailing, she has retained some of that instinct from which she should have been stripped. She may not remember as she might have had she not been submerged in the Lethe, violated by the rage of the river, but she remembers more than she should, considering the same.”

“That’s why Demeter did it.” The realization comes to me in a wash of cold that threatens the heat of the ancient God beneath my skin.

How had I missed it before?The breadth of her power. It was neverourpower, as I had thought, that frightened the Fates enough to cut the thread of Persephone’s life, her destiny. It washerpower. My ego as a new and bloodthirsty God, relishing his might, hadblinded me to the deadly reality my mate would face in consequence for the power she bestowed upon the world crafted by the Gods before her. A world she wouldchange.

I’ve lived enough years to know that nothing sparks fear in the Gods quite like the threat of change, and those with the power to spark it. To craft it.

Minthe cocks her head. “What?”

“Her power. It’s more than we thought—than I thought. But Demeter knew. Demeter created her, coveted her. She wanted to use her and when I took Persephone, I threatened her plans, whatever it is they were. When she fell in love with me, when I stole her heart as well as her body—Demeter lost the beast she intended to use to see her plans through.”

Minthe frowns. “You think she was going to use Persephone?”

I don’t think, I know. I simply do not know what she intended to use her for. “Yes, I do.”

“But—” Minthe shakes her head. “Do you think she still wants to use her?”

Demeter has been searching for centuries for Persephone, just as I have. But she was not bound to the same restrictions she had the Moirai—the Fates—bind me. I’ve always thought it was because she wanted a second chance to poison her daughter against me. To ensure that I wasn’t able to keep her for my own.

Now…

“Yes. I do think Demeter has other plans for Persephone. Plans for her ancient, abused soul.”

“Persephone does not know she is a Goddess,” Minthe speaks what I already know. Only confirming how truly dangerous, how viciously cruel Demeter really is.

Her core is rotten. The Goddess of Harvest and Agriculture is rotten, her core poisoned by her greed. And it makes sense now, the crops of the world dying as people reject whole nutrients for the rotten, poisoned foods assembled by corporations. The wheat that is stripped of nutrients and infused with toxins, preservatives. Demeter, the Goddess meant to feed the world, has been poisoned by the very greed she spills into the bellies of the needy, sparking a craving for more even in the knowledge that it will, eventually, kill them.

Rage is an ever-burning inferno in my gut as I think of my sister.

“Persephone will remember,” I say confidently, though I do not know how I know. “In time, she will remember. Until then, we must work to reveal what it is Demeter planned to use her for. And if she plans to use her still.”

Chapter

Eighteen

Persephone

Things have feltdifferent between me and Hades since the night in the pool. Maybe that thing he stirred in me when we first met has fully awoken. Maybe it was just my time. Maybe it’s the sun.

All I know is that my flesh feels alive. The blood in my veins stirs restlessly and the hum of need in my core is endless. I feel itchy in my skin with a need I am unable to scratch.

“How is work?” Hades asks from where he sips his coffee as I whip the eggs for an omelet. I no longer have to hurry quite so much in the mornings, since Hades now has a car take me directly to the dig site. The man isspending far too much money on his need for a companion and cook.

“Hot.” I smirk at him. “But good. We got a new girl. You won’t believe her name.”

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