Page 78 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

Hermes moves quickly back to the books. His finger lands on the open spread of the second tome where an ancient family tree has been sketched, beginning with Chaos. “Could this be wrong? Could Aether have fathered Hyperion before he vanished?”

“And, what? Uranus claimed him?” Such a thing was unlikely, given Uranus’ legendary pride.

“Zeus claimed Persephone.” Hermes shrugs.

I sigh, because he’s not wrong. But it doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. “How would she have come to possess the power of Chaos? The power to craft Universes?”

Hermes frowns. “I don’t know.” He taps the books again. “But the answer is somewhere in these books.” He whispers, “It has to be.”

I look back to the screen where the power inside Persephone has been magnified for study. Something inside me coils, bubbling with disbelief as I move beyond the cluster of stars to the shifting black that rings it all, coiling around it like a snake, never squeezing.

“What is that?”

Hermes moves to the laptop to pause on the image. He magnifies the screen again as he moves to the sheet. “I’m still not sure what that is.” Hermes pauses the slide and walks to the screen, his finger tracing the line that borders the galaxy that surrounds the black orb, eclipsed by a brilliant, bright light. “You see this line here?” He continues to trace, his finger now moving in a zig-zag pattern. “There are these knots, like threads pulled tight around a galaxy not yet born. I’m not sure what this darkness is.” He frowns, stumped. “I haven’t the faintest clue, but I feel it is foreign.”

Something inside me slithers. Moving. Sliding into place and tightening.

Soul mates.The answer comes in a voice that is not my own. A whisper of three. The Moirai.

“I know what it is.” Even to my own ears, the sound of my voice is thick with disbelief. Raw with the horror of this new impossibility, a thing I can’t deny before my very eyes.

“What?” Hermes asks.

“If you want the answers, I’m going to need your soul.”

There is a moment of consideration, and then Hermes takes his knees. He offers me his throat, and the vein the pulses there. “My loyalty is to you and the Underworld. To the Queen I failed and will never failagain. If this is what you need to prove it, I will gladly offer my soul to you to keep.”

Under my flesh, the God stirs. Behind my lips, my fangs swell.

Chapter

Thirty-Five

Persephone

A seaof stars spills into the cracked window. The sounds of the night, the rustle of dry grass in a warm breeze, dances into the quiet of Willa’s snores. Tossing in my narrow bed, I find myself aching for Hades. It’s the first night I’ve spent without him since—since I let myself be with him.

It feels wrong to be alone now.

That itch in my bones has returned. But there is something else. Something pressing into the back of my mind that, try as I might, I can’t quite ignore.

I keep seeing the dig site. It appears like flashes of memory, hazy like a dream just outof reach. I feel like I’m forgetting something. Something important. Something I would remember if I only visited the site.

Giving up on sleep, I toss the thin blanket to the side. Shoving my feet into leggings, a hoodie over my head, I tiptoe from the room. The hall is impossibly dark, and after staring out the window at the winking of the stars, I’m unprepared for the blackness of shadows.

A big body bumps into mine and a male ‘oomph’ sounds before two strong arms settle me. Shocked, I pull my hands from the bare chest in front of me. I’m grateful for the dark now. It hides the red sting of humiliation.

“Sorry,” I say quietly.

“Annie?” Addison asks, his hands still holding my hips.

I take a step back. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“What are you doing?”

“N—nothing.”

There is a pause and a scoff of annoyance. “Are you kidding me right now?”

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