Page 84 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

Frantic, I search the stone for something—anything to open it. There is no lever, no button, no hidden switch. Nothing.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Fear is aquake that threatens to split me in two. I gasp in breath and taste the spill of water over my lips. The burn of a surging river in my lungs.

I’m panicking. Through the panic, I am aware only enough to feel something swirling in my chest. It is foreign—not me and yet mine.

Demeter moves to my back, shoving Addison away. He stumbles at the force of her touch, his hand connecting with the far wall to brace his fall. She crowds me, breath scenting of fields of wheat under a summer sun. Achingly, it reminds me of home.

“Open it with yourpower.”

My voice shakes. “I don’t have power.”

“Stupid girl,” she hisses. “Born as you were.” Her hand connects with the back of my head, fingers twisting like talons in my hair. She yells, shrill and bone-grating, “Open it.”

“I can’t!”

“Let her go!” Addison roars.

“No!” I scream, but I’m too late. He’s already lunging, launching his body through the space and into Demeter. With a careless toss, my body connects with the wall. The connection steals the breath from my lungs. I gasp in horror as Demeter changes just as she morphed in my nightmare. Black wings burst from her back, angled into sharp points. Her skin transforms, shifting and pulling back to expose the horror that lies beneath. Her mouth opens so wide—she’s a monster.

And the sound that rips from the yawning part ofher mouth has Addison dropping to the stone floor. He screams a silent sound, devoured by the shrill cry Demeter pours into the space. His face contorts in pain and I watch, unable to move, frozen by somethingother,as blood begins to leak from the corner of his eyes. It spills from his ears to run down the side of his neck. The sound increases, splitting into the night. Blood bubbles from his parted lips, dripping from his chin. Still, he crawls to me—for me.

My heart weeps.

His fingers claw the stone beneath us, pulling his body an inch closer.

Hot tears leak from my eyes now. When it falls from my chin to splash against the stone, it shines a brilliant ruby red. Blood.

We’re going to die here.

Hades!I scream his name in my mind.

Then everything is dark.

Chapter

Thirty-Seven

Hades

The stirring startedin my chest, a building pressure, a threat that never stopped. Never eased. I did what I never do, I called her phone. When the call went straight to voicemail, I called Minthe.

I thought I was being overly cautious; told myself I was paranoid. Anxious. After everything I’d discovered with Hermes, such a thing would make sense. But Minthe told me she wasn’t in her bed. To make matters worse Addison—Adonisreborn—wasn’t in his.

The idea of them together stung like salt in a wound.

My mind toyed with the possibility that history was repeating itself, as it so often does. That they were together, lovers. Jealousy threatened to turn me inside out.

The stirring intensified. A swimming cyclone of worry in my chest. In my soul.

Then her voice sounded in my mind, screaming my name. It stopped me dead in my tracks. At my side where Noc hunted her scent, he stopped.

I know well enough that he disagreed with me allowing Persephone to spend her Sundays at the house with the rest of her team. But I wanted her to come to me willingly. Of her own want.

I don’t want to keep her.

I don’t want to force and manipulate her.

I took that path before and it brought us nothing but destruction. Mutual, agonizing destruction.

---