Page 1 of A Single Thread Of Hope

Chapter 1

WREN

The man in front of me was naked. A moment ago, he’d been a dog.

If that didn’t just sum up my life, nothing would.

“Wren? Are you okay?” Cy, the not-dog man asked, and I laughed. A man I’d tied to my very soul was dead at my feet. A monster who’d wanted to kill me and my babies had just fallen into the pits of Hell.

I think it was safe to say I wasn’t okay.

“Of course she isn’t, you simpleton,” a woman’s voice snapped. Her voice sounded… off. Like the tinkling of bells and the booming of a gong simultaneously. “She just got attacked by Ekhidna. Her blood pressure is probably through the roof, and you’re standing there naked as the day you were created, freaking her out.” A beautiful woman in a long black gown made of dead things appeared before me. Her hair was flame red, threaded with leaves, twigs, and spiderwebs, and as she moved, things bloomed beneath her feet.

A dark chuckle echoed from somewhere in the darkness, and the sound had the opposite effect to the woman’s. It sounded likethe crunch of bones beneath a boot, the howl of wolves on the wind. “She has you there, Cydon.”

Cy gathered me up into his arms. His still-naked arms.Fuck.Pushing against his bare torso, I stumbled away from the group of people that had assembled in the courtyard. I would have tripped over the body of Demke if Cy didn’t have a hand around my arm.

Demke.

I froze as I stared at him. His chest was still, his eyes closed and lips slack. A perfect corpse.

“Demke,” I breathed, leaning down. His skin was cold, but I should do CPR. That’s what you were supposed to do. Even if it was hopeless. My lessons at the Y had taught me that I was supposed to do it to the beat of “Stayin’ Alive” by the BeeGees—I’d liked the irony of that at the time, but now I stumbled over the beat, panic making my chest constrict.

I didn’t realize I was mumbling the lyrics out loud until the woman knelt opposite me, covering my hands with her own. The compassionate look on her face was at odds with the mouse-skull crown. At least, I hoped they were only mice skulls. “There is no need for that, sweet Vessel.”

Ice spilled through my veins at her words. Cy didn’t seem worried, but the only people who’d called me Vessel so far had been creatures trying to kill me.

Like she could see my fear, she shifted away slightly. “You’re safe with us, Wren.” Her voice was soft and sweet, and I believed her. “You don’t have to give him a heart massage, because he isn’t really dead.”

It was obvious that the pretty, scary lady was insane. My Demke was definitely dead.

The guy with the horror voice appeared behind her. He looked like a hard, slightly-evil Henry Cavill, with skin the color of death. Like someone who’d just been fished out of the BostonHarbor, all the color leached from his skin. “I know dead people, Vessel. In fact, some would say it’s a hazard of my profession. And I’m very sure your God isn’t dead.” His voice made goosebumps instantly rise on my skin and panic skitter down my spine. Danger and death, that’s what he sounded like. Like the embodiment of primordial fear come to life.

Almost subconsciously, I scrambled back on my hands and feet like a crab, which must have looked ridiculous. The pretty redhead with eyes that saw into my soul glared at the man disapprovingly. “Hades, you scared her more.”

“Sorry, Sephy. I was only trying to make her feel better.” His tone was bored, like he really didn’t give a shit whether I was scared or not, but he clearly didn’t like displeasing the woman before me.

Wait, did she say Hades?

“HOLY FUCK!” I grabbed Demke, pulling him along, but obviously, we didn’t make it far. I could barely shift him. “You can’t have him. He’s mine.”

Hades, the freaking God of the Underworld, actually laughed at me. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and he had dimples. Gorgeous, but still terrifying. He looked down at the woman, Sephy, who I was beginning to realize might be Persephone.

“She’s so cute. Can we keep her? Look at her, hissing and trying to protect him, as if I couldn’t snatch the very soul from anyone in”—he tilted his head to the side—“a twenty-four-thousand mile radius. I’m pretty sure the old Minoan fuckers don’t deserve her. We should keep her.”

Persephone stood up, slapping him on the chest. “Stop it.” She glared at Cy. “Are you going to do something? Appease her worry? Anything?” She put her hands on her hips, and Cy drooped his head down like a chastised puppy. “Wren, what my husband meant was that Demke is the God of Renewal, which means he dies at sunset on the day of the Solstice and is thenreborn on the dawn. In a few hours, your grumpy little God will be back to being a broody, stubborn butthead.”

Right now, I kind of agreed with the butthead bit. I stared at Cy. “And no one thought I should know that I might just stumble on Demke’sfucking dead body?”

Cy looked at me, wide-eyed, before flicking his eyes to Hades. “Do you think it’s too late to turn back into a dog?”

Hades chuckled. “Yep.”

“Uh, I wasn’t really aware that you didn’t know… I mean, I suspected when you were crying, but then there was Ekhidna, and the fight, and it kinda slipped my mind?”

I was so angry that I didn’t even care that Cy was naked anymore. I wanted to wring his perfectly proportionate neck.

I blinked at him slowly, kicked Demke in the ribs with my bare feet—which definitely hurt me more than his unconscious, undead ass—and stomped back into the house. I was going to murder them all. I looked over at Hades as I left. “Keep the pits open, because I’m going to throw some damn Demigods right in!”

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